Here’s how I started my Adweek column about the Australia trip the Missus and I took in the fall of 1988.
“Australians are so hard up for heroes that a horse is in the top five.” – Paul Hogan
The horse he’s referring to is Phar Lap, the legendary Australian thoroughbred, winner of 37 races in 51 starts, and one of the few ways to make a dime in the 1930 Great Depression. They love Phar Lap in Australia. He’s there right now, in the Museum of Victoria, stuffed. His heart is on display in a separate case – at a museum in another city. They love that horse.
But if the Australians are that pressed for heroes, they ought to nominate the Missus and me for a couple of pedestals. We’ve just returned from fighting our way through the island continent on what had to be one of the most grueling carefree vacations in the history of man. And woman, of course.
For starters, it took us 30 hours to reach Melbourne, thanks to the efforts of our ex-travel agent. From that point, the Missus was plagued by an unending series of respiratory infections and sinus miseries. I lost my eyeglasses. A bird crapped on my head, which is said to be a sign of good luck by some people, usually those who weren’t hit.
I was also attacked by a killer parrot that wanted – and got – a French fry. On Dunk Island, which the Missus characterized as the Catskills of the tropics, we had to kill a lizard in our room. Hunger forced us to eat more than 10,000 bags of airline peanuts on the trip.
If we’re not Australian heroes, tell me who is.
The Missus:
Our continually precarious trip to Australia was 100% my fault. As we’ve established: I’m the planner, John’s the flâneur.
First, why Australia? Had we dreamed about visiting the continent our whole lives? Were we expert snorkelers desperate to view the Great Barrier Reef? Did we think “Crocodile Dundee” was that good a movie? None of the above. (We had actually never snorkeled in our lives before we found ourselves underwater – literally and figuratively – at the Great Barrier Reef, but more on that later.)
The simple answer is I had just finished one of the biggest nightmare jobs of my career, which though wildly successful and lucrative, definitely took a few years off my life. So the moment it was over I announced to my always amenable husband, “Let’s go on vacation as far away from any of my clients as we possibly can get where they still speak English so I don’t have to make any effort to be understood.” (If you have ever had problematic clients, this entire rationale will need no further explanation.)
A quick spin of the World Globe on John’s desk and Australia came up the winner.
Since we’re city people, and I’m deathly afraid of snakes and alligators, Melbourne and Sydney were obvious destinations. But when I spoke to my travel agent, he talked us into the Great Barrier Reef side trip, which wasn’t difficult if you’ve ever seen any of the photos. He also insisted a weekend on an “unimaginably beautiful” resort island couldn’t be missed. Despite my city versus sand preference, John was enthused, and I felt I owed him one. Considering how long it takes to get down under and the 13-hour time difference, we had allotted two weeks – more than we ever have before or since – so side trips made sense. Sigh.
While our airline tickets only showed two planes: Boston to San Francisco, San Francisco to Melbourne, what was left out was a brief layover in the Midwest to pick up passengers, a flight from San Fran to L.A. to pick up more passengers, arriving in Sydney after a 15-hour flight before taking off again for our final destination of Melbourne. All that going up and down does wonders for your ears and sinuses.
What I remember most about our 30-hour Bataan Plane March was tossing paperbacks like Kleenex along the way (kindle at that time still just meant “light or set on fire,” which is what we wanted to do to our travel agent when we got home).
Once we actually got to Australia, though, we loved Melbourne, a totally British city with lots to do and see, as this video from that time (via mehmethaus) nicely illustrates.
Thanks to the upside-down Australian time zone, during our first couple of days there we managed to do and see not very much, mostly just returning to the swell hotel the Missus booked for us, ordering room service, and promptly falling asleep in the soup.
Shortly thereafter, though, we were good to go all kind of places, starting with Young & Jackson, one of the oldest pubs in Melbourne.
At the time the pub featured a “tourist” side for the looky-loos and a “prole” side for the locals. The Missus and I happened to wander into the latter, which several of the regular patrons pointed out to us.
No matter – we stuck to the prole side and spent the next hour in lively conversation with the natives, most of whose Aussie accents we absolutely could not understand, after which we parted as fast friends.
