Claire Tuttle's blog

Brisbane, November 22-24, 2008

Neither Claire nor I had met the family with whom we were visiting.  Claire had emailed them back and forth before our trip and over the last few days, to discuss our plans and arrange the logistics for our arrival.  As Rick was going to pick us up at the airport, Claire called him that morning to speak to him for the first time.  He didn’t recognize the name at first, and thought she was a cold-caller from India trying to sell him a vacation package.  We all had a good laugh once we got together.

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Rick was the perfect tour guide to Brisbane, a wonderful city with a majestic river winding back and forth through its midst.  As we only had a few hours Saturday afternoon, we drove around through the neighborhoods important to our family, and learned how an American navy man named Charlie Oliver (Harry’s brother, and Rick’s father) was stationed here in WWII, fell in love and made a life here.  We visited Mt. Coot-tha (which affords an eagle eye view over the entire city), Rick and Robyn’s home, their new-home-to-be (it’s always fun to see a house in the middle of remodeling), and watched some intramural-type cricket at the nearby Queensland University.  After 2 ½ weeks of sometimes scratching our heads about cricket and other Australian unique things, we peppered Rick with all of our stored-up questions, and he graciously and patiently answered all of our (many dumb) questions.

 

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The next morning, Rick picked us up bright and early, for we had a 9 AM car ferry reservation to North Stradbroke Island, a barrier island just off the coast to the east.  It was absolutely fabulous, a little bit of our Outer Banks, California coast, and a laid-back Nantucket all thrown in together.  As we landed on the island, instead of taking the sealed road to their house, we just cut over to the beach and drove north on it – very cool.  At their home we finally met Robyn, who walked us around the headlands of Point Lookout and took us swimming at Frenchman’s Cove (interestingly, the only one of four beaches where Rick said we really shouldn’t swim (because it’s the most dangerous and without lifeguards) was the one he sent us to swim (we got a chuckle out of that as well).  H

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mmm.  However, there were supposedly no crocs, no sharks (at least not many, they said), and no marine stingers --- only “rips”, and we got the lecture as to what to do if caught in one.

 

After our swim it was back to the “Sea Stable” (they are former ranchers) to re-meet their daughter Greer, whom we met years ago when she visited Virginia and Harry.  We then commenced our plans for lunch, and Scott for once was thrilled with the food, as we were having fish, shrimp and crab, three of his very favorite things.  It was a pleasure to see Rick and Robyn both put him to work in the kitchen, shelling (well, mostly eating) the crab and frying up the fish. Scott even pulled a trick on

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us with a fish bone and we all roared with laughter. Lunch was all fresh and very good, and our best meal of the trip (the most fun one by far, as we got to know each other and told stories on our family members back in the States).  Our day ended much too soon, and we all headed back toward the ferry and our journey back into the city.

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We are now on our flight back from Brisbane to Los Angeles, and then on to Charlotte.  We will gain back the day that we lost coming over.  Rick picked us up at 9 AM this morning, November 24^th, for our 12 PM departure.  We will arrive into LAX at 7 AM on the 24^th (i.e., 5 hours before we left) after our 13+ hour flight.  We have had a wonderful 3 weeks, and it was capped by a great stay with Rick, Robyn and Greer.  We didn’t get to meet their son Rhett and his wife, so that, in addition to many other things, gives us a reason to return.  We look forward to that day.

 

Cheers!

 

 

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Queensland’s North Coast, November 17-22, 2008

The flight from Uluru to Cairns (pronounced “Cans” as best we can determine) lasted about 2 hours, which has been the standard length of time for every journey --- in Australia, everywhere seems to be a 2 hour flight from everywhere else.  The area of Cairns is beautiful and picturesque, the only place in the world where two world heritage sites touch.  There is the mountainous ran forest of Daintree National Park cascading down to the sea and the Great Barrier Reef.  For the next 5 nights we would settle in to explore this area as much as possible.

 

We were staying not in Cairns (think Myrtle Beach about 30 years ago) but instead 20 km north in Palm Cove. 

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 Palm Cove is indeed in a small cove, a fairly recent community beautifully settled at the foot of the rain forest looking south and east out to the Coral Sea.  We got into our hotel around 7:30, and the kids effectively kicked us out of the room as they wanted room service.  The plain pasta couldn’t have been that great, but the movies on demand evidently were.

 

The next morning we visited the Tjapukai Aboriginal Center, which was a little more Hollywood-esque version of what we saw in Uluru.  By far the highlight was the returning boomerang and spear throwing (and we learned that boomerangs were first musical instruments and secondly (the non-returning ones) hunting devices; the returning ones have been only recently developed).  Afterwards, we ventured to the Kuranda village via the Sky Rail, a 45 minute gondola ride

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over a mountain and through a gorge, all the while just skimming the top of the rain forest.  Kuranda was not for us (an Aboriginal Tweetsie Railroad), so we were back on the Sky Rail after an hour or so.  Looking out over a broad valley on our way down, we spied what was called Cable Ski, a wake boarding park where the riders are pulled on a type of winter skiing T-bar type of contraption; we stopped by for a look, and it was great fun (which goes to show that sometimes the best things are indeed free).  Since we had not seen Cairns the previous day on our arrival, we headed in for a walk around; the aforementioned 1970’s Myrtle Beach comparison meant that that we gave it short shrift, and not too much later we were back in Palm Cove playing Hearts.

