Re-Entry

Early on in our trip cruising around New Zealand pre-V crisis, we enjoyed The Lord of the Rings triology. These movies we binge watched on the TV in our cabin. We visited where parts were created at the Weta workshop, and also where it was filmed outside on site at Hobbiton, all captured on a previous blog. One quote I’ve heard mentioned that hits us all now is when Frodo says, “I wish it need not have happened in my time?” In response came the perspective of the wise old, wizard, Gandalf: “So do I, and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for us to decide. We all have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”

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The last few days were lovely. Rainbows led to clear skies and a beautiful view from our home over the last 11 days in our rental in Gnarabup. The last week was food, wine and packing. Six bags went on ahead by luggage forward and would be waiting for us in our front entry and 8 bags including our wine bag and guitar had to be equally distributed by weight. Oh fun!

For our last hurrah’s we had one of our best evening meals at Morries in downtown Margaret River. Tapas and drinks. It was a repeat of our dinner with Bob Anderson in October – delightful! At that time we knew we wanted to visit Margaret River for an extended period of time…never dreaming it would happen in less than six months and we are able totally absorb what Margs has to offer. The food, the wine, the geology, the people. Every bit delightful!

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The next morning Larkin and I were able to visit Lake Cave and walk down its over 300 stairs which of course we had to climb back up! My legs didn’t hurt the next day thank goodness! Our very last dinner was take out burgers and pizza from The Common Bistro a few blocks away in Gnarabup. Our last lunch was a beautiful meal at Millbrook Winery which was only 30 minutes from the Perth airport. We took the long way enjoying the hills above Perth on our way to get to the airport before sunset.

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So for now, we  have returned to the United States, or at least until the Virus has a vaccine or becomes more manageable (but who knows where else life might take us then). We loved our time in Australia and we’re ready to head back when we are allowed to visit again. We needed to finally get home and for Larkin to get back to normality at Colorado School Of Mines for her last year of her Masters in Mining.

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But now there is that re-entry shock that we’ve been going through…

What is new at home…trying to realize I must stay on the right side of the street as I did all the driving for three months! I became very aware of the footprint of our Toyota rental car as well as the roads and really enjoyed our jaunts up and down the Margaret River wine country. Don’t get me started on windshield wipers and turn lanes. I wonder how long that adjustment will take!

The toilets in Oz flush by pushing a button on the top of the toilet and if they leak you have to take the button off first and not try to take the entire unit off. I actually think our American toilets are so much easier to fix. Every time I head to the toilet I’m trying to find the button on the top. Like the left side of the street it might take some time.

American is Ameri-centric – like we are taught that China is China-centric. I think both countries think the world revolves around them. You can’t miss that fact when you watch our US TV networks. In Australia we became accustomed to watching only about an hour of news in the evening to catch all the Aussie and world news. Lots of British news and European news along with what was happening in the USA. More worldly information than we would ever see in the states on a local network. The ads were delightful from water systems for farms or the “west Aussie wave” which is when you tell people thank you or you let people cross the street in front of you or you accidentally pull out in front of someone you wave to say sorry. American’s would wave something else at them that wouldn’t include all 5 fingers.

The Western Australian Premier Mark McGowan when asked about a tv report on the hair style mullets and should they be allowed in schools said, “Rise up and rebel!” As in you have the right! If our rebellions were only that easy! Our last week they announced the candidates for Lord Mayor of Perth and the local channel 7 sports announcer, Basil Zempilas, is in the running. I recognized his face and of course his voice. I don’t know of too many sports announcers in America that would consider getting into politics! Go Footy! I will miss Australian Football as it is the most exciting sports game I’ve watched…a cross between rugby, soccer and American football with the speed of basketball games. Exhilerating! Go Eagles or Dockers or even Geelong Cats!

Most of our friends still wonder why we’d leave a state of nirvana in Western Australia to come back to the USA. We wonder that ourselves as we see how polarized Americans are in this new century. The worst is this an election year and if you put an American Democrat and an American Republican into a room alone together (or even a facebook forum) and give them only the opportunity to discuss politics, you can watch them boil at the mere thought of what the other is saying. They can’t just sit there and hear each other out without finding a reason to get upset, and they begin preaching at the other for thinking the way that they do. They’ll try to change the other person’s opinion in that one discussion, instead of just listening and learning from each other. Its like we as American’s have freedom of speech but only if it is your side…We saw none of this in Australia. We noted a few Aussies who we thought were conservative and a few who seem to be more liberal but we couldn’t even put a name or political party to anyone as they don’t discuss things in the same way. Thank goodness!

