It’s been a month since we left New Zealand.  Yet we are still thinking about the perseverance of the Kiwi of Christchurch.  In September of 2010 and again in February of 2011, their city was devastated by earthquakes.  Almost the entire central business district was destroyed.  As you walk around you can see condemned buildings with stores that were left pretty much as they were at the time of the earthquake.  In other parts of the city there are just piles of rubble.  Yet the people have not given up, they are rebuilding.

The plucky spirit of the people of Christchurch was evident in the clerk at the hotel at the base of the ruined cathedral.  We had several heavy bags and there was a set of stairs from the parking lot up to the main entrance of the hotel.  The clerk was a girl no taller or bigger than Lauren.  I told her that I would carry the bags.  She insisted on carrying several pieces of our luggage up the stairs, proudly proclaiming, “I’m a Kiwi, this is what we do.”

All around Christchurch, the Kiwi spirit was evident.  The people of Christchurch built a downtown mall out of metal shipping containers and a cathedral, to replace the namesake Christchurch, out of cardboard tubes sheathed in aluminum roof. They commissioned artworks throughout the city to deal with their loss.  But, while we were there, they were gradually reopening parts of the city, rebuilt to survive an even stronger earthquake that they know is coming.

Did we mention that they have some of the best coffee in the world?

We hope to return to visit the rebuilt Christchurch.

When we were considering this round the world trip, one of the ideas was to do a Self-Fly Safari out of South Africa.  As part of that research I also turned up a Self-fly tour in Australia.  Given the timing of our trip and the amount of time that we would spend in a small airplane, we decided not to make one of the tours a component of this trip.

However, the research into self-fly trips and the idea that I would be away from flying for a year, got me thinking about renting planes along the way.  I focused on Australia as the place to fly.  We would be here for a month and it is a BIG country, about the size of the lower forty-eight.

I don’t know what it’s like for a foreign pilot to fly in the US, but it is not easy for a US pilot to fly in Australia.  I started working on this back in June. Australia’s equivalent of the FAA is CASA. Through numerous phone calls, websites, and discussion boards, I finally determined that I would need a CoV (Certificate of Validation) and an ASIC (Security Clearance).  I was all ready to file the paper work so that I could fly when I got here.  Then I found out that in order to get the CoV I would need to demonstrate English Language Proficiency (ELP) and to get the ASIC I needed to be in Australia, physically.

So while my original plan was to arrive in Sydney and rent a plane for the month, these obstacles dashed that plan as it was unclear how long it would take to get the appropriate licenses in place.  Instead, I opted for a more modest plan of getting the CoV, ASIC and ELP while in Melbourne and then taking a few shorter trips.

The English Language Proficiency test, (Australia doesn’t recognize the FAA English language endorsement for technical reasons) requires you to listen to some air traffic communication and write down what you hear.  I was very nervous about this because I don’t speak Australian, mate.  In a twist of fate, it turns out that they want you to recognize “foreign” accents.  So the test had me listening to English with a Russian accent and a French accent.  Pretty much a no-brainer for a New Yorker.

With the ELP completed, I needed to pass a flying test and get familiar with the area.  I flew twice with Melbourne Flight Training with an instructor and received my necessary sign-offs.

The other component of the Australian licensing process is an ASIC, or airport security clearance.  This has turned out to be a keystone cop episode.  It turns out that like the ELP, you can’t do this until you are in Australia, since they need to perform an “immigration check.”  This is supposed to take two or three days.  Or if it isn’t done in a few days, then maybe a week, or two weeks.  Finally, I got an e-mail saying my ASIC had been rejected, because I had left Australia (which I hadn’t).  A phone call to CASA, one of many, revealed that no, it wasn’t rejected, but instead was on its way to me.  CASA has a separate service that ships out the ASICs.  I called them to get the tracking number.  Unfortunately the letter never showed up in the post office system (auspost.com).  I also checked with the local post office to see if it had arrived there.  After a few days, the ID service decided that they should send out a new one.  Unfortunately by then we would be leaving Melbourne.  Supposedly a new one has been sent to the flying school in Melbourne.   I suspect that they will get it as I board my flight back to the US.

