Brambuk Aboriginal Cultural center & Bush Tucker Cafe: Halls Gap, Victoria, Australia

Brambuk National Park & cultural centre is about a 3 to 4 hour drive away from Melbourne, and a 5 hour drive away from Adelaide, so if you haven’t made the effort to road trip between the two (or live in the area), odds are you’ll miss this National Park. Along with the natural wonders of the place, and a host of optional activities (which I will discuss elsewhere), there is a must see but ultimately highly disappointing Aboriginal cultural center, a really wonderful little cafe with very unusual foods, and of course a pretty good gift shop.

From my first days of planning my trip to Ballarat, my friend who was hosting me had been describing this place to me, and it was one of the things I insisted we had to do, in SPITE of the fact that I was pretty much laid up because of the sever concussion I had suffered not two weeks before.

They have a large selection of gelato available in flavors native to Australia fruits and spices… Golden Wattle seed, Quandong fruit, Strawberry Gum, Desert lime, Macadamia nut (which is actually native to Australia, not Hawaii), Riberry and Davidson Plum

As part of my experiencing Australian pies, I ordered a “Skippy” pie (you have to love the perversity of Aussie humor — check the link), which I shared with my friends (one of whom at 99% of the chips… I only ate two)

we passed on the Lemon Myrtle scones and instead opted for the Wattleseed Damper w/Quandong & Peach Jam and Wattleseed cream (because I had no idea what a Damper was). After checking out their menu, we decided to go for the Bush Food Platter

which had a little bit of everything (Kangaroo, Emu sausages, Crocodile, Wild Duck (Australia has a few different breeds, they never told us which one we were eating), 2 Bush Food Chutney’s (again we never found out which flavors) & a Garden Salad w/Bush Tomato & Balsamic Dressing) which is intended for two people, so we shared it between us. DEFINITELY worth trying, if only for all the new flavors. (see below for what some of these things look like)

some of the spices and seeds mentioned above

While waiting for our food we raided the gift shop, which had a very good selection of items (many of which were made by Aboriginals with the proceeds going to them).

At first I thought left versus right-handed boomerangs was a joke on the tourists, but no, apparently they need to be designed differently. That said, I was tempted to buy this map of Australia (below) showing all the native tribal lands… but didn’t.

Once done at the first building you walk down a path to the cultural center

The real disappointment of this visit was the thing that should have been the star, the cultural center. Even though pretty much all they have in there is photographs, we weren’t allowed to take any. There was a movie on Aboriginal culture but you had to pay to see it (and it wasn’t cheap, so we skipped it).

According to their website’s description, “The Brambuk Cultural Centre is the longest running cultural centre still operated by Aboriginal people. Come here to explore the culture, its traditions and various multi-award winning architectural establishments.” So, you’d think this would be a place where politically motivated local Aboriginals would choose to work in order to teach interested visitors about the grandeur of their own culture, and share their love of their own history.

But here’s the thing… the odds are when you get there, you won’t spot a single Aboriginal … not even one with an ancestor four generations back so that all of the distinctive, but also highly recessive, genetic traits have been bred out — lord knows we didn’t find any (and we asked).

[Rant: Firstly, let’s keep in mind that I have spent months of my life, studying, living and working on the Navajo reservation, and to this day still maintain some VERY close friendships with Native Americans I met during that period of my life who are to this day deeply involved with trying to improve things for their people. What I am not is a knee jerk liberal who attends protests and talks the talk, but has never spent more than a day or two being a tourist among said people, and has therefore never really walked the walk, let alone never spent any real-time talking to said people, whose rights they are so moved to protect; and hence doesn’t even really know who they are let alone understand their problems, and what these people might want for themselves vs., what you the privileged white person might want for them. That said, one of the things that kind of annoyed me while visiting was my observation that in the modern-day Australians (who by all appearances as white) seem to take extreme pride in any small amount of Aboriginal heritage they can claim. Keep in mind, in the case of Aboriginal Australians, that by the third generation, such heritage is difficult to identify visually, and unlike with African genes it can’t “pop up” unexpectedly — where two seemingly white parents can give birth to a dark-skinned child, the same way two brown-eyed parents can have a blue-eyed child. So for instance, I, while researching this piece, learned about a European/Anglo member of the Tasmanian government, by the name of Jacqui Lambie, who offended the Aboriginal community by claiming she was one and therefore could represent them, and then went so far as to get her DNA tested to try to prove it. While this on the surface might seem to be not unlike Americans who point to Native American roots that their ancestors would have tried to hide with embarrassment. The difference is that … where as in America that person might take pride in being “part” Cherokee, they rarely if ever have the audacity to claim the state owes them something for prejudice that they themselves never have had to face in their daily lives because of that genetic heritage. In Australia, however, they will; in the current age they will describe themselves as simply Aboriginal, not as ‘part’ Aboriginal, because it is now not only COOL to be Aboriginal, but again it comes with all sorts of benefits designed to provide a ‘leg up’ in a society that has heretofore condemned them. I was for instance more than a little ticked off to see Aboriginal art, which is sold as such rather than just as art, and it’s a big deal to be able to PROVE the authenticity of said art… only for the photo of the artist to be of someone with blond hair and blue eyes. Think Iggy Azalea, the Australian rapper who claims aboriginal heritage who couldn’t understand while Americans took issue to her calling herself, “black” and hence being an ‘authentic’ rapper…