During our entire stay in Western Australia I probably saw 3-4 people who were very overweight and only saw a handful ever smoke a cigarette. It was pleasantly surprising. Americans get to watch Weight Watchers or Jenny Craig – Australians just have fun commercials. If you want a large drink it might be 12 ounces if your lucky. Their servings are much more reasonable calorie wise than American super sized meals and drinks. How refreshing!

We miss being in Western Australia — It’s a beautiful state in a beautiful country. But it’s better for us to be back at Dillon Beach as the Covid- 19 virus keeps spreading world-wide. We were happy to be able to get on a Qatar flight through Doha, Qatar to LAX. Qatar does a delightful job of the pre-flight demonstration using soccer plays in their locker room. They use Qatar’s beautiful burgundy colors. We had a gorgeous sunrise as we flew into hot and humid Doha the capital of Qatar. Its was 5:00 am and we had to traipsie down stairs and into a bus to be taken to the terminal. Once inside everyone had masks and many had face shields on. This airport is busy trying to get people repatriated across the globe. We much appreciated their hospitality and their flights. On the way to LAX we flew over Greenland and the north pole. Yes, that is the quickest way to LAX from the Gulf.

We’ve been home a week and have only ventured out for food with masks when needed. We can now enjoy 15 year old Emma our Pumi in her blindness and deafness and walking into walls and then I can talk to mom in the same time zone while enjoying our Dillon Beach foggy views. We can order from Amazon and expect shipments within the week. We can wave at friends and neighbors we have missed when we see them on the streets!

Here are a few of those things that I’ve noted since I’ve been home…

When I try to smile now, I realize it might affect my body but the minute I look at another’s face with these darn mask’s on I notice their eyes might be smiling but you can’t tell. The whole covid thing has changed how we interact. I miss not having to wear a mask in WA!

People don’t realize how big Australia is or the fact that it is as much of a country of immigrants as the United States. Its almost just as big as America in size but less than a tenth the population and those folks live mostly around the coast line. Western Australia is the step child of Australia even though they bring the most money into the country via mining. We noticed there are many eastern Europeans who are mostly backpackers, many Europeans from Italy and Spain immigrated beginning at the turn of the last century, Asians from all countries are now citizens (many wealthy Chinese traveled to Australia pre-covid and they were highly catered to), plenty of United Kingdom immigrants including Scotland, Wales and Ireland as well as Canadians and Indians from the common wealth. There are even many New Zealanders that have headed across the Tasman Sea. They have the same issues with Black lives only their black lives are the native Australian aboriginals and if you think we were bad with native American’s, you should check out their history which was even more violent.

If you hear Victoria is quarantining because of covid – that is one of only 6 states. New South Wales, think Sydney; Queensland, think Brisbane and Cairns and the Gold Coast; South Australia, think Adelaide and some wine valleys like Barossa, McLaren Vale and Clare Valley; Tasmania with Hobart and Burnie and great Pinot Noir’s; and Western Australia with Perth and our Margaret River. They have only three territories which include the Northern Territory with Darwin, ACT with the Capital city of Canberra which is the capital territory which includes Jarvis Bay Territory which is some how a part of ACT and gives water/coastal access to ACT – why? who knows?

Because Western Australia has kept its borders closed tight, they have no Covid virus. We as American’s would cry Communism…as do some WAers but at the same time they are all smiling because they have NO covid and are free do do anything they want as long as they stay within the state. For about 6 weeks you couldn’t even cross many shire (county) lines. Now, if they are allowed to leave the country they must pay for a 14 day quarantine when they return. FIFO or fly in fly out have work exceptions but are always tested for covid and quarantined. They know when they leave they do not have it. Our first flight to Doha felt totally safe because there is no covid in WA and the flight attendants all wore masks and cleaned the restrooms at every opportunity. The flight was about half full which also made it feel safer.

FYI – For those in Victoria who want to flee into South Australia to get away from the expanding virus, they can expect a holiday at Her Majesty’s pleasure. The government introduced legislation to parliament to include a two year jail term if they are caught. They are serious about this virus.