On December 14^th with local training completed and CoV in hand (but no ASIC), we flew from Melbourne to Tasmania.  Our first stop was Flinders Island a small uncontrolled airport.  To get there we needed to fly over water.  I haven’t been over water in a single engine airplane for years.  It is certainly much more reassuring to be in a twin.  Nevertheless, we made it there without incident.  Actually, it was nice to fly in a smaller, slower, high wing plane especially for the scenic views.

The next day we flew to Hobart and had the rare experience of flying into a small airport (Cambridge) with the control tower at the adjacent international airport (Hobart).  After spending two days in Hobart, we flew back to Melbourne overflying western Tasmania and King Island.  We had hoped to stop at King Island, but since the temporary license is only for visual (VFR) flying, I was concerned about getting trapped under the clouds for a few days, so we skipped that stop.  As luck would have it King Island was completely clear as we flew over and could have been a good stop. We landed in Melbourne with the sun setting and the full moon rising.  (See photos in Melbourne post.)

One thing you learn when you fly around Australia is how empty this country is once you get away from the main cities.  In the US there are people and towns almost everywhere, except possibly in some remote sections of Arizona and Nevada.  In Australia, between the main cities there are some small townships, but mostly nothing.  Also if you are traveling around Australia you need to understand that there are four categories of places, the cities/towns, paddocks/fields, the bush and the outback.  The outback is essentially desert (see the pictures of Ayers Rock/Uluru) and the bush is everything else.  This country is mostly bush and outback.

——–

We flew in a Cessna 172 on today’s Sydney Harbor flight.  (See photos) For the girls who are used to flying in our twin engine six-seater, the four seat single engine cessna looked a bit rickety but they were game anyway.  We all climbed into the plane with our life jackets secured around our waists.  A portion of the flight is over water at 500 ft and Australian regulations require life jackets for such flights.

I don’t often think of Australia of having a rugged coast, but near Sydney there are impressive cliffs overlooking the ocean.  Our beautiful 1.2 hour flight used about 12 gallons of fuel (which is purchased in liters).

–Another whole blog could be devoted to the English vs. the metric system.  But I should note that the English use the metric system!  The American’s are the only holdouts with inches, yards, ounces and pounds.

With this flight, my Australian flying for this trip comes to an end but I hope to fly here again.

I need to thank the many people who helped me along the way:

Everyone at Paramus Flying Club, especially Tomoharu for training me in the G1000 C172s.

The Australian Embassy for notarizing all of the documents.

Kreisha of AOPA Australia for an excellent and inspirational blog as well as much useful information.

Pete of the AOPA USA

Clare of Air Safaris International, who provided much insight on flying in Australia.

Everyone at CASA, especially Stephen, who clarified what I needed to do to get the license and Donna, who sent me the CoV so promptly.

I would also like to thank about a dozen people at AusPost.  They didn’t find my ASIC, but they were helpful and cheerful none-the-less.

Special thanks to Glen, chief pilot at Melbourne Flight Training and my incredible instructor Rishi, who taught me about flying in Australia.  As a result of the training, I was able to get weather, understand the local charts/maps, file a flight notification, fly out of a controlled airport, get over-water monitoring (called Skeds) and do it all safely and with confidence.

We were told not to go.

Summer temperature at Alice Springs normally reaches the 40s (104+).  Getting there by car or even by Air Andy (small plane), was out of the question.  The distance from Alice Springs to Melbourne is 2255 km or 1401 miles.  It would be like driving from NYC to Key West but the landscape would be full desert for nearly all of it.

It really is in the middle of nowhere.

Andy and the girls weren’t all that eager to make the journey – leave lovely Melbourne where we promised to stay put (generally) and travel to the Australian desert (“the Outback”) in sweltering heat just to see a ROCK?

Yep.

Andy came around to the idea after unseasonably mild weather was forecast for Alice Springs (only 27 degrees!).  We got Quantas flights and inexpensive hotels lined up and before the girls could protest further, we were off!