Excellent!
We also checked out the Old Melbourne Gaol, where “Edward (Ned) Kelly was the first person born in Victoria to be hanged. Convicted at Melbourne on 29 October 1880 for murder, Ned Kelly was a well-known bushranger who captured the public’s imagination. His death mask was created after his execution at the Old Melbourne Gaol on 11 November 1880. He was aged 25.”
Here’s an Urban Aerial Explorer tour of the legendary prison, along with a recreation of Ned Kelly’s execution.
After that we visited the Melbourne Museum, where we were lucky enough to catch a Phar Lap twofer.
Phar Lap died in 1932 under mysterious circumstances, according to Thoroughbred Heritage Portraits, with arsenic poisoning a definite possibility. Regardless, his horse corpse was divvied up like a British spinster’s Bank of England bonds.
Phar Lap’s hide was stuffed, and is now on display at the Melbourne Museum. His skeleton is on display at the Dominion Museum in Wellington, New Zealand. His heart, which weighed over fourteen pounds, was given to the Institute of Anatomy in Canberra, Australia. Thousands of visitors each year visit these relics of one of the greatest thoroughbreds of all time.
As it happened, Phar Lap’s hide and heart were both in Melbourne right when the Missus and I were.
The hide:
The heart:
Who’s luckier than us, right?
We also ventured beyond Melbourne. We took a bus tour out the Great Western Highway, during which the driver, Trusty Vic, safely navigated the “treacherous crosswinds,” as our tour guide informed us in hopes of a bigger tip for both of them.
We were subsequently introduced to Australian ant hills, Australian strangler figs, and the aforementioned Australian dive-bombing parrot when we stopped for lunch. I’ll be the first to admit I did not acquit myself well in that encounter.
The Missus:
I must interject here that parrots in Australia are as clever as they are striking.
When a stunningly colorful one landed on our table eyeing John’s lunch, I suggested he give him a bite. John was starving and the portions were small so he instead covered his meal with one hand and shooed the bird off with the other. A few seconds later the parrot swooped down onto John’s head and as he raised his hands to fend him off, the feathered flyer dove down to grab a now unprotected french fry. What made it worse, he ate it while sitting on our table practically laughing – if a parrot could laugh – at my poor husband. A bird of prey indeed.
(After we returned home, the Missus presented me with a mechanical parrot she had programmed to say Gimme a French fry! – which was Exhibit Umpteen of why the Missus is the most fun you can have with another human being.)
Eventually we headed up to Sydney, which I described at the time as the Heather Locklear of Australian cities. Helpful photo of Ms. Locklear for the young ‘uns.
Sydney Harbor . . .
I was not wrong.
• • • • • • •
As the Missus and I quickly learned, there wasn’t much to do in Sydney outside of eating at waterfront restaurants with fabulous views.
The Missus:
Speaking of fabulous views, I had paid a pretty penny – lots of them in fact – for a Harborview room at the deluxe Regent Hotel. While the décor and amenities lived up to its crème-de-la-crème reputation, the view did not. First, we had just one window in our assigned room. Second, it was rather small. And third, it looked out on buildings.
Believing a terrible mistake had been made, I went back to the check-in desk to ask for our reserved room. “That is a water-view room,” said the polite, but officious reservations clerk. “You just have to open the window and look to your left.” I thought he was kidding. Apparently not. The hotel was fully booked so I went back upstairs and realized if you contorted your body against the wall at just the right angle, you could get a glimpse of the harbor. And that was that.
As mentioned, the hotel was otherwise lovely and had a beautiful bar. John and I ordered drinks late one evening – as I remember a glass of wine was something like $20, and this was in the ‘80s. The liquor came on a very elegant tray with nuts in a porcelain cup next to a white linen cocktail napkin monogrammed with a scripted “R” for Regent. I held it up and excitedly said to John, “This looks exactly like the monograms in ‘Rebecca!’” – one of my favorite Hitchcock movies based on the spooky Daphne du Maurier novel, co-starring Laurence Olivier as Maxim de Winter and Joan Fontaine as his shy, sweet second wife.
