Planes, Trains and Automobiles

The dawn chorus here in Australia makes you aware you aren’t in Kansas anymore. It roused us from sleep with a zany maniacal cacophony of sound about 5 am our first morning on this enormous continent, so far from home.. So we left the beach house on Callala Beach where Jim’s sister and her kids and grandkids had gathered for Xmas, for an early morning walk to the beach a block away. En route, we observed a whole flock of rainbow lorikeets in a Banksia tree, breakfasting on the huge seed pods. They are common here - accidentally released into the southwest of Western Australia in the 1960s and they have since been classified as a pest - but are so exotic with their blue, green and orange plumage to eyes more used to shades of brown and grey and white.

We winged our way to Sydney overnight in unaccustomed comfort. As a result of our various housebuilding expenses, we accumulated enough points (and then some) to fly direct from Vancouver in business class.

Class is the defining word here. I have an even more acute appreciation of how really dreadful economy/steerage is. We had barely settled ourselves in our expansive, quilted recliner seats of the Quantas 747 when we were handed glasses of champagne - and pyjamas! One of the male passengers in our section had those pyjamas on before takeoff! We didn’t bother as we were pretty comfy as it was - and changing twice in the tiny bathrooms was not that appealing.

Everything proceeded nicely from there. More champagne for me, Aussie beer for Jim, dinner choices made from the menu, along with breakfast selection for the next morning. Real glasses, china and cutlery, linen napkins and warm bread proffered in a basket and wine rounded out the whole experience. The food was yummy, especially the chocolate bread pudding followed by Purdy’s chocolates. Our seats, complete with pillow and blanket reclined completely flat and could be adjusted in almost every way possible as well as offering a back massage! OMG - some people travel like this all the time! Economy class passengers didn’t even board through our section so we were not put in the position of having to try and appear as if we are used to such luxury.

After a movie, we would have slept well with our blankies and pillows especially as it was a night flight, except it was quite a turbulent flight. Not scary turbulent but jostely. However, we certainly slept more than we would have bolt upright in the sardine can behind us and we woke at some point in the early morning with the sun burnishing the clouds below us a bright orange.

As soon as our lovely flight attendant saw we were awake for good, she asked if we would like our breakfasts. Oh yes please and in no time at all, a tray was delivered with our pre-ordered selections. Sigh...forgive me for going on about our flight but as it is unlikely we will repeat the experience, I want to get full value.

Our arrival in Sydney was about 6 am Xmas morning, after 15 hours in the air. The visibility at the airport was very poor due to smoke from the fires We immediately bought a SIM card in the airport for my unlocked phone - a great deal for $25 of 28 days unlimited texting and phoning both within Australia and to many other countries, caught a train to Sydney Central, then discovered due to track work we would have to bus it 90 miles south to Woolongong, where Joanne lives, and make a train connection from there to Bomaderry where we would be picked up.

We enjoyed the trains and bus and it was pretty effortless with immediate connections and before long we were hugging our niece, Carly in the Bomaderry train station. A beautiful drive through rolling and then flat farmland with many herds of dairy cows to the beach community of Callala Bay where we only had one night due to our rebooked flight from Dec.12 because of the horrible bug I got. The beach here goes on forever and has the whitest, sugary sand. But the fires are not far away and on that calm morning of our beach walk, the rising sun was a weak red through the haze. You can see the nearby fire in dark green on the map below. We were on the beach of Jervis Bay.

The road south out of Callala Bay is closed so it’s a good thing we will be headed north back to Joanne’s in Wollongong later in the day. Later that morning, the wind came up and cleared the smoke and we were able to enjoy the blue sky as it normally would be.

It is amazing to be so suddenly in a radically different climate and culture after only a day’s travel. It is lovely to feel the sun again, to see new and exotic plants and trees, to not have to layer-up our clothing and best-of-all, to be with family whose world this is.