 

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Wednesday, the next day was a big one for us, as we headed north to Port Douglas to catch the very touristy, but very fun Quicksilver Tour to the Great Barrier Reef.  Along with 300 or so of our other tourist friends (and what we think was one very large Australian Rules Football team), we headed out on a catamaran hydrofoil to a floating platform next to Agincourt Reef.  Although this reef is visited by probably 2,000 people a week, Quicksilver does a nice job, and the 3-story pontoon structure provided a lot of comfort to some uneasy snorkelers.  In addition to lots of snorkeling time in our FULL body lycra suits (we felt like Spider Man), we visited their underwater viewing platform, saw some monster fish come in for a fish feeding, and rode on their semi-sub around to some different reefs.  During our semi-sub tour, we learned that although the water visibility was OK, it was not great.  The reason was that for a few days each year (after the first full moon in November), the coral spawn, and little coral sperm and egg cells float through the water looking for an appropriate place to land to start nature’s process.  We thought that the slightly degraded visibility was a small price to pay for the continued viability of the Great Barrier Reef, and who cared that the odds of visiting the reef during spawning season was probably equivalent to, say, visiting a desert in the summer when it was raining.

 

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It was all good fun, followed by a nice dinner out in Port Douglas before beginning the 45 minute drive back south to Palm Cove.  All through the day it had rained on the mainland (although it was beautiful on the reef), and evidently the pesky rain forest toads like to visit the road during the evening after a rainy day.  It was truly sickening; there were so many out during our drive that we couldn’t avoid them --- they just went thump thump under the car every few seconds for a few miles of curving roadway through the rainforest  The next day we found hundreds of ants on the car enjoying the prior evenings victims. Ugh!

 

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Thursday was a lazy day that began with a visit to the local tropical zoo, the highlight of which was the koala holding (my wife was in heaven).  We enjoyed a fun, but thunderstormy afternoon around the hotel, doing work, getting caught up on the blog, and getting a little swimming and exercise.  It was like a rainy day at the beach, one of those that you need after too many days on the go.  We enjoyed ourselves immensely.

 

On Friday, our last full day in the area, we arranged a 4WD tour up through the Daintree National Park and to Cape Tribulation.  Garry was our tour guide, and 2 other single tourists joined us out of Port Douglas.   We hiked along the walkways of Mossman Gorge, visited Cape Tribulation (so named by Captain Cook because it was here that many of his trials and tribulations began), learned a lot of fascinating plant information along the way, tried local exotic fruit ice cream, took a Daintree River cruise (we saw only one tiny croc) and f

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inished our day with a swim at little-known Dinosaur Falls (it felt little known, even though it is probably visited by tourists like us throughout each day).  In the “simpler is better” mode, this quick 20 minute swim at the base of a 100 feet waterfall was probably the highlight of our day.

 

The next day was Saturday, and our flight to Brisbane was not until after lunch.  That called for sleeping in, having a late breakfast and then heading to the airport.  We headed south (yes, for a 2 hour flight) to meet family, Rick and Robyn Oliver (Harry, my father-in-law’s nephew and niece and family) before heading back to the States.  It would prove to be a perfect ending to our stay.

 

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The Red Centre, November 13-17, 2008

70% of Australia is desert or outback, and the town of Alice Springs is literally and figuratively right in the middle of it.  We stepped off the plane in early afternoon, after setting our watches back ½ hour.  We were now 1 ½ hours behind Sydney, and by the end of this trip, we will have visited 4 time zones, each separated by a ½ hour.  We wonder how business people schedule conference calls and the like with 30 minute differences in time zones. 

 

Kangaroo Island was hot, but Alice was hotter, as one would expect a desert to be during summer.  We had also been told that if we thought the flies in Kangaroo Island were bad, hah, just wait until Alice, as they would be much worse.  We would soon find out that both of these expectations were wrong.

 

In order to get the full “Outback Experience”, we eschewed the hotels in town, and instead opted for an outback ranch “B&B” 25 kilometers north of town.  That afternoon, we decided to spend time in Alice before heading north for the night.  Our first stop was the historic telegraph station, the primary reason Alice came into existence in the first place.  In 1872, the Alice Springs telegraph station was opened along the line from Darwin in the north to Adelaide in the south; on that very day news from Europe that used to take 3 months to reach Adelaide now took only the same number of hours, passed in Morse code along a series of lines connecting the telegraph stations.

 

The Outback is big, and the Australians have figured out some pretty nifty ways of managing its size.  We visited the School of the Air, a 50+ year old school which teaches correspondence courses via the internet to 114 elementary school kids within a 1,000 km radius circle from Alice Springs (the school started with two way radios and only converted to computers in the last 3-4 years, over). It is home-schooling with a watchful eye.

 

After the School of the Air, we headed to the very wonderful Alice Springs Desert Park, which recreated three habitats of the Australian desert, at the foot of the West MacDonnell mountain range.  What the kids thought was going to be painful actually turned out to be very enlightening for all, as we learned about the Sand Country, Riverbed, and Woodlands environments, and the many varied plants and animals comprising each.

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Sweaty, dusty and hungry, and still having not seen any flies, we headed to the town square for dinner before driving north in total darkness to find our outback retreat (yep, it got dark over an hour earlier than in Kangaroo Island).  The Bond Springs Outback Retreat is very similar to staying at one of my dad’s “casitas” on his ranch in Arizona.  The topography of the place is similar (minus the cacti) and the feeling is quite the same; the main difference is the expansiveness of it.

 

To get a better feel for the desert, we headed for a bush walk the next day.  Driving back into the West MacDonnell’s, we stopped first at Simpson’s Cove and then at Standley Chasm.  Both were national park-type places with varying lengths of treks.  Scott describes our second stop:

 

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Today we went to Standley Chasm.  It was very beautiful.  When we got there, the rocks forming the chasm were a burning hot red color.  On our way up, a man passed us coming down on a stretcher.  He supposedly had broken his ankle.  When we got past the chasm, we started to explore.  We climbed pretty far up until we got to a fork.  We went left and hiked for about 30 minutes.  There must have been a fire there because the rocks around us were pitch black from the smoke and ashes.  When we got to a dead end, we went back to the fork and headed up the other way.   That part was more fun because we were climbing up a pile of rocks.  We could’ve gone further, but we decided that we had gone high enough (parents!).  We had a nice day.

