On to Queensland

  Brisbane, Australia
Wednesday, June 19, 1985

I woke up early to a beautiful sunrise. But though the sky was clear, everything was soaked. We were so grateful for the tarp. We hung the rain-fly out to dry in the sun, and later we moved the tents out to the dock (which I then babysat and rotated). The sheepskins stayed dry, except for the hide of one of the Bruces. While we waited for coffee water in the cookhouse, Mum and I had an interesting chat with a local. We asked him about the strange, brown deerlike creatures, and he said that they couldn't be deer as he would have definitely heard about it. Apparently, however, New Zealanders are beginning to raise deer. He seemed to indicate that initially the venison provided the motive, but that recently the market (West Germany) had all but disappeared. When the deer were foraging on and destroying the native forests, the meat had a definite venison flavour. However, when farmers began raising them, and feeding grains to the deer, the meat flavour changed to be like beef. Hence the lack of interest in the meat. But the deer are still profitable as the velvet off the antlers is prized by various Asian cultures. Someone else told us that the opposite was true - the deer are raised primarily for their antlers and the meat is a side market.

But back to matters at hand. We all soon gathered in the cookhouse for breakfast, which consisted of coffee and soft boiled eggs. While waiting for it all to heat, we were visited by some rather odd birds called "pucakos." They were not exactly friendly creatures, and flew away when we tried to photograph them.

After breakfast, we packaged up our purchases to be posted. It was really quite a challenge to make the parcels small and post-able. After all that was done, we packed and put away the tents, said good-bye to the kitties, stuffed everything into the car, and headed directly for the post office. We sent everything by surface. The people in the post office were quite polite and didn't even flinch when we appeared. The only odd thing was that Mum and I filled out customs forms while the Bruces didn't have to. (Maybe Alaska doesn't count.)

After our visit to the post office, we began the return drive to Auckland. The weather started sunny and clear, but soon began to grow cloudy. We stopped along the beach for a
Vegetable/fruit/bread and cheese lunch, but almost no sooner had we gotten everything out than the rain came. It rained fairly hard but not for long. We were soon back outside, feeding these little birds. They were actually very friendly, and ate right out of one's hand. But they were soon send away by some magpies. These magpies were quite attractive black and white birds, but they had an obnoxious call. They, too, were friendly enough to pick out of a hand, but were quite wary and would dash away almost instantly. We stayed and fed magpies and saw the sights for a little while, but soon it was time to move on. (Sounds like an old Western, what?)

I navigated us flawlessly back to the car rental motel, which was quite easy considering the last ten km had airplane arrows pointing the way. Mum drove to fill petrol while Sally, Dick and I repacked the bags. The Newman's guy (who also seemed to run the motel) drove us to the airport in his station wagon. He was a rather talkative fellow, and told us all about his Grand Scheme to take water from New Zealand fjords, fill it into surplus oil tankers, and send it off to Saudi Arabia. The only thing that stopped the plan, he claimed, were the silly environmentalists. Alas! We didn't have long in the Auckland airport, but we did find time to buy some Drambuie and Grand Marnier.

The flight to Brisbane was quite crowded, and the four of us took center seats together. There was a family who sat in front of us with an adorable kid that played peek-a-boo with Dick and Gumby. We talked for a while with the father, an Aussie, too. The flight, other than that was fairly uneventful. The passage was remarkably smooth. Rock solid.

We arrived in Brisbane shortly after dusk. Once again, we were fumigated. Finally, we were allowed to disembark. My seventh continent! We felt so pleased with ourselves. So pleased, in fact, that Mum left the Drambuie and Grand Marnier on board. She rushed back and managed to rescue it, but meant that we were nearly last through agriculture, immigration, and customs. It was very slow. And rather amusing as no one seemed to know quite what to do with our bread, and kept referring us to others. The final customs officer, it turned out, wasn't at all interested. And so we kept our bread. It took us awhile to get our car, which turned out to be this horrible make of a Ford. The window wouldn't unroll properly - it kept getting crooked and one had to help it, plus it had this terribly complex ventilation system that I never quite figured out. It also had very large headrests, which made viewing from the backseat difficult. However, we did manage to get all of our stuff in, with room to spare.

Driving away from the airport, we had a bit of a time finding the Bruce highway north. We, at first, were driving through unlit industrial fields. We did manage, however, to find our road. It had new and unusual things like kangaroo crossing signs, and 100 mph speed limit signs. About a half hour onto the highway we found a caravan park. It didn't take us too long before the tents were up and we had gone to sleep.

Mount Ngauruhoe, New Zealand

Postcard to Paul: We're on our way off New Zealand for a while. We camped last night along the beach. It was a bit cold, but we were well insulated. I'm posting a gift home to you surface ... so keep your eyes peeled, though it may be a while.

Letter: I've been writing almost this entire trip from Auckland to Brisbane attempting to catch up on my trip journal. It hasn't been easy. This has been a very full and exciting trip so far (did I only leave five days ago?) In fact, given the location of the International Date Line, it may have been even less than that. Our brief stay in New Zealand was rather fun, though we spent most of our time traipsing about Auckland. New Zealand is such a beautiful country! I can hardly wait to return. Anyway, we camped in a fairly wet though lovely area. We had purchased several sheepskin rugs, and used them for insulation ... so we slept warmly. It took until about 11.00h the next morning to dry the tents out, though. But it was a nice place to stay. The New Zealand concept of camping seems to differ from ours. The ground (which I measured at holding three comfortable sites) were marked for 121. (Yes, you read that right.) The area also included a cookhouse (with electric heating pads, sinks, and an icebox) and a "television room" (theater-like seats and "SEX" written all over the walls). To each his own, perhaps? Fortunately, this being winter, we were the only ones camping, although there were quite a few trailers parked in and about the area. They also had a swing set, which was too wet to use.

Now I've seen Fiji and am about to add by seventh and final continent!