Have Suitcase, Will Travel

January 1, 2025

I landed in Melbourne [Mel-bun] at 10:30 AM on New Year’s eve, after a 15.5 hour flight from San Francisco. The airplane food was terrible, but they kept everyone fed, so there was no rioting. I had taken off my shoes about an hour into the flight. As the plane was descending to land I went to put them back on and could barely fit them over my (now swollen) feet! That was the first time that had happened to me. My sister, Cherie, later mentioned that she experiences that on long flights and wears compression socks to prevent it. Guess I’ll have to get me some of those before I head to Thailand in a month.

Cherie, and brother-in-law, Bernie, picked me up at the airport (MEL). Riding in the front passenger seat was a bit jarring at first, as they drive on the left in Australia, and every time Bernie turned right or left he immediately swung into the “wrong” lane. I managed to stay awake until 8 PM the first evening to help me adjust to the new time zone. I fell asleep, totally forgetting it was New Year’s eve, and woke up at 8 AM on January 1, 2025

January 5, 2025 – Melbourne

After five days in Melbourne, my strongest first impressions are gum trees, birds, coffee and cricket. Many, if not most, of the trees you see here are gum (eucalyptus) trees. The variety in the types, sizes and colors of the gum trees are quite amazing. As equally amazing are the variety in the types, sizes, colors and sounds of the birds that you find flitting about in them. From the raucous screech, white feathers and yellow crest of the Cockatoo, the almost electronic warble (think R2D2) of the playful Magpie, and the crazy monkey-like call of the big-headed Kookaburra, there’s almost never a dull moment. I was surprised and a bit pleased to learn that the Kookaburra is related to the Kingfisher, my favorite bird in the Pacific Northwest.

Aussies (or at least Melbournians) as it turns out, are as particular about their coffee as Americans in the Pacific Northwest. There are high-end coffee shops everywhere, with lines of caffeine-craving Aussies stretching out the door waiting to get their Flat Whites and Long Blacks. And finally, Aussies love their sports. There’s been cricket on every “telly” and every tongue the whole time I’ve been here. Traditional Cricket matches last for days, and the current Test (5 day) Match is between Australia and arch-rival India. Apparently India has had the upper hand in the recent series and the Aussies are eager for a win.

January 7, 2025 – The Mornington Peninsula

Bernie and I drove South out of Melbourne all the way down to Cape Schanck – or Tunnahan, as the native Aboriginals called it – at the Southern tip of the Mornington Peninsula. As we drove into the Lighthouse Reserve a full-sized kangaroo hopped across our path. I brought my daughter to Australia back in 2007, and we saw gobs of kangaroos when we went to the Outback, but this was the first I have seen this visit. Kangaroos here remind me of deer in the US. Seeing them is not necessarily uncommon, but they are still always interesting when you do. AND they can be a hazard on the highway at night.

As we made our way toward the lighthouse trail, we spotted a Superb Fairywren off to the side, flitting about in the bushes. It is one of the cutest and most colorful little birds I have ever seen.

If you started swimming straight South from Cape Schanck, you’d eventually reach Tasmania. The 69 ft limestone lighthouse perching on the cliff was built in 1859 and now hosts a small museum. You can also reserve a room in the old residences of the lighthouse keeper.

Not far from the lighthouse is a wooden boardwalk that climbs down the cliff side to the scenic views of the rocky beaches below. The wind provided a nice sandblasting as we proceeded down the stairs. Hold onto your hats!

After the boardwalk we did a 5 Km hike down the two bays walking track. Bernie’s doing his best to get me in shape before I head to SE Asia!

On the way home we stopped at a brewery that shall not be named for reasons that will become clear. At first we weren’t sure it was open, as the sign on the road listed Thu-Sun hours only (and it was Tuesday), but we pulled in and there were several cars in the lot and diners off in the distance. The setting was rustic and cozy, perfect for enjoying a pint and some “munchings and crunchings” after a day of exploring and exercise.