When the newlyweds arrive at the de Winter manse Manderley, poor, insecure Fontaine (who is never given a first name!) is constantly being reminded of Maxim’s impossible-to-live-up-to, glamorous first wife Rebecca, whose monogram is everywhere, even on the handkerchief he offers to “dry her tears.”
I thought it would be fun to have the look-alike cocktail napkin. After charging the pricey drinks with generous tip to our room, I asked the waiter if I could keep it. He said no and walked away. After living without a Harborview, I had no intention of not stealing that Rebecca cocktail napkin. So I did. Happily, no bill or recriminations for the purloined linen ensued.
In stark contrast to Melbourne, a city rich with history, Sydney offered exactly one historic building – Elizabeth Bay House, which at the time of our visit featured the exhibit For the public good : crimes, follies and misfortunes, demolished houses of New South Wales.
That met our minimum daily requirement of irony just fine, thank you very much.
Elizabeth Bay House itself, though, was thoroughly lovely.
With commanding views over Sydney Harbour, Elizabeth Bay House gleams like a Greek temple. Once surrounded by famous landscaped gardens, it is one of the most splendid private houses ever built in Australia and still arouses our delight and astonishment. Its elegant rooms and fine proportions, sweeping staircase and lavish furnishings reveal the tastes and aspirations of its original owner, Alexander Macleay, after the governor, the most important public official in colonial Sydney. But it was his magnificent gardens which most keenly expressed his tastes and passions, and in the economic downturn of the 1840s pushed him towards ruin. Elizabeth Bay House is an iconic Sydney home, with an iconic Sydney back-story of obsession for property and position stretched beyond means and undone by changing financial times.
The people at the city’s Last Manse Standing were just as nice as the place itself. The Missus and I had arrived there by cab, in which I stupidly left my eyeglasses. Faced with the prospect of wearing sunglasses indoors and out for the next ten days, I asked the fine folks at Elizabeth Bay House how we might track down that cab, which they themselves did by the end of our visit. The cab driver even dropped my glasses off at our hotel – no charge.
Throw another thank you on the barbie.
Later that day, in order to experience the Full Heather Locklear, the Missus and I ate at a waterfront restaurant with fabulous views.
Of course, no one visits Sydney without taking a tour of its fabled Opera House, which we also dutifully did. Here’s how it looks now.
We didn’t just settle for a tour of the Opera House, though: One night we also took in either 1) a Tom Stoppard play (I think), or 2) a Cole Porter musical (the Missus thinks). My money’s on the Missus, for those of you taking bets at home.
I totally remember what we did next: After a few days in Sydney, the Missus and I flew to Cairns and checked into a lovely hotel (the Missus has always had a knack for finding distinctive lodgings during our travels). From there we took a ride on the Kuranda Railway, which this 1988 video presents in some Nordic language or other.
The Missus, as usual, made several friends during that ride, especially one young lad and his boon traveling companion, Mr. Banana (pronounced ba-NAH-na). We also stopped off at the Tinaroo Dam, a source of Queensland farm irrigation and hydroelectric power.
Not to mention the source of a visual pun: I took a photo (lost, alas, to history) of the Missus standing in front of the dam and holding up a little toy kangaroo.
You sort of had to be there.
Bright and early the next morning, we took a bus to Port Douglas, where we boarded a pretty big boat that took us to a much smaller boat that took us to the Great Barrier Reef.
The Missus:
That part of the trip took over 3 hours and I started regretting not booking a hotel room in the gorgeous Port Douglas to save the hour and a half drive.
Once on the really big boat, instructions for our Reef visit commenced. First, we were given wet suits. It was winter in Australia where the temperatures on land are quite moderate, but not so much in the water. I am happy to say wetsuits really suck you in and are remarkably flattering in addition to being warm. Next we were shown a video of what we would see at the Reef. It was breath-taking and 100% true to life.
There was one glitch for me however. A shark swam by in the video.
“Whoa, are there sharks in the water,” I asked the laid-back instructor? “If you don’t bother them, they won’t bother you,” he said reassuringly. I wasn’t reassured. Next up, a warning not to get too close to the coral as a scratch could result in a reef poisoning infection that could turn deadly. Seriously?