 

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Back in town after our hikes and lunch, we spent a little time doing some essentials; Claire doing laundry, the kids doing their schoolwork, and I walking across the street for grocery shopping for our dinner “in” that night.  The afternoon also included a quick visit to an art museum to see an exhibit of aboriginal painting, a visit to the Royal Flying Doctor Service base in Alice (another nifty way to manage the giganticness of the Outback) and a little playground time for the kids.

 

The next morning we headed south and west for our drive to Uluru, to visit the world’s largest monolith (fancy word for rock).  This country is SO big and flat that “road trains” are common; in the U.S., a tractor-trailer may involve a road tractor and 1-2 trailers.  Here, there are 4 trailers attached as they barrel down the highway.  This is possible because in some a

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reas, the road goes for many miles without a single curve or turn (and the railway from coast to coast has a length of 300 miles where there is not a hint of a curve).

 

The sacred rock of Uluru (formerly Ayers Rock), and its neighboring monoliths 40 km away, Kata Tjuta (formerly The Olga’s) were sites to behold.  Uluru itself is over 1,000 feet tall, and like an iceberg, most of it is underground.  And to top it off, we got three days of something so rare that very few visitors get to experience, especially in a desert in the summer – cold blustery and rainy weather  Again, to compare it to Arizona, imagine 3 straight days in early summer, (say, late May) where it feels like London.  However, we made lemonade out of lemons, and really enjoyed our treks, educational walks with the local Anangu people, and visits to

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 the sites (albeit without the much-anticipated “Sounds of Silence” sunset dinner, where according to the brochure “one can watch the changing colors under the clearest skies in the world”)(oh well). 

 

 

 

 

 

Carson describes our first seeing Uluru (it wasn’t raining yet).

 

Today we saw an amazing rock called Ayers Rock.  It was a giant rock which had a lot of interesting lines and shapes carved in it.  Whenever the sun shone on it, it would change colors.  While we were there it also rained, and you could see the water slowly rolling down the sides.  With its enormous orange color towering over you, you could feel it moving towards you, slowly, but not too close to get you.  Then it stopped and we slowly drove away.

 

As we were leaving, we did have one little bit of excitement.  Our in-country travel agents had arranged for us to rent a car from Budget in Alice, and return it in Ayers Rock.  No big deal, except for the fact that there is no Budget in Ayers Rock.  After some prompt assistance from the travel agent help line, some negotiations at the airport, and a few laughs, we left the Budget car with the Avis people.  The rain was just beginning to clear, and we still hadn’t seen any flies; our $25 worth of very good looking fly-net-head-covers were packed away unopened, hopefully forever so.   

Australia Fun Facts

Australia is an amazing and complex place.  In researching before and during our trip, we found some interesting tidbits that may provide color on this country and its people.  Most of the information below comes from “In a Sunburned Country” by Bill Bryson, who provides a very humorous introduction to this place (and anyone thinking about coming here should pick this book up). 

 

To begin with, there is probably no other place in the world more similar to America, and this is both good and bad.  It is very easy to travel here, and EVERYONE is very friendly.  Unfortunately, there are also plenty of Target’s, K-Mart’s, Blockbusters, and the like; if you desire a different culture and foreign experiences when you travel, I am not sure this is the place for you.

 

Also, as I write this, I and probably only a few other people are going to be interested in the info below.  For the saner majority of you, all I can offer are my apologies, but I wanted to save some of these facts to think about years from now as we look at photo albums, and I am too lazy to write them down separate from the blog (and now some of you get it, why I am writing in such boringly excruciating detail about our trip --- laziness and efficiency are closely related!).

 

So here, in the middle of our trip, are some thoughts about ... 

 

AUSTRALIA

 

Its people:

 

• There are 20 million or so people; China adds that many each year.
• In Britain, the population density is 632 people per square mile; in the U.S., it’s 76 per square mile.  Here in Australia, it’s just 6 people per square mile.  And when you consider that 80% of these Aussie’s live within 30 minutes of a coast, there are not too many humans out in the Outback.
• Its favorite sports involve water and/or things we can’t understand (cricket, rugby or Australian Rules football). The Rugby World Cup is here at the moment, with the Aussies taking on New Zealand in the finals this Saturday evening.
• The Aborigines have been here for 45,000-60,000 years, but no one knows how they arrived.  They couldn’t have walked.  The evolution theory doesn’t work, as there are no creatures here from which they could have descended.  Could they have sailed across the open ocean that long ago, and with enough people to start a society?
• We still haven’t figured out the government.  We think that they are separate from Great Britain, but we are not sure.  As an example, in the 1970’s, Her Majesty’s Representative dissolved Parliament, and called for a new election.  There was no such thing as Australian citizenship until 1949.  They became a “federation” in 1901, and they tried to become a “republic” in the 1990’s, but that failed.  Australia is a constitutional monarchy, with a Queen (Elizabeth II) who just happens to be the Queen of another country as well (and her picture is on all the coins).  So, they are indeed a country, but the great bulk of the middle of the country (the Northern Territory) obstinately refuses to join in (they are a territory but not a state, and really don’t have a say in national politics).  However, the island Tasmania off the coast is indeed a state.  After federating in the early 1900’s, the Melbournites and the Sydneysiders could not agree on which city to house the new capital, so they made one up in between, and thus Canberra was born (it too is a territory).
• Like America, they have had plenty of problems with racism, and problems with those of European descent understanding the indigenous people, and vice versus.  Not until the 1970’s could non-whites immigrate here, and after that color bar came down, people from all countries have flooded in.  Bryson points out that in one generation, Australia has re-made itself, and today, ¼ of its citizens were not born here.

 

Its geography:

 

• Things are upside down; you go north toward the tropics, the constellations are a tad different, and they have these great “upside down” maps of the world, drawn from their perspective.
• Obviously, you drive on the left side of the road, walk facing traffic on the right side of the road, look both ways twice when crossing the street for fear of being run over by cars in the wrong lane, and as will be discussed later, have no clear understanding of the myriad time zones.
• It’s the 6^th largest country in the world, its largest island, and of course, the only country that is a continent.  We’ve yet to figure out if all countries must belong to a continent, and if so, we don’t where to place New Zealand.
• It’s really old – no volcanoes or clashing tectonic plates have upset the landscape for 60 million years, so things are just lying around waiting to be discovered (and new discoveries happen all the time due to the fact that the country is so large and sparse, man has yet to visit many of its places).

