I heard the Australians were really into
their coffee, and they are. It may be possible to order a generic,
slopped-out-of-the-carafe, American-style coffee somewhere in this country, but
I have not found it. When you get a coffee here it invariably tastes excellent.
A “flat white,” which seems the closest thing to a regular coffee, is more like
a cappuccino, only it can’t be a cappuccino because that is something else on
the menu. When your coffee arrives you will really enjoy it. But.
You cannot spend a reasonable amount of
money on it, nor can you get it in a hurry. Four dollars will get you a (small)
cup of coffee in a roadside café, and it will take fifteen or twenty minutes.
If you’ve ordered food as well, the coffee will take as long as it takes you to
give up and finish your food. You will never be able to have coffee and food at
the same time. I believe the coffee is considered so important that it must be
savored alone, like a wine tasting, so you’d better have a ton of time on your
hands.
You’d better have a lot of time on your
hands to accomplish anything, actually—it’s just that coffee is the kind of
thing a North American is typically in a hurry for. I realize what I describe
may not be true everywhere in Australia all the time, but in my experience it
is.
Once you’ve had your coffee, look around
for the sharks. They’re everywhere. No, not in the water—Australia has averaged
only one shark fatality per year since the eighteenth century, and if you’ve
heard there’s a cluster of attacks or they’re getting more common, I refer you
to Risk (published in North America
as The Science of Fear) which
explains the misleading-ness of the news cycle, statistics, and hysteria
generally. No, where you’ll find shark most commonly is at the fish and chip
shop. It’s called “flake”—the fish they sell the way the English sell cod—and
it’s delicious. But be warned, it is shark.
We were on our way to Bicheno, a fishing
town on the east coast of Tasmania. We passed Break-Me-Neck and Bust-Me-Gall Hills,
and creeks with names like Wackett and Old Man; even the “Rivulets” are named.
We have guessed that the smallest bodies of water are named so you can identify
where you are on the highway, as often there is no other way to tell.
This country moves at a slow pace
generally. Sometimes, as with the coffee order, it is hard to take, but other
times it is lovely. We made our final turn and had to stop behind a truck, who
knew why? Turns out the driver stopped to let what looked like a very large hedgehog
cross the road. We were delighted, first, that the animal was allowed to live;
second to learn that it was in fact an echidna or spiny anteater, a member of
the monotreme order. In other words, an egg-laying mammal. This was the next
best monotreme to a platypus, which we have not managed to see although they
are supposed to be numerous in a national park near Mackay, the last stop in this chapter. I have always thought that the platypus—a duck-billed, egg-laying
furry mammal—was is proof that God was having fun that day.
Among the walnut orchards en route to
Bicheno the echidna was the most unique animal we saw. Wallabies, with their
pogo-stick ways, and the non-native rabbits have become routine. I was just
happy not to have squashed anything with the car. Even the town bakery appeared to have a
resident chicken pecking around outside, or maybe it was just our lucky day.
Every town has a bakery, no matter how small—goes with the coffee.
The Freycinet Peninsula is a highlight of
the area, and the steep walk up to Wineglass Bay lookout and down to the beach
itself is worth it—supposedly one of the top ten beaches in the world. (Another
will feature in the next breathtaking episode of TDT.) One can take the steep
walk back up, or opt for the much longer roundabout way via Hazards Beach,
which takes you through cool temperate rainforest, along the beach, and up
along rocks overlooking the Tasman Sea. Either way, walking is the only way to
Wineglass Bay and that makes it nice!
Residents take the wildlife for granted, of
course, so we knew the “fairy” penguins that dwell in these southern seas could
not be far away. We waited until dark at the Bicheno Blowhole (that’s well
after 9:00 at this time of year and so far south) and were rewarded by the
emergence of the little penguins scrambling out of the sea. After swimming
around fishing all day, the poor little things looked exhausted and on their
way to nest. I know how they feel...
My animal highlight of the trip so far may
still be the chimpanzees in the Singapore Zoo, as I’d never before seen the
species that shares 99% of its DNA with mankind (the final 1% must be asshole).
The chimps, though, did have the sad disadvantage of not being in their native
environment. Up in Mackay, via Brisbane, I didn’t expect to see much but the
mining and sugar cane industries; yet we were surprised with a great colony of
fruit bats! Flitting around Victoria Street, they may not have the cuteness
appeal of their bird cousins, the smallest penguin species; but we were happy they
sang in our night.
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