The sun rises over the Australian coastline, bathing land, sea and sky with an other-worldly golden light. Below, the iconic Opera House and Sydney Harbour Bridge are unmistakable, even from 10,000 feet in the air. After 15 hours in my bougie little business class sleeping capsule—a luxurious first for us, compliments of the zillion or so frequent flier miles we have amassed—I am landing Down Under remarkably refreshed. We will need it for the jam-packed month of adventuring that lies ahead.
Most customs paperwork is digital these days. But there is one piece of actual paper, filled out on the plane, that will gain us final entrance to Australia. Clutching it, we make our way out the jetway to international arrivals.
The woman at passport control takes a quick glance, flashes a thousand-watt smile, and cries “Brilliant! Good on ya!” Like I’m the first tourist in history who has ever figured out how to fill out the form and hand it over at the right place. She seems genuinely delighted with my success, and glad I am in her country.
The Aussies, I will learn, are an exuberant people.
Our first adventure happens in the hotel elevator, where we run into an old family friend, still in his United Airlines captain’s uniform. Turns out, he is fresh off the Los Angeles-to-Sydney flight. We have a warm, can-you -believe-what-a-small-world-it-is kind of talk. Unlike us, he did not get any sleep. So he heads off to bed, while we head out to conquer Sydney.
As if drawn by a magnet, we walk down to Circular Quay. This is the wharf where the ferries come and go; the beating heart of gorgeous Sydney Harbor. There are throngs of people on the waterfront--laughing, drinking, eating, socializing with friends. The sunshine is brilliant—we’ve been warned to wear sunscreen, rain or shine, because the ozone layer is so thin down here—and the air shimmers with energy.
An already vibrant afternoon is amped up by the Sydney Marathon. About 30,000 extra people are here, wearing their finisher medals and race shirts, chattering like squirrels, awash with adrenaline. Some limp extravagantly. But they are all eager to share. All you need to say: Congratulations! Good race? and absolute strangers will launch into their times, their challenges, their bodily functions, and their inner emotional landscape.
“Even the ferries seem zippy here,” Cal observes. He’s right. They bomb in and out of the quay at full speed, heading for Manly or Bangaroo or Paramutta. Aussie mariners do not believe in no-wake zones. They are too busy living life at high speed.
The next few days are a feast of urban experience. We see a play and take a guided tour of the Opera House. We walk the marathon route—over the bridge, through the Rocks neighborhood, Darling Bay, the Botanical Gardens, MacQuarries Point; ending, naturally, at the Opera House. We take a ferry to beautiful Manly Beach out on the coast. We have what turns out to be a private sunset cruise with the delightful Skipper Jack, who gives us the straight story of life here, shares his insiders’ guide to Sydney, and invites us to his home. We ramble through the high-end eastern suburbs of Rushcutter Bay, Rose Bay and Vaucluse. We tour the Gap—the rugged opening of Sydney Harbour. We walk famous Bondi Beach--very briefly. The wind is blowing so hard this September afternoon that we get sand-blasted; not a single sunbather, surfer or bare-chested lifeguard in sight.
We see gorgeous Aboriginal art; the riotous colors of the Coomaditchie, Gadigal and Wuradjuri. We spend the night at Taronga Zoo, where koalas sleep in the trees right outside our window. They grunt, spectacularly loudly, all night. If you walk the paths beneath them, you need to take care. Their nickname is “drop bears.”
We have some spectacular natural experiences in Australia: snorkeling the Great Barrier Reef, (no sign of
bleaching where we were); hiking the Daintree Rainforest; walking desolate Cape Tribulation, where Captain Cook came to grief; cuddling koalas, feeding kangaroos and wallabies, and getting very close to some saltwater crocodiles—massive, muscled killing machines. “Ya don’t swim near the mouth of any rivers, mate,” said our guide in the Daintree. “Lots of people get careless and don’t come back.”