 

Its flora, fauna and resources:

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• 80% of all that lives here live no where else, and yet, other than Antarctica, no other place is as hostile or as dry.
• It has tons of things that can kill you.  Along the beautiful beaches of most of the country, one can’t swim at this time of year due to the box jellies.  Of the 10 deadliest snakes in the world, they are all here.  Sharks and crocodiles are plentiful. Claire saw beach warning signs today for Crocodiles, Sharks and Marine Stingers, and this sign didn’t even mention the most deadly killer, than being the rip tides (the “rips”).
• The Great Barrier Reef is the largest living thing on earth, and stretches longer than the U.S. west coast.  It is visible from the moon.
• No one knows how many species of plants and animals are here.  There are at least 25,000 plant species (Britain in comparison has 1,600).  Over 1/3 of what is out there has never been named or studied.
• Up until the 1950’s (just 50 years ago!), Australia was considered to be very poor in natural resources; few had been discovered.  By the end of the 1960’s, it’s known iron ore reserves were larger than the U.S. and Canada combined, and today it is the world’s largest exporter of minerals.

 

Its size:

 

• The Australian coastline is over 23,000 miles long, almost the circumference of Planet Earth.
• There is not a paved road for the 2,000 miles of coastline between Darwin and Cairns.  500 miles north of Cairns is Cape York, but nary a road exists between the two. In the whole of Queensland (the size of western Europe), only 3 paved roads connect the coast to the western parts of the state, and only one of them goes on through toward the western coast of the country.  In some parts, one can walk the distance from New England to the Gulf Coast without crossing a paved road.
• They have built a 4,000 mile fence to keep dingo’s (the native dog; think coyote) out of the sheep-farming-rich southeast corner.
• We saw a show last night profiling a cattle ranch, employing 14 people; it is larger than Belgium.
• When we were in Uluru, we saw commercials for businesses in Adelaide and also in Darwin.  Both of those cities are 1,000+ miles away, but I guess that is where you have to go to get some supplies.

 

Kangaroo Island, November 10-13, 2008

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You can tell that Kangaroo Island is a relatively small place when the guy working at the rental car counter (Mark) welcomes you by name, already knows where you are staying, has already spoken with our innkeeper to confirm that we were too late for dinner (and that we should eat in town before heading out to the bush), etc.  Kangaroo Island is actually pretty large (the third largest in the country), but everyone knows everybody else.  Following the instructions, we headed into Kingscote for dinner, and then 30 minutes out into the bush to the Stranraer Homestead, where Lyn and Graham Wheaton welcomed us into their small but wonderfully quaint B&B.  Along the way, we saw our first kangaroo in the wild, but this one unfortunately was on the side of the road, with rigor mortis in full effect (and for our stay on the island, we saw more dead animals roadside than live ones).

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In our travels last year, we extensively used local guides and drivers, primarily because the countries were so different from the U.S.  Australia is probably as close to the U.S. as possible, so on this trip we are self-driving and making our plans as we go.  This approach worked wonderfully at Kangaroo Island, for the next morning, Lyn laid out a map and told us precisely what to do for the day (and for the next one as well).

 

 Bouncing along on “un-sealed” roads most of the time, we ventured first to a eucalyptus distillery (primarily to pet an orphaned “joey”), and then south to Seal Bay.  There, in addition to walking on the beach with lazing sea lions, we learned the

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importance of the “Aussie wave”, to battle some quite impressive flies.  Scott writes that “the flies are what were annoying us the whole time.  I once had five flies on my face at the same time.  They were disgusting, flying in my mouth, nose, etc.  I even had one land on my eyelash.  My day would have been perfect if the flies were not there”.  We learned that just two weeks prior, these sea lions had been classified as endangered, and we wished it were so for the flies. 

 

We happened to be on the beach at the 11^th hour of the 11^th day of the 11^th month of the year, which is Remembrance Day for the end of WWI.  In keeping with Australian custom, we enjoyed a moment of silence, a group of 20 strangers reflecting on that event 90 years ago, gazing out at the sea lions and the Tasman Sea.

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Back in the car, we drove an hour to the southwest corner of the island, and the Flinders Chase National Park.  There we visited the Remarkable Rocks (Claire’s favorite) and the Admiral’s Arch (my favorite by far).  Seeing the power of the ocean swells crashing into this headland of rocks, mist spraying, prisms of light and water, with the seals and sea lions playing in the surf, was captivatingly magical. 

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Pulling ourselves away, we headed back east to a spot of eucalyptus trees alongside the road, where koala are more or less guaranteed to be.  We were not disappointed, and enjoyed a few moving from tree to tree, even during the part of the day when they usually sleep (check out the video at the end).

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. 

 

Further along on our drive, we stopped in to Vivonne Bay to rent sand surfing boards for the Little Sahara.  Carson’s description of our experience is succinct:  “horrible”.  We couldn’t make it work, and although the accompanying photo looks exciting, it is very much staged.

 

Graham Wheaton is a third generation sheep farmer, and Lyn a former high school teacher.  We happily realized during our stay that their Stranraer Homestead is listed in “1000 Places …”, and we think it must be so due to Lyn’s cooking.  The next morning, after a sumptuous dinner and immense breakfast, we rolled out to the car for our second day of island exploring.  Our first stop was Scott’s favorite – Stoke’s Bay.  “We went to a beautiful beach, but to get there, you had to walk through a mass of rocks.  We were walking under them, over them, everywhere were rocks. After five minutes of walking, we got to the beach.  The beach was kind of inside a cove where the only

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way to get there was through the rocks.  Next we went on a walk up and down the beach.  It was a nice quiet walk.  The last thing we did was go for a swim in the 70 degree water.  My legs did fine against the cold; when the water got a little higher, my thighs felt like they had frostbite.  When my stomach got wet, that was the worst part (actually, the part between my thighs and stomach was the worst part but I will not say because, well, you know).  First my dad went under.  Next I went under.  The cold surrounded me for a moment, shooting through my body.  Then I burst out of the water panting and gasping for air.  When you come out of the water it feels really really good because of the dry air -- -whoo, that was refreshing.  OF COURSE, the girls didn’t get in (whimps)”.

