Excursion Down Under- part XV- finis

Tuesday, April 15, 2014- Sydney, Australia

     We were up by 6:30 A.M. It was a cool 57 (F) degrees out. We had tea in our room and then a decent breakfast in the upper rear rooms of the “Fortunes of War” Pub. It too is connected to the Russell Hotel. We shared the space with seven other seniors and boy could they lard in the calories.

      After breakfast, we set out along busy George Street. The incoming work-bound traffic was considerable. We flowed along the peopled river, enjoying the hustle and bustle of the morning. We were finally learning to look to our right instead of to our left at intersections in order not to be squashed by oncoming traffic.

       At King Street, we hung a right turn and walked down towards the busy Darling Harbor area. The huge Aquarium there was our target for the morning visit. This early (9 A.M.) there wasn’t even a line outside. We walked up to the ticket booth and bought two senior entrance tickets for $63.Later, when we left the place the line was out the door and around the block with antsy children waiting to see the attractions on display. The initial exhibits were all interactive and instructive for the small people to learn about the aquatic life all around them. We browsed them with interest.

       Then, we descended several sets of stairs to the real attraction of the Aquarium.  Four large tubes, with glass covering the top half of them, walked you through a wonderful array of fish of every kind. Giant Manta Rays, with ten-foot wingspans, glided over the top of the tube graceful like flying birds in the water. A Hammerhead and a lemon shark glided by just out of touch, patrolling and always active, an inert menace that most humans shrink from. The colored schools of other fish were fascinating to watch as they darted in and out of the reef, whenever they thought a predator nearby. It was like watching a video screen hundreds of feet across and filled with darting fish that swam endlessly for your inspection and delight. You could stand there forever watching the sea life, mesmerized by their diversity and constant motion.

      After the four tubes, we walked up to a small circular pond. I think they have aquatic shows here when feeding certain types of fish. In the last hallway, we encountered a massive aquarium with a twenty foot by 100-foot glass wall. We sat on a padded bench and watched the multitudes of fish swim by for thirty minutes or so. Just when you thought you had watched and identified them all, another colorful nibbler would dart across the seascape, playing with a companion or looking for crumbs. It was a colorful movie in real time of a delightful underwater ecosystem. Some of the attraction was even human. A whole busload of tourists walked by us, each with his/her camera phone and snapping pictures of the watery tableau as they passed by us. I don’t know what they actually took the time to see, but I hope they at least got some good pictures of it.

We were glazed over after a few hours, as we are with all such museums and tourist venues, We walked out into the gray-clouded afternoon. The line to get into the place was a block long.

      We strolled around the “Cockle Quay” of Darling harbor. It is a large oval of shops and restaurants surrounding a small bay, where water taxis and tour boats ferry tourist and locals here on holiday. The stream of urchins was constant, as they walked to and from the Aquarium, fidgeting like all small children do when dragged along to see something they may or may not have wanted to see.

        On a bench, we sat waterside and watched the various ferries glide by. There is always a huge amount of activity hereabout either for the Aquarium or the seven story I-Max theater.

       I was feeling the effects of a nasty respiratory infection that was to engulf us for the next several days, so we walked around the quay and found a Captain Cook’s Ferry. For $6.50, we took a restful ride back to the Circular Quay. Predictably, the activity there was frenetic. Another cruise ship had discharged its human cargo. They were scurrying hither and yon to see what they could see.

        Coffee and Blueberry muffins at a local Starbucks hit the spot. I had finally learned how to order coffee down under. It was long, flat and white, coffee that at home we would call coffee with cream. We sat here fin the small square for a time watching the ebb and flow of people taking tours and going to lunch. It is a fascinating observation that I never tire of.

      It was late in the afternoon and the clouds were gathering skyward. We walked back to the hotel to write up my notes and chill out. We tried the “Fortunes of War Pub” next door for an early dinner but the crowd of afternoon quafffers was too much for us.

      The rains came heavily in early evening, We settled in to pack our bags for the return trip and then read and retire. It had been a long and interesting trip, but we were ready to go home.

Wed. April 16, 2014- Sydney, Australia

We were up by 5 A.M. anticipation of the journey fueling us. Breakfast in the Fortunes of War Pub’s upper back room was pleasant. It was a nice amenity the Russell Hotel provides for its guests. Back in the room, we finished packing. We had ordered a cab for 10 A.M to ferry us to the Sydney Airport ($50). We checked out of the hotel and stood in front on busy George St.

      Promptly at ten A.M the small van arrived and took us to the airport at the United Terminal. Check in and security was perfunctory. It was early enough before the crowds start forming. Inside the terminal, we settled in for some very good Cappuccino from Mary Jean’s and caught up on our Internet correspondence.

       At one P.M, we were seated on the sleek aeronautical monster that would ferry us some 6,000 miles eastward to Los Angeles. The trip was unremarkable if long. I remember watching movie after movie, trying to pass the hours away. Celebrex helped alleviate the joint pain we had experiences on the way in.

At L.A.X the line to get through customs was huge and the wait interminable. Civil servants know no urgency. One annoyed woman started hollering to see a supervisor. After that, the pace picked up somewhat. It was still agonizingly slow. We chatted with an Aussie expat who had lived here for thirty years, returning only a few times a year to see her mum in a nursing home in Melbourne. She longed for the relative speed of Australian customs.

        Finally, we were through and were picked up by a van for a ride to the nearby Travel lodge hotel. They had a room ready for us and we were thankful. It was only really 2 A.M (noon locally) in our internal clocks, but we were beat from the long flight. We slept for five hours, dead to the world. We had mysteriously gained back the day we had lost due to crossing time zones westward. It is an odd juxtaposition of time and space that I will never fully get used to.

       The next-door Denny’s served me the same Tilapia Rancheros I had enjoyed coming out. It was just as good. We sat in our room, reading late and enjoying a glass of cabernet. We were glad we had made it this far without incident.

       Thursday April 17, 2014- Los Angeles, California.

      We had an early 6 A.M flight, so we were up by two A.M to pack and ready for the trip. A 3:30 A.M hotel shuttle brought us to the U.S. Air terminal at LAX. Security and screening was busy even at this early hour. One young lad, who had been beaten and robbed the night before, was trying desperately to talk his way through security. They were interviewing him as we left.

       The five and one-half hour flight to Charlotte was uneventful. You have a relieved and pleasant feeling the closer and closer you get to home. At the Charlotte, N.C air terminal, we picked up our connector for the two-hour run into Southwest International Airport at Ft. Myers, Florida. The sights of the green fields and orange trees of Florida was a pick me up for us. We landed there in the late afternoon and caught a cab to our condo in Bonita Springs. We were tired form the long day’s travels and very glad to be home. It had been a very long journey, perhaps our last transpacific flight, but we were happy that we had that way gone and will long remember the sights and sounds and wonderful people we had met along the journey.

                                          -30-

                                     (15, 251 words)

                                Joseph Xavier Martin

                           Bonita Springs, Florida

                               May 3, 2014