The beer and food were decent, but the service was a comedy of errors. When we first walked up to the bar, the young woman there said she wasn’t old enough to serve, but that we should take a seat and she would send someone out. After 30 minutes of waiting and two different staff walking by repeatedly we flagged down another young woman and asked if we could order. She said we needed to order at the bar. *sigh* We followed her to the bar and placed our order. I ordered a paddle (or flight as we call them back home), which was a standard lineup of four of their main beers, but I asked if I could sub out the wheat beer for a cask beer they had on. She said sure. We paid and sat back down.

A few minutes later the beer paddle came out with the wheat beer instead of the cask beer. I pointed out the mistake, and the server took the wheat beer away and brought back the cask. Ahhh, finally! I began imagining how well the beers would go with the loaded fries we ordered.

Thirty minutes later, as I was finishing the last of the beer samples, Bernie flagged down our waitress and asked about the fries. “You didn’t get them?” she inquired. “Nope”, we replied as we looked at the empty table. “I’ll go check on those.” Another 15 minutes and our fries came out. “The cook missed the fries on the order, but he gave you some extra goodies,” our waitress said as she set them on the table.

I have to say, I was a bit flabbergasted by this point. The brewery was not busy, and the waitresses were walking around petting dogs, clearing tables, and doing other small chores to stay occupied. Bernie brought up the lack of a tipping system/culture in Australia as a possible cause. I saw his point, although I have had good service experiences at other Australian restaurants despite the staff not having to earn tips as part of their wages.

In many ways, not tipping feels like a relief, coming from the US, where tipping has run amok and everyone asks for tips for everything. The minimum expectation for sit-down service in Western Washington is 20-25% of your tab, and we often tip 10% for take-out, and $1-2 dollars for a coffee or a beer, which feels like a lot. But clearly, having no (short-term) consequences for bad service can be problematic as well. There’s probably a happy middle-ground somewhere.

January 11, 2025

On Saturday, Bernie, Cherie and I went and spent the day watching my nephew, Ian Holland, play cricket for the Ringwood Cricket Club. Ian plays cricket for Ringwood here in Melbourne during the Australian summer, and for the Leicestershire County Cricket Club in England during summer in the Northern Hemisphere. The Ringwood Rams started out strong and looked like they were headed for a win, but once the first three Ringwood batters bowled out the rest fell pretty quickly.

January 12, 2025

Sunday I got picked up by my niece Briana and her boyfriend Jarred. They brought me back to their house down by the coast in Seaford and we waited for my nephew, Chris, and his girlfriend, Grace, to join us.

What started out as a day at the beach turned out to be a day of rain and thunderstorms, and so ultimately a day of breweries and wineries. We all squeezed into Jarred’s truck and made our way out to Rye Ocean Beach beach on the South end of the peninsula and watched some pretty good surf (because of the storm) and one lone, brave surfer.

We decided to grab lunch at St Andrew’s Beach Brewery nearby. It was pretty busy, but because of the rain we were able to grab an outside table and sit under the umbrella. We had some nice beers and way too much food.

The craft beer scene in the Melbourne area has evolved significantly since I was last here in 2007/2008. Small craft breweries are ubiquitous, with every small town or suburb having at least one or two. The humble Pale Ale seems to be the craft ale of choice here. Pretty much every brewery has one and almost all are very solid. And while IPAs can be found, they are not as common as they are in Washington State, and the occasional West Coast IPA is not as near as bitter as what you would find there.

Our next stop after lunch was Green Olive at Red Hill, a vineyard that also boasts a fine orchard of olive trees, vegetable and herb gardens, and a variety of farm animals and pets. A couple of the farm dogs came in and greeted us as we tasted the wines in our wine paddles (flights).

From Green Olive we headed back West across the peninsula to a spectacular overlook of the bay, and then wound our way back and forth down Arthur’s Seat Road into Seaford. In Seaford we met Bernie and Cherie at Banks Brewery for a quick pot (285 milliliters, or about a half of a pint) of beer before heading back to Jarred and Briana’s place for a dinner of home-made spaghetti and garlic bread (yum)!