 

 

 

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Fully refreshed, we continued exploring coves and drives until reaching Kingscote again, for a nice outdoor lunch and some time in the local library doing homework.  We were heading today to the far eastern end of the island, just across from the mainland.  We stopped and climbed Prospect Hill, named by Samuel Flinders upon his discovery of the island, Pennington’s Bay, Cape Willoughby Light House, Antechamber Bay, and finally, the town of Penneshaw.  There, after dinner, we joined an after dark penguin walk, watching large numbers of Little Penguins returning to land after a day of fishing, bringing food back to their babies waiting outside of their nests. 

 

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On the hour drive back to the inn, two things happened.  First, we saw more kangaroos and wallabies in 30 minutes than in all our daylight driving so far (and all of them were standing in the road).  Second, catastrophe struck as Scott realized he had left his favorite hat at dinner (so much for good manners in removing your hat).  His friends will all know his black Nike hat, and we hope that the nice lady at the pub (that we called late that night) has indeed “posted” it back to Winston Salem.

 

The next morning we were up early for our journey northward to the Outback.  We flew back to Adelaide and then on to the Northern Territory, and the town of Alice Springs.  Australia has been very simply described as coast, then bush, then outback, then bush, then coast.  However, most of it is outback, and we were heading to the very center (and the place, one brochure said, that is the closest to every beach in Australia, an interesting description for a town in the desert).

 

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Sydney and the Blue Mountains, November 5-10, 2008

Traveling to Sydney from the U.S. is an exercise in time zone mental gymnastics, and is one of those subjects that once you understand conceptually, it still doesn’t make sense on an intuitive level (especially the day after the U.S. had switched from daylight savings to standard time).  We left Charlotte on Monday afternoon around 6 PM (EST!), which was 16 hours behind Sydney.  We flew to Los Angeles, therein moving 3 more hours behind Sydney.  As we departed LA around 11 PM PST Monday evening, it was already 6 PM Tuesday evening in Sydney --- we had not yet begun Tuesday, November 4^th, and yet where we were headed, that day was almost done!  Thank goodness we had voted early.

 

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Fifteen or so hours later, after departing on November 3^rd, we touched down at 9 AM on the morning of November 5^th.  After disembarking through airports of many different languages over the last months, we have to admit that it was comforting to be welcomed in our native tongue by as friendly a people as those in Australia.  In a city of 4+ million, it was also nice to walk out to the curb and collect our rental car (easier than in Greensboro).  Somewhat in a daze, we hugged the left side of the road as we headed to the city center, called the Rocks.  As we arrived in our hotel room, we were greeted by one of the best hotel room views possible, that being one of the world’s great harbors, with the Sydney Opera House on the right side of the window frame, the Harbor Bridge on the left, the Circular Quay (with its constantly arriving and departing ferries) on the bottom, and the historic Rocks all around. 

 

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Therein situated and soon to be showered, those scoring the time zone game at home will know that the polls were just closing in the U.S. on a historic election day; however, our only goal was to stay awake until nightfall.  We headed out to Circular Quay and took a ferry to Darling Harbor; there, strolling along Cockle Bay Wharf, we had lunch and enjoyed a nice afternoon at the Sydney Aquarium, returned in a stupor on the ferry, and just made it through dinner before collapsing into a bed for the first time in 45+ hours.

 

After 12 hours of solid sleep, we couldn’t rouse Scott, and left him in bed as the rest of us headed for breakfast.  Soon after his doggy bag from the restaurant, we were back on another ferry heading for Taronga Zoo.  “Taronga” means view of water in Aborigine, and this term does not misrepresent.  Cascading down the cliff side to the water, this wonderful zoo was a perfect first day in Sydney, allowing us to focus on the Australian animals with which we are unfamiliar.  We also watched a few animal shows overlooking the harbor and the Rocks area in the background.  After the zoo we hiked around a few coves to Mosman, where we caught another ferry back to Circular Quay.

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After some homework and downtime, we walked again to Circular Quay, but this time we kept walking because we had a date at the Opera House.  Our restaurant was located in the Opera House complex (in one of the smaller orange peel slice shape buildings), and it was nice to venture just up the stairs after dinner into such an iconic place to hear the Sydney Philharmonic.  We had to fight off a little bobble-headedness (and all out snoozing) before applauding and applauding for what seemed like 5 or 6 curtain calls.

 

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Sydney has so much to offer as a place to live – Seattle without the rain - but not so much in the way of history.  We had to recall that no one landed here from England at all until that country had lost some colonies in the New World, and the Aussies did not get around to becoming a country until a little over 100 years ago.  So, as compared to some of the other great cities of the world, Sydney is lacking in historical tourist options.  That, of course, did not bother the Tuttle kids at all, so we followed an aquarium day and a zoo day with a bridge day.  Trust me when I say that compared to spending the day in a museum, climbing the suspension cables to the top of the Harbor Bridge will win out every time.  In addition to learning about the amazing history of this bridge, its nine years of construction in the late 1920’s, it safety record, the foresight of its design, etc., none of that matters when you are 160 meters high looking back over the harbor to Sydney’s downtown.  My 12 year, with whom I have battled for much of the past year to take his photo, was now the camera hog, and had to have his own picture taken from every angle, all without the rest of his family cluttering up the shot.

