January 15, 2005 - Auckland, New Zealand

Goodbye Australia!

If you saw the movie Finding Nemo, our Australia trip followed the plot backwards: We started at Sydney Harbour (where the dentist's office is), continued up north against the East Australian Current, and ended up on Nemo's doorstep. At the very end of our last dive on the Great Barrier Reef - about 5 minutes before we headed back to the pontoon boat - we spotted a 7-inch clown fish hiding all by himself in an anemone. Once in a while he would get bold and venture two inches from his hide-away. We goofed on how timid he was - until we turned around to swim back to the boat and came face to face with the reef shark. Guess Nemo knew what he was doing.

Here are some random musings and footnotes on our Aussie experience...
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To express Sydney as a North American mathematical equation:

Sydney = (Seattle x San Diego) / Toronto

Surprisingly, there seemed to be much greater American influence than British on culture, food, architecture, etc. Boys and Girls go to separate schools until age 18, but all of the pop culture - music, tv, movies - is American.

Footnote: We met dozens of transplanted Brits. This wreaked havoc on my accent detect-o-meter - after a week or so, I realized most accents are somewhere in between Australian and British and very few are "pure." Throw a New Zealander into the mix and my head explodes. Most of the Australian accent is a cadence rather than pronunciations.
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Team Birkhead Aussie Beer Rankings

5. Toohey's New Draught
4. (tie) Victoria Bitter and Cascade Premium
3. James Boag's
2. Crown Lager
1. XXXX Gold Lager - (best when cold)

Did not make the list: Hahn Premium & Lite, Carlton Cold, Coopers, Squire (but only because we didn't try it)

Footnote1: Foster's is hard to find - we only saw it once or twice.
Footnote2: Many of the beers on the list are owned by Carlton.
Footnote3: Foreign beers are more popular than Australian beers. Corona, Heineken, and Stella Artois are the hands-down champs, offered on every menu.
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Mrs. Birk's Aussie Architecture Rankings
5. Sydney space needle
4. Olympic stadium
3. Tunnels and roadways built for Olympics
2. Sydney Harbour Bridge
1. Sydney Opera House
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Mr. Birk's Assessment of Aussie Sports Popularity
5. Basketball
4. International cricket
3. Tennis
2. National rugby
1. International rugby

Footnote: Aussie Rules football has fallen off the charts. And soccer's not really all that big. Golf is probably #6.
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Cars
The only American cars prevalent on the road are Fords (they have a couple of manufacturing plants here). But as Jeep owners, it was interesting to see the popularity of Wranglers. Toyota, Suburu and Honda were also everywhere, definitely the dominant brands along with Ford. Holdens were all around, and were made in Australia. No shortage of BMers and Mercedes either, but mostly the cheaper sedan versions. Shocked to see no VWs or bugs, but we were told they are around.
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Internet
Score: 2 out of 10
This must be said: Australia is not yet caught up to the Internet era. I'm shocked I tell you! Shocked and amazed! You know you're in trouble when you ask for Internet access in a major metro location and they hand you a phone cord. Even high-speed was oddly slow - maybe a trans-ocean issue?
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Food
Score: 9 out of 10
Spectacular. Mother England, take note. This is how it's done. Even the stands with saran-wrapped sandwiches have high standards for food. We were almost never disappointed in the best restaurants, especially with seafood. But we also had excellent Italian, Asian and French, several times each. Footnote: The people here are in the best physical condition of any country you'll ever see. Almost no one (under the age of 65) is obese. But they must workout after dinner, because they do love their fried food. We saw more than one heaping helping of Aussie chips.
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People
Score: 10 out of 10
My theory - since almost all Australians live on the coast (no one lives in the middle, remember?) it's like one giant, friendly beach community.

Footnote1: They have the opportunity to break away from the UK a la Hong Kong, but keep resisting because they like the deep pockets of the crown. Tough call, but you'd think they would psychologically opt for independence.
Footnote2: Aussie's scored huge points with us for their over-the-top commitment to protecting the environment and the ocean. Public policy trickled all the way down to recycling laws, two options for toilet flushing (liquids and other), and of course "don't EVER touch the coral." One local saying goes something like "you can get away with killing a person, but don't touch our trees!"
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Tourists
In Sydney: 80% Asian, 10% UK, 10% other. Asian visitors were primarily Japan, Korea, and Indonesia/Malaysia/Thailand. Some Chinese.
In Brizzie and the Reef Islands: UK, Canada, USA. Not many Asians at all.
Footnote: We saw 4 or 5 black people on the entire trip - not including the Aborigines playing their digiridoo-hickeys on the wharf.
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Yankees Down Under
The final logo tally for Australia was Yanks 35 - Sox 12, more like a football score. Maybe we'll do better in New Zealand? Here's my rationale in a losing effort: People wear the Yankee logo in cosmopolitan cities, kind of like they wear Polo or Gucci. Teenage girls made up most of the winning margin. In fact, several of the people I asked about it (I couldn't resist asking of course) knew it had to do with New York City but didn't know it was a baseball team (or in a couple of cases, didn't know what baseball was).

There was a 2nd factor as well - Japanese people wearing the caps in honor of their man Matsui. Side note: the Sox finished a solid 2nd among all major sports teams. In fact the only logo we saw twice was the LA Lakers. And we only saw about about 20 logos over all. The plus side: All 12 Sox logo wearers bled Curt Schilling Red... so I made some new friends!