Andy and I had read Bill Bryson’s novel on Australia, A Sunburned Country, as our companion book for Australia.  It is a informative and very witty travelogue.  From it and our trusty National Geographic travel guide we decided to fly all the way to the airport closest to Uluru, then drive to Alice Springs for the return flight to Melbourne.  We arrived at our hotel in time to take a dip in the pool, before setting out for Uluru (the preferred Aboriginal name for what the early settlers called Ayers Rock).  We took a short walk at the base of Uluru, where we walked into a cave where women taught girls the skills to survive in an unforgiving desert and see cave drawings, swatting flies as we went.  As the time for sunset neared the sky was clouding up considerably but we made our way to the Sunset Viewing Area and waited.  We set up our picnic, the girls hopped up on the roof of our car, and all of us snapped pictures of “the rock” which was looking dark.  A few fellow viewers gave up on the sunset but we stayed on.  My gut instinct was that the rock would light up once the sun dipped below the clouds. Luckily, that proved to be the case.  Lauren took the best of our photos, as you will see.

We talked a bit about the role of Uluru in the culture of the Aboriginal people – its shape and markings are evidence of their creation story and as such is a sacred place, akin to the Temple Mount in Jerusalem.   We talked a little too about the similarities between Aboriginal and Native American notions of land and property.  Uluru “belongs” to the Aboriginal people and is leased back to the Australian government.  But like the Native Americans, the notion of land ownership is a foreign concept:  one belongs to the land, not the other way around.

In the end, all of us were moved by THE ROCK; though the girls maintain that I was moved most.  And I probably was.  I can’t describe it so I’m taking an easy way out and giving you an excerpt from Bryson’s book:

“You realize that you could spend quite a lot of time — possibly a worryingly large amount of time; possibly a sell-your-house-and-move-here-to-live-in-a-tent amount of time — just looking at the rock, gazing at it from many angles, never tiring of it.  You can see yourself in a silvery ponytail, barefoot, and in something jangly and loose-fitting, hanging out with much younger visitors and telling them, And the amazing thing is that every day it’s different, you know what I’m saying? It’s never the same rock twice.  That’s right, my friend–you put your finger on it there.  It’s awesome.  It’s an awesome thing. Say, do you by any chance have any dope or some spare change?”

It was Friday morning here in Melbourne when we got the NYTimes Alert: Nelson Mandela, South African Icon of Peaceful Resistance, Is Dead.

Like many of my generation, my first public protest was against apartheid. I was a student at the University of San Francisco, a small and wonderful Jesuit university not far from the Haight-Ashbury. The whole notion of protesting was a bit “left” of where I stood at the time so I confess that going to protest was not my idea. My dear college friend Jane O. insisted we go. She was from Washington DC and stood further to the left in almost all things. It was a fairly small protest as we did not have the numbers to match protests reported at Cal or Stanford; but it was meaningful. “Divestiture” was on several signs.

Before that night, I hadn’t given any thought to how the University was being managed. Afterwards…I became deeply involved. The student body president at the time was Paul Smith. No idea where he’s landed but I can tell you he worked tirelessly to ensure that the USF portfolio would be divested of South African investments. Universities needed to be ethical institutions not only in its teaching but in its practices. Paul encouraged each of us to stand up to, and where necessary, independently audit the leadership. In the end, the University was the better for it. Today, the students are petitioning the University to divest itself from fossil fuel companies. The arguments now are the same as those we faced before – they are illiquid assets, there is a steep penalty for divestiture, there are no other investment alternatives. But the students are clear in their convictions and the spirit of peaceful protest continues. Mandela lives on.

K

Thanks to all for the warm wishes to Lauren on her birthday!  Here are a few photos. She spent the day texting, talking, doing handstands in the infinity pool of her choice, making underwater films, and reading her book.

Oh the places….

Chiang Mai, Nov 4-13

I had read about so many activities in this area and settled on just one absolute must. The Patara Elephant Farm which we already wrote about. It was a glorious experience. The rest we would decide over breakfast each day I thought – we had a car, we had flexibility so no problem. The logistics hitch meant that we didn’t make the drive up to the Golden Triangle and Chiang Rai so that meant ten days without packing bags. The staff and the pool at Ping Nakara were so nice that we hardly wanted to leave and the town of Chiang Mai offered up plenty to do.