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After lunch, we did discover the Rocks Discovery Museum, and enjoyed a well put-together introduction to the founding of Sydney and the area of the Rocks.  After an hour or so of that, though, it was off to Bondi Beach, the most famous of the beaches in the Sydney area.  Why we went to the beach in hindsight, we do not know, other than to watch some pretty serious water-sporters do their stuff.  The water is cold enough, the jellies dangerous enough, and the waves big enough, that in order to just boogie board, one needs a wet suit and flippers.  The surfers were more impressive. We stayed on the sand.

 

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The next morning we were on our way to the Blue Mountains, 100 kilometers or so directly west of Sydney.  On the way we stopped at a wildlife park; although the kids got to pet and feed a number of animals, Claire enjoyed it the most, spending time up close with her favorite animal, the Koala. 

 

As we approached the Blue Mountains, they did not look too dissimilar to our own Blue Ridge Mountains, and we began to wonder if we had traveled 16 time zones to experience what was in our relative backyard in NC.  However, after finding and checking into our hotel in Katoomba, we ventured out to Echo Point and gasped at the beauty of the Jamison Valley as it unfolded before us.  We didn’t have (OK, we didn’t make) the time for serious exploring that afternoon, instead deciding to lay low, do a little homework and play a lot of cards – “Hearts” is the game of choice on this trip.  That evening, the grown-ups had a date night, while the kids watched (groan) “Crocodile Dundee” with room service.

 

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The next morning we gathered in the mountains in all their splendor, from the Echo Point overlook of the famous Three Sisters rock formation, the hiking (down!) of the Great Stairs, a walk through a rainforest in the mountains, and the touristy but fun Scenic Village, with cable car and incline rail car.  It was a beautiful day, and we were outside for most of it, enjoying the views, the walks and the forest as much as possible.

 

The next morning, after a very civilized (i.e., late) breakfast, we were off for a full day of travel, back to Sydney, via jet airplane to Adelaide, and then via turbo prop twenty minutes south to Kangaroo Island.  We were leaving the cushiness of city life, and the cool climate of mountain life, for the more rugged island and outback life.  We would end up loving it.

 

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Rose Island Lighthouse, September 27 - October 4, 2008

It was dreary, rainy and overcast when we landed at the Quonset Airport south of Providence, RI on Saturday,

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September 27^th.  Hurricane Kyle was not too far off the Massachusetts coast, and Rhode Island was getting some of its effects.   Newport was a 30 minute drive away, over both the Jamestown and the majestic Newport bridges.  As we crested the latter, we did our best to look to the south through the mist, trying to see what we knew was beneath us, the Rose Island Lighthouse, but to no avail.

 

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The next morning, I took the courtesy car back to the airport with half our gear, and Claire and the kids crammed the remaining supplies into a taxi; as I got a ride back from the airport, they made a strategic stop for fishing bait, and we all met up at the Fort Adams State Park dock.  There we boarded the Starfish, a converted lobster boat, for the ten minute ride north to Rose Island.

 

Via the benefits of Google Earth, we somewhat knew what to expect, and namely that the lighthouse was not the typical tall cylinder with a light atop, but rather a house with a light.  However, the charm of this rocky outcrop washed over us as we walked around the island and received our instructions from Dave, the foundation’s Executive Director.  We were the lighthouse keepers for a week, and were charged with completing a number of daily chores, along with whatever cleaning, sorting and organizing that we chose to undertake.  The weekly keepers stay in the second story apartment, and are the hosts for the nightly visitors that stay in the (living) lighthouse museum below, made to resemble the time of the early 1900’s when this facility was in use.

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The island is 18 acres in total.  The main structure and a number of out buildings sit on approximately 2 acres, with the interior of the island impassable due to debris, overgrowth, poison ivy and the like.  Looking at our curious kids, Dave emphasized the roughness of the overgrowth, hoping to discourage wayward wanderings.  As soon as possible, Scott and Carson took off (mostly staying on the main paths) and were able to be our tour guides when we all explored the island a few hours later.

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 Later that afternoon, we welcomed our first nightly guests, a mother and daughter from Minnesota.  The foundation staff typically visits the island via the Starfish each day at 10 AM and 3 PM, taking the nightly visitors off the island in the morning, and delivering the next group in the afternoon.

 

That evening, we settled into our apartment; a very quaint collection of leftovers from many years of keeper stays – why we thought we needed to bring our own puzzle is in hindsight pretty funny.  We began what became our nightly ritual of dinner, heated card games (the “Old” versus the “Young” in Spades) and watching the many-hour miniseries “John Adams” on Claire’s computer – studying U.S. history can be entertaining, courtesy of HBO’s version of David McCullough’s book, especially as we sit north of, and look out upon, Fort Adams.

 

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In the morning, windows with no curtains assured that we arose in time for our chores:

 

• Turning off the lighthouse beacon (that we turned on the previous night; what we had highly anticipated was pretty anticlimactic – flipping a circuit breaker switch in the electrical box)
• Raising the US flag precisely at 8 AM (no flag is a symbol that something is amiss) along with the NC flag, to proudly fly over Narragansett Bay and make visitors scratch their heads
• Checking the outdoor bathrooms
• Filling up the Sun Shower bags (bags left out to be heated in the sun, and then hung in an outdoor shower stall; the theory may work in the summer, but in October, the shower is quite refreshing)
• Recording our weather station duties (max, min and current temps, and daily rainfall)
• 

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  Checking the power room; we have a windmill on the island to make electricity, and each morning, we compare the electricity produced versus the amount used by the lighthouse.  If the voltage in the batteries falls too low (below 24) we run the diesel generator in the power room for an hour or two.  On windy days, the windmill is
  

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  enough.  On windless days, we ran the generator twice per day.
• Heading downstairs to the water room.  In the basement, there is a 3,000 gallon cistern supplied by rainwater.  We checked the levels each day, recorded the gallons used per day in the house (25-30 gallons per day), checked the chlorine levels, and added a few cups of good old Clorox bleach as needed.