In the US, the TRIBES would never allow such a thing, for the obvious reason that funding is finite and every kid who is part Native, but has suffered none of the deprivations of that ancestry, who takes that funding is in effect taking it out of the mouths of the folks who really need it. And now that the tribes themselves have found creative ways to pull themselves out of poverty, they are getting EVEN FIERCER about who does or does not get to call themselves “Native America” versus, being of Native American ancestry. It would be a bit like the Johnson’s (African American family, founders of Ebony and Jett magazine and first African American to make make the Forbes 400 list), who used to live near me — and walking distance from one of the very best high schools in the country — had mansion on Lake Michigan, with a swimming pool and tennis court, and had the Commodores (Lionel Richie‘s band before he went solo) play for their kids sweet 16 party taking advantage of preferred places and funding at Universities, intended to help cure socioeconomic disparities that exist in the African-American community]

According to the staff member we spoke to, while the Aboriginal community gets the final say on what happens there, and everything is done with difference to them… sadly, their interest sort of ends with that, and is mostly focused on the money generated by the place… although one of the staff members said if we signed up for the classes and performances that we had read about and wanted to see (which weren’t happening at that time, and hadn’t happened in a while, and he wasn’t sure when the next one might be), we MIGHT (but not would) see Aboriginals working those events.

What displays they had were placed kind of hap hazard, so that it didn’t tell any sort of meaningful story. Overall, it was kind of massive waste of time

having trouble embeding the map (follow link to google maps):

Phillip Island, Victoria Australia: Fairy Penguin Parade

Both my travel buddy and the friend (the one who hosted me and showed me around while I stayed at her home in Ballarat) BOTH wanted to bring me to Phillip Island, to a section called Point Grant, but better known as The Nobbies in order to see the Penguin Parade. It’s about a day trip from Melbourne and is most definitely a must see on while on a trip to this part of Australia

We kept seeing these birds in Point Grant as we were driving towards the boardwalk and the Nobbies Center. I think they’re some sort of goose, but honestly I have no idea. I just thought they were cool. First we went into the center for a snack (I was good, I had a bowl of fruit and and iced tea) … the view out of its windows is absolutely amazing…

“Hell of a view” — was my friend’s comment when we sat down to eat (he had fries) — and, “a House with this view would be a lot more than $600k” (All through our trip along the Great Ocean Road we had been checking out the prices of beachfront real estate and fantasizing about buying a home with ocean views)

These platforms exist for multiple reasons, they allow visitors to enjoy the natural wonders of the area, while preserving biosphere of the area….

and it keeps the visitors from disturbing the nesting grounds of the penguins.

If you look into the holes of the boxes below the boardwalk you’ll see penguin chicks

Each of these boxes/burrows houses penguin chicks

This being the age of the internet and live feeds of animals nesting being all the rage, some of these boxes have cameras inside them that allow you to watch the chicks. That said, not all of the penguins opt to house their chicks in the provided boxes, but instead will set up nests under the boardwalk.

Note the penguin chick hiding out under the walkway

Once it started to approach sunset, and the time for the Penguin Parade (~8:30 pm), we left the boardwalk and the Nobbies center and drove over to where the Penguine parade happens, a short distance away… with ample time to get a snack & decent parking, etc.

After the parade, it is important to check under your car and drive VERY slowly, in order to avoid killing any penguins

once you enter the building they check your ticket, tell you where you need to go come show time, and then you’re free to just hang out in the facility, where you have two food options (a cafeteria type place, and then a fast food cart), a gift shop, which had all things penguin, as well some really nice made in Australia goods, like beautiful Marino Wool sweaters, and outback/bush hats made from kangaroo leather.