But for all these moments in nature, my prevailing impression of Australia is of the people. They are irrepressible, fun-loving, sunny. They seem to like Americans, and are intensely interested in our culture, economy and politics. As one driver explained, You Yanks rule the world. They are eager to discuss our election, but approach the subject gingerly. Once I say: I’m a progressive Democrat, working hard to get Kamala Harris elected, the guardrails come off. Can you explain Trump? What on earth is going on? How is America considering him again? We thought your media was not crazy like ours.
With some gentle probing (Cal would call it my kamikaze interview mode) I can sometimes get locals to drop the hospitality talk and say honestly what their lives are like. Expensive, for one thing. Young Sydneysiders (isn’t that a great nickname for the inhabitants?) generally cannot afford the neighborhoods their parents live in. Australians worry about cost of living, climate change, wildfires, and the geopolitical aggression of China.
As a former penal colony, they have a singular origin story. I did a lot of reading about this before we came, and I have so many questions. How could the English just claim every land they landed on (or sailed by, in the case of New Zealand)? How could they have so many criminals that they needed a whole new continent to dump them, once America won its independence and shut off that spigot? How did the shame and stigma of starting a nation with “criminal stock” change, over time, into something the Aussies are actually kind of proud of?
It probably has something to do with how the English system created such a surplus of convicts in the first place. It criminalized poverty, homelessness, hunger, disability, unmarried motherhood; being a woman, period. Stealing a loaf of bread to feed your kids could get you sentenced to “transport”—the term for exile to Australia. Instead of “criminal” might we call that enterprising? Or determined? Or willing to risk a lot for a good cause? No wonder today’s Aussies seem to seize life with both hands. Historically, they had to.
There’s another question I ask everywhere I go, because we Americans have our own shameful history with it: How do you think your country is doing with your first nation population—the Aboriginals?
The answers vary wildly. Heldar, our guide for the regional tour, says “Oh, very good. Very good. They have many advantages with housing, education and jobs. They have their reserves.” (Reserves are what we would call national parks, mostly in the interior; staffed mostly by Aboriginal people).
The next day, when I repeat this to Skipper Jack, there’s a long pause. Where did you hear that? he asks and shakes his head. Let me put it this way. The Aboriginal people make up about three percent of our population. Fifty percent of those are incarcerated. And many of those are under the age of 18. Does that sound like we’re doing well?
Traveling the world opens my mind. It makes me realize that I have a boatload of Catholic-American, Eurocentric, unexamined beliefs from my upbringing. Down Under, you can’t swing a dead cat without hitting something named after James Cook—the greatest explorer in history, right? I think my dad said that. But, my travels to former British colonies like Ireland, Scotland, Australia, New Zealand and Fiji have re-written the text a bit. I can appreciate England's glorious contributions to western civilization -- law, art, literature, economics, politics. But I am increasingly horrified by the bloody, oppressive, self-serving parts of its history. And I say that as a descendent. More than any other genetic heritage, English is what I am.
So. . . my positive, life-affirming, much-admired new Australian friends, let me ask you something. Your country was formed by overlords who criminalized a whole rung of your society; dumped their convicts on your soil; brutally mistreated the marginalized; and exploited the fruits of your labor in the new world, to the benefit of themselves and their landed gentry friends. Through the centuries, and especially, the 20th century, you repeatedly followed England into war, only to have the mothership fail to protect you.
And yet, you love king and country. You are mad for the royals. Elizabeth was your gal, and now Charles is your guy. And while the monarchy doesn’t have a whole lot to do with your daily governance anymore, when you’ve had chances to leave behind your colonial past and form a republic, you’ve chosen not to. You’ve picked leaders who arguably are not good for you.
What kind of a country does that? Oh, wait.
Known quite a few Aussies, though never been there. You describe them to a T from my experience. Exuberant!! What a wonderful encapsulation of your trip. I clung to every word. Thank you for sharing it!!