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After 45 minutes or so of these chores, we would head up for breakfast, very civilized at 9 AM or so.  The rest of each day was a mixture of a little work and a lot of play.  For the former, we cleaned the foghorn building, thoroughly cleaned the water room, did some odds and ends type of chores, etc.  For the latter, we walked the island, kayaked around the island, fished, harvested mussels for dinner, checked our lobster traps (we caught quite a few, and decided to try “Joe”, the largest one to enter

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one of our traps), joyfully broke colored wine bottles on the rocks (so that the surf and the rocks could create “sea glass”), collected sea shells, skipped stones, viewed the bay from the top of the lighthouse, and generally enjoyed some unplugged downtime (with Scott mainly reading and Carson cross-stitching).  This was the week that Wachovia bank disappeared, and that the Dow had its largest daily drop in 20+ years, both events wiping away lots of wealth in our home of Winston Salem.  It was either the best or worst of times to be on an island without computer or television, and I am sure that with the

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 passage of time, the latter will hold true (although for a few days we were active using the internet on our phone, trying to see if there was going to be a systemic crash of our country’s financial system).

 

Twice we took the 10 AM boat ride into Newport.  On the first day, we mainly walked around town, primarily along the famous “Cliff Walk” between the mansions of the Newport and the Atlantic Ocean.  The second day we visited the Peterson’s, who used to live in Winston Salem and now reside in Newport.  They work at St. George’s School, a wonderful boarding school set upon an absolutely stunning campus overlooking Second Beach.  Krista and Eric walked us around the campus as we marveled at facilities nicer than many colleges. 

 

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Throughout the week, we realized that the member of our family having the most fun was Champ.  Essentially leash-less for the week, he took it upon himself to roam the grounds, protecting our fortress from the “evil” soaring sea gulls hovering overhead.  Champ was unhappy even when they were just in our airspace, and did his best to constantly patrol his post keeping the intruders at bay. 

 

Saturday was the most stunningly beautiful day of our stay, but we made the melancholy decision to leave a day earlier than scheduled.  Studying U.S. history, we couldn’t pass up the opportunity to visit Plymouth, MA since we were so close.  So we boarded the Starfish for the last time, and made our way back to the airport.  Flying low over the harbor on our way out, we got some fantastic views of the bridge, the island, and the many white sails on the background of the deep blue water. Circling to the east, we flew by Martha’s Vineyard before heading for Plymouth, just 15 minutes away.

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In Plymouth, we were somewhat constrained by having the family dog.  At Plimoth Plantation, Claire waited outside with Champ as the kids and I toured the site (complete with the Wampanoag (Native American) home site and the 1627 English Village).  The kids then showed Claire around the same as Champ and I walked to the Mayflower II, meeting the rest of the family there after their taxi ride from the Plantation.  The day was beautiful up and down the east coast, and as we enjoyed an early dinner outside near Plymouth Rock, the temperature on that October evening in the northeast began to fall.  We caught a cab back to the airport, and took off right before sunset, and enjoyed a gorgeous sunset and early evening flight home.

 

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WSIS Year Two

It's been awhile since we've even thought about our travel blog, so we thought it may be time to give you a quick update on our wanderings, and a brief overview of this, the second year of the so-called Winston Salem International School.

Actually, the plan for this year is to be not-so-international.  After a wonderful 2007-2008 traveling around the world, we felt that our kids needed a little United States history, and have therefore planned to focus on the colonial period through the present day, with just a little international travel to the places that we couldn't/didn't fit in last year.  So in addition to the normal math, science, writing, enrichment, etc. projects of 5th and 7th grades, we will be visiting some key historical spots around the U.S.

Our school year began by trying to complete the previous one.  In the generous spirit of trying to get last year's experience to "sink in", Claire and I prepared a final exam covering many of the highlights of our travels last year.  We were really pleased with our efforts, until we handed the kids their 38 page final exam.  As they are quickly moving from the sweet and innocent elementary school age to that of pre-pubescent adolescence, one can only imagine the looks that we, the proud parents, received.  Not to worry, for we all chipped in, and worked together to compile our answers and essays for the exam. 

For U.S. history, Claire decided that we start at the beginning when the Asians crossed the Bering land bridge into what we now call the Americas. Since the Bering Straights are now underwater we made our first official visit to Cherokee (no we did not have a black jack lesson) and then to the first English settlement in the New World at Roanoke Island.  On the latter, we enjoyed a nice 3 day trip to the NC Outerbanks in late August, visiting the "Lost Colony", and learning about the intrepid pioneers of the late 1500's, including our state capitol's namesake.  We also visited the First Flight museum at Kitty Hawk, celebrated our 15th wedding anniversary in Sanderling, NC (where we were marred), and stayed overnight in Ocracoke 

We have since visited Plimoth Plantation (and the very underwhelming Plimoth Rock)(and no, I didn't misspell Plymouth), Jamestown, Williamsburg and Yorktown.  We think we have the colonial period down.  For the remainder of the school year, we plan to visit Boston, Washington, D.C., and some other possible locales yet to be decided (like the Lewis and Clark trail and many of the canyons in the west).  Internationally, we will head to Australia, and possibly back to Central America for some Spanish language immersion and study of the Mayan culture.  

Thanks for putting up with our ramblings (literally and figuratively), and we will talk to you from the road.

Delhi, April 25, 2008

After traveling in from Varanasi, we slept until 8 AM on the 25^th.  After 7 days of getting up at an average of 5 AM, it felt decadent.  After breakfast, we met our guide for a fantastic last day tour around the city.

 

We first drove through the governmental sections of the capital, down “embassy row”, by the Prime Minister’s former residence and the Presidential Palace, by the Secretariats, governmental ministries, Parliament and the India Gate.  To get an image of this area, picture a perfect combination of the Champs Elysees and the Washington Mall.  After visiting many Indian cities where the crowds were thick and chaotic, the openness of these spaces was captivating, and offered us an entirely different perspective.