One day we explored the walled city and the wats and chedi located there. The girls are getting tired of temples and have estimated their total Buddha sightings at 30,000+

One day we drove around looking for the arts and crafts villages.  We went to the celadon pottery place where Rose quickly threw a pot together.  We went looking for the silk worm factory – we got lost, found some umbrella shops, and then finally found the silk worms and watched them for 2 minutes, back to the pool. Perfect. The girls were getting caught up on schoolwork (yes, their online school has assignments and grades – they are both doing well, thank you) and Andy and I were exploring the town.

One day we went to Tiger Kingdom. It is wrong on so many levels but, hey, let’s put that aside for a photo op. Completely against all that we learned from Patara. Because we had read that tigers had attacked people here (one Utube video was outright false but still), we didn’t allow the girls to go in with the big tigers for safety and they agreed they would just go in with the little ones. We all went in, Andy to take photos and the three of us because we were curious to touch and pet a tiger!

The little cubs were cute and playful. They seemed happy enough even when the “trainer” pulled their tails to get them into position for photos. We got our 10 minutes and our photos and walked around to see the rest of the place. The larger tigers were in small cages. All of them seemed to be sleeping. The ones that were out were being poked and toyed with just enough to keep the animal from noticing the people laying on their backsides. Some of the sleeping tigers were also lain on and photographed. These were massive tigers. We hear that they are likely drugged. The whole thing was sad.

Just outside the gates though the girls went Zorking – is that even how one refers to such a thing? I’ll have to check with Utubers Jack and Finn, or One Direction. Anyway, it’s like a hamster ball but it’s larger and you put your kids inside. There is air for 10 minutes and they run inside like hamsters while the ball floats on the pond or lake. It was hilarious. We have video which we will blackmail them with when they are older.

One day, my kind family, rose at 5am to accompany me on a birding trip. Since the second grade birding study, I have been interested in birds. It’s not even that I want to become that knowledgeable, I just like the activity of the early morning and the different colors and calls. And I hadn’t really planned to go birding here at all; didn’t even bring binoculars. Andy found a tour company, driver, and local birding guide and so we were off! Randy, Jackie and Boon. Randy was hilarious – a former missionary to remote northern Thailand villages in the 70s he now runs a tour company. He takes you places the tourists haven’t spoiled yet and has lots of stories about everything from opium smuggling in the 70s-80s to wealthy monks (the kind with G4s) to local customs. Jackie made origami stars, frogs and birds out of leaves when he wasn’t driving and gave them to the girls. Boon would find and identify the birds and if we hadn’t cried “uncle” after several hours, we would have continued until dark!  We stopped at 47 species.

One day, Rose and I went to cooking school. We spent a morning exploring a small local market and then cooking on a well designed veranda with several cooktops. Pan showed us how to make the best Thai BBQ chicken and next summer when we invade the beach homes of friends and family we will make it for you! Rose was excellent in the kitchen and made the same four courses that I did. Thai BBQ chicken, green papaya salad, clear soup with pork, spicy pork salad. (I guess most of you knew already that we don’t keep kosher.)

Almost every day we swam laps in the pool. The girls are up to $144 in lap earnings. It started in Carmel Valley where mom and Doug have a full 25 meter pool – it’s brisk but it’s perfect. For each lap, single length, I award 50cents spending money. As the pools are smaller in most hotels, they have to do a full lap, double length. As for me, I am trying to get back in shape after two years without my water aerobics or yoga classes. Two years of sitting on my butt really. And, gosh, I don’t know why but I can’t see any progress.  Shouldn’t ten days of daily swimming be enough to morph back into my former fit self?

p.s. If you comment truthfully on this topic, anything like “I told you to come with me to Soul Cycle/bikrum/bootcamp/barre/asphalt”, I will turn off the wordpress Comments  function 🙂

This is the lovely pool and staff at Ping Nakara.

So ultimately, we said – and this is Lauren’s pun – Chiang bye to Chiang Mai and set off for Lauren’s birthday excursion to Yao Noi, near Phuket….