Learning that you had to spit in your mask before diving didn’t cheer me up either. But every worry disappeared the moment we plunged into the water and witnessed the brilliantly colorful coral, fish and marine life.
At which point the Missus and I snorkeled for the first and only time in our lives. Here’s a representative sample (via Adventures For Two) of what we saw.
It was fantastic, even if it did entail my swallowing about half the Coral Sea (the Missus proved to be a far better snorkeler than yours truly).
The Missus:
It was indeed fantastic. So spectacular in fact, that John and I stayed until the very last little return boat called us in. Giddy and starving – we hadn’t eaten since breakfast 6 hours earlier – we were told that the promised (and paid for) bountiful buffet lunch had been completely consumed by the other passengers. I’m not kidding. They offered us a few stale saltines while reminding us to check for any scrapes when we took off our wetsuits so they could treat the wound to prevent infections.
Unfortunately, the Missus returned to the hotel with a previously unnoticed scratch on the back of her leg. As we had been warned about coral reef poisoning, we stayed up most of the night watching movies and hoping she wouldn’t die. She did not, for those of you keeping score at home.
(Sad fact to know and tell: According to this BBC report, “Australia’s Great Barrier Reef has lost more than half of its corals since 1995 due to warmer seas driven by climate change.” And that was three years ago. It’s undoubtedly worse now.)
From Cairns we flew on a twelve-seater plane to Dunk Island, described this way in a January, 1988 New York Times piece.
I’m pretty sure we stayed in one of the lodges, which cost today’s equivalent of $259 a night. I’m definitely sure that the minute we arrived on Dunk Island, we wanted to get off it.
It was entirely my fault we were there at all: The Missus knew I’d spent many happy summers during my youth at the Jersey Shore, and she thought a few days on an Australian resort island would be a treat.
It was a nightmare.
For starters, the luxury resort was crowded with the kind of cookie-cutter structures you’d find in the average American suburb. The main feature of our room was a gecko crawling up the wall above our bed. We immediately marched back to the reception desk, our pre-payment be damned.
“How soon can we get a flight back to Sydney?” the Missus inquired sweetly.
“Whenever your return flight is booked for,” the receptionist replied tartly.
The Missus: “No – like today?”
The Receptionist: “No – like I said.”
About a half hour later the Missus took another shot at the reception desk, citing a debilitating inner ear infection that needed immediate medical attention on the mainland. The receptionist was unmoved, as were we.
So we did our time on Dunk Island, sampling about three hundred yards of the rain forest before turning back, competing in the First Annual Dunk Island Invitational Ping Pong Tournament alongside a visibly annoyed exercise class (the Missus and I tied for the championship), and playing a few God-awful games of tennis in between.
The food wasn’t so great, either.
Eventually we made it back to Sydney, which we liked a lot better the second time, all things considered. The following day we flew home, which took only 21 hours. Regardless, we still wanted to set our travel agent on fire.
The Missus:
Another sad closing note. I was really looking forward to seeing Koalas, adorably pictured in practically every tourist ad for Australia. But guess what? Koalas are mostly nocturnal, foraging and looking cute as can be in the dead of night. During the day? They mostly sleep. And they don’t sleep out in the open where you can see them, but intelligently, up in a high tree branch hidden by leaves.
This seemed like the ultimate bait and switch to me. I had to suffice with a Koala hand puppet purchased at the airport gift shop which entertained children seated near us on the 15-hour return flight to the USA.
• • • • • • •
Upon our return, I filed the aforementioned Adweek column.
Favorite passage:
In spite of the rigors it posed, the trip was, in the word of the Linder Chocolate Balls ad, “Unforgettaball.” In fact, one moment made it all worthwhile: Coming back from snorkeling at the Great Barrier Reef, I stood in the stern of the Quicksilver II drinking beer and watching the endless roll of the Coral Sea as the gas fumes made perfect little rainbows in our wake.
A once-in-a-lifetime experience, as the Missus says. Because we’re not going back.
And we never did.
Travels With The Missus 