 

We boarded the gleaming and almost-new Metro for a ride to Old Delhi.  Delhi is hosting the Commonwealth Games in 2010, and much of the city is under construction preparing for the Games.  It was quite a shock to emerge from the quiet underground up into the hubbub and chaos of the market area in Old Delhi.  However, after our experiences in the other cities, the rickshaw ride through the markets was not the shock that it may have been for those just seeing these streets for the first time.

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We found our way to the Jama Masjid, also built by the Shah Jahan as he moved his capital from Agra to Delhi and the Red Fort.  The Jama Masjid is the largest mosque in Asia, and can accommodate 25,000+ worshippers.  After lunch, we visited the Gandhi Museum.    

 

As we explored the city, probably the best thing was the great conversation with our wonderful guide.  We discovered more about Delhi in particular, and the country in general.  We talked politics and religion, learned about the caste system, discussed the varied cultures of the country, compared raising families, and in general, got a great insight to living in the country.  It was a nice way to wrap up our visit to India (but not before a little last minute

souvenir shopping (and tattooing)).

 

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Somewhat surreally, we then headed back to the hotel to hang out, have dinner, rest and pack before leaving for the airport at 11 PM.  Our flight departed at 2:25 AM on Saturday morning, so talking just in EDT time, we headed out for the airport at 1:30 PM on Friday, April 25^th, and will arrive back into Greensboro at 6 PM on Saturday, April 26^th.  We are now onboard the flight from Frankfurt to Washington, which is ironically the exact same routing that we took to start our trip back in August (Greensboro-Washington-Frankfurt and then on to Cairo).  As we were playing spades in the Frankfurt Airport McCafe during our layover in Frankfurt this morning, we of course thought back to almost exactly eight months ago when we were transferring through the same airport starting this year . 

 

We all look forward to getting back into the flow of our “normal” lives, and to hopefully seeing or catching up with many of you soon.  We will not bore you with our wrap up thoughts for the year, as we are pretty sure that you are growing tired of hearing of our travels.  Suffice it to say that we have had a blast, and would do it over again in an instant (if we were not so travel weary at this very moment!).   

 

Thanks for following along with us, and allowing us to share this experience with the friends and family who are so very important to us.

Varanasi, April 23-24, 2008

Varanasi is an amazing city, and is considered to be the world’s oldest living city.  We have been told that to visit Varanasi is to visit the “real India”.

 

First and foremost, Varanasi is a religious shrine.  It is one of the micas for Hindu’s, and the place to which they make pilgrimages.  It is also the birthplace of Buddhism, as well as being a major center of Jainism, an offshoot of Hinduism.  Two and a half million people live in the confluence of the Varan and Asi Rivers, two major tributaries to the amazing Ganges River, which flows down the eastern border of the city.

 

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The Ganges River is the life of Hinduism, and the life of this city.  One of the three major deities in Hinduism, Shiva, the Destroyer and Re-Creator, calls Varanasi home.  Everyday, an average of 15,000+ pilgrims visit the city, primarily to wash in the river at sunrise, symbolizing cleansing and rebirth.  Also, as it is Hindu practice to cremate all dead bodies on an open flame, the most holy place to do so is alongside the river of the god (the Re-Creator) that will send your soul back to another body; everyday, there are 150+ cremations on fires next to the river, with the ashes being scattered in the passing holy water.

 

 

After settling into our hotel, we took a bus and then a rickshaw

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 ride to the river.  Once again, the streets of an Indian city were simply overwhelming.  Everything (you can imagine) is up close and in your face.  Once reaching the river, we boarded a row boat for a sunset cruise (“cruise” oversells it just a bit; ‘rowboat ride’ is better). 

 

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There are 84 Ghats along the river; “ghat” literally means “bath”, but has been taken to mean the concrete steps that descend into the river.  There, both pilgrims and locals alike were swimming and enjoying the evening.  We rowed downstream to see the main cremation site, where fires burn nonstop.  Fifteen fires were burning as we watched from a distance on the river, an experience that felt very invasive considering the mourning families that were staring into the flames.  Our guide gave us a complete overview of the meaning and ritual of death and mourning in Hinduism, a story that was quite powerful as we were seeing it unfold from our seats on the Ganges.  We soon rowed back to the central area, where Hindu priests were holding their regular evening services for the gathered thousands.

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As we left the river around 8 PM for another wild rickshaw ride (see the video), we noted that it would not be too long before we were back on the Ganges.  The 4:45 AM wakeup call the next day felt even earlier, and we were soon back on another

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rowboat for a sunrise experience on the Ganges. 

 

 

Those in the water the evening before were merely swimming.  Those in the water this morning were taking a sacred bath, the primary reason for making the pilgrimage to the city.  Much has been written about the (poor) water quality of the river, but the local idea is that any pollution of the Ganges is just the opinion of

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 some scientists

 

On our stroll back away from the water’s edge, we stopped by the main temple of Shiva.  The original temple was destroyed by the nasty Mughal emperor Aurangzeb (son and imprisoner of Shah Jahan, the builder of the Taj Mahal); he built a mosque in its place, and then Hindu’s later re-built the shrine to Shiva next door.  Varanasi is 30% Islamic, and these two religions worship side-by-side, albeit under tight security.

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After breakfast, we headed to Sarnath, where Buddha preached his first lesson to his five disciples (and explained the 8-fold path).  Varanasi was a Mecca then (in the 6^th century BC), so Buddha came here during his own search.   At the nearby museum, we saw the famous four-headed lion (representing Buddha’s four noble truths), sitting atop Buddha’s wheel of dharma.  Here in this primarily Hindu nation, this symbol from Buddhism is on both the Indian flag and every denomination of the rupee (quite interesting).

 

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Although it was only 11 AM, we were done with touring for the day.  Whether the early mornings of the last week, or the end of a lot of travel, we were all whipped.  After a somewhat comatose lunch, we headed back to the airport for our flight to Delhi.