I learned by living in Australia that as an American we lack knowledge about the geography of most of the world. That might be most people in most countries. Would we judge Western Australia for seemingly being backwater and communist to deal with Covid – but were they really? Travel does open up ones eyes to the rest of the world. You only understand another country by living in it for a period of time. We now feel blessed to have been able to call Margaret River home for almost four months and it has made us appreciate the Aussies and their way of life and their daily inherent happiness.

Even though we have always heard about the deadly beasts of Australia, we only heard about the brown snakes during our time in WA and the name sounds innocuous like our garden snakes but they are not. They are the 2nd most venomous snakes in the world. When they bite, they will inflict a terrible pain that’ll make you double-over, crap your pants, paralyze you, and, eventually (if untreated), kill you.

Cutest story was a man the last week we were there was pulled over on a highway (we are not sure where this was in the country) at an ungodly speed. When they finally caught up with him, he blamed the brown snake. Yeah right, what an excuse! When they saw it in his truck, they let him off with a warning. We were laughing so hard but its not a laughing matter. We thought we would have thrown the brakes on and jumped out of the truck!

We know in Australia, you can die by Crocodiles, blue ring octopus (no antivenom and you seldom know you’ve been bit until you are about to die), the box jellyfish- if you’re STILL thinking about taking a dip in the alluring, blue waters off eastern Australia, this spineless, floating pain-palace will put the brakes on that plan. They are extremely venomous whose complete insouciance and disregard for life would make a grown man cry. It’ll sting you, realize it can’t eat you, then just keep swimming around you. What makes this species even more dangerous is the fact that they hunt their prey (unlike most jellies, which just drift aimlessly into their dinners) and they have short-term memory issues, so after stinging you once they’ll do so again JUST BECAUSE. When we were watching the BONDI tv series (a nightly occurrence along with repeat NCIS shows), they would put up notices about jellyfish in the water along the beach. The screams of those who go to the lifeguards for help after being stung is not a pleasant sound!

Other deadly creatures that we never noted in WA were the Giant centipede which seems to be the insect spawn of Satan – naturally equipped with a pair of venomous claws that sting its victims, because having scores of legs running haphazardly in no particular direction isn’t terrifying enough. If they develop wings one day through some sort of sorcery, which may just happen in Australia, we might be safer in outer space!

In the Cape, the only thing we could have been afraid of seems to have been the sharks. I shared the shark alarm system photo which thankful was never used while we were there. Many people were able to see whales as the migrated from the Southern Ocean into the tropics. We missed any of these sightings, sigh!

Okay so we don’t miss deadly creatures but we do miss our Kangaroos and Quokka’s! We definitely miss the big waves along the Cape to Cape coast and the surfers heading to their best waves.

We miss all our dog friends along our journey including Elsa:

We will miss all our new friends from Michael’s cousins friend Kara and her husband Gary, to winery friends Rob at Firetail and Bruce at Domaine Naturalist to Lake Tahoe nomads Julie and David and even our Cowaramup – Two Moody Cow friend Jody or Connor the barista from Missouri!

We miss the bikes we crossed!

We will miss the birds, their colors and their individual personalities!

We will miss the beach walks often with the sunsets!

We will miss the food at all the wonderful winery restaurants and the restaurants in the town of Margaret River.

We will miss the wonderfully affordable fabulous wines! We did a couple of blind tastings one for Semillon and one for Cabernet Sauvignon. We added a Domaine Naturalist to our Cabernet Sauvignon tasting after I took the photo. Each and every wine was yummy and we’d be thrilled if you brought any of these to our home for dinner when the covid scare is over! We will miss the screw caps for our wines. A few of their top Cabernet’s are still corked. We met one cellar door lady who mentioned one night she had friends over and they had a wine with a cork, the only way to open it was a screw driver. I think the rest of the world is on to something! Screw caps unite Premier McGowan!

…and of course our sunsets in Margs! Fogust at Dillon Beach just doesn’t offer these clouds or any vision of the horizon for a sunset!

There’s something about the social in “social distancing” that seems difficult to understand around the world. …and with that I leave…

We will enjoy our Exile for as long as it takes to tame this virus! Thanks to all of our friends for supporting us and reading about our adventures. When I finally get around to it, there will be another blog on the history of wine in the Margaret River!

But for now…may rainbows grace your days after the thunderstorms pass as you isolate due to covid!