Some of you may remember there was once a call to knitters world-wide to produce sweaters for birds, including penguins, who had been in oil spills, intended to 1) keep them warm (the oil in the feathers negates the insulating power of the feathers), and 2) to keep the birds from in trying to clean themselves of the poisonous oil, and hence end up swallowing it. The resulting onslaught of bird sweaters greatly out-stepped the need, so since they need funding at this point more than they needed the sweaters, someone had the bright idea to put them on cheap stuffed penguins and sell those at a fund-raising markup price…

There was also a whole educational section devoted to both what we would be seeing, in terms of the Penguin Parade and what it is that actually happening… (this is a natural behavior, not one that humans have trained them to do for our entertainment)

And then information about the birds themselves

And information about the chicks in the burrows, including some windows into some burrows the staff have set up to lure penguins into (which may or may not have chicks in them when you visit — below are pictures I took looking down on live chicks in said burrows/boxes)

The first thing you need to know about penguins is that they are very loyal animals, and always return to their family members.

As this video explains, while emperor penguins, the biggest of the species can only be found in Antarctica, Australia is home to the Fairy or little penguin, the smallest of the species

At the doorway the guests are broken into three group based on the tickets they bought. The cheap seats, the best seats above ground (and open to the elements… which is the tickets we opted for), and then just below those seats there’s a viewing area at ground level where you are nice and warm, can’t see as much, but you’re right level with the penguins as they pass and are viewing them through windows.

MVIMG_20180225_200139 — No photos are allowed past this white line

Being the smallest, Fairy penguins are very timid, they wait until it’s dark enough that their predators are going to sleep before leaving the protection of the water, and it’s very easy to scare them back into the water — which, if they do means their chicks go unfed. As such, because of all the stupid humans who came before us who insisted on using flash when taking photographs — which freaks out the poor penguins — even after being begged to not do so, photography is now banned at the event … and there’s more than a few staff member watching the guests like hawks to stop them should they bring out anything in the way of a camera. As such, I found videos (all produced professionally).

Since you can’t get an actual photo of yourself with the penguins, you can either download professionally taken pics of the penguins via their app, or for a fee you can buy a green-screened and Photoshoped image of yourself with the birds. (If you look closely at the sign above the heads of the photo booth’s staff members, you can even get one where you’re smaller than the penguins.)

These are the women who made our photo for us

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Phillip Island, Victoria Australia: Koalas

Both my travel buddy AND the friend I stayed with in Ballarat… told me that they wanted to bring me to Phillip Island. It’s about a day trip from Melbourne and (as this desire on their part evidenced) is most definitely a must see on while in this part of Australia. While both of them wanted to bring me here to see the penguins (see my post), my travel buddy and I got there early enough, that we had time to kill, so that we decided to go to the Koala Conservation Centre

[NOTE: That said, I’m writing this blog post well AFTER my visit. In spite of the fact that I was in Phillip Island on Feb. 25, 2018 a whole month after my accident that had resulted in a sever concussion, I still wasn’t mentally able to keep up with my write ups … At the time an outing like this one left me exhausted and the next day was spent just resting. At the time, if you’d seen me, you’d realize very quickly that something was off… my speech was MUCH MUCH slower, so that I was searching for almost every word (which was very weird and a bit frightening)… as such I was still in a very passive space mentally, and as such I couldn’t write about it then, and I just haven’t gotten around to writing about it till now. The accident made it impossible to focus my brain the way I needed to in order to blog, and as such I fell woefully behind on the posts the Australia trip … but as I’m currently holed up in the Chicago area (i.e., my home base) doing things like doctor’s visits — including some related to the post concussive syndrome which I am STILL suffering from (albeit very mildly at this point, thankfully) and the fact that I hit the ground so hard that I dislocated my jaw (requiring some expensive visits to my dentist who is trying to fix the damage) — I am taking the opportunity of being back on my home turf to rectify that lapse.]My travel partner (Mik) and I have ONE major disconnect in our our travel preferences, I try to avoid extreme heat at all costs while he LOVES it; and he considers temps that most people qualify as in the mild to comfortable ranges, freezing. Doing our long-planned day trip to this island, Australia’s weather took a dip from “Oh my G-d it’s hot” to 66 F (18.9 C) which he considered FREEZING and I consider about perfect for dressing spiffy (a t-shirt, a light leather blazer and jazzy hat). (If you note the pictures, he ends up NOT wearing his jacket even though he kvetched about the cold… Men!)

Anyway, we bought our tickets for the penguin march later that night (cause they sell out), and headed to the Koala Center

When you first arrive at the center there’s a big educational section where you can read up on all sorts of things you didn’t know about Koalas, such as the fact that they are going extinct because of a fast-moving strain of Chlamydia which is causing infertility and blindness (since my visit, there’s actually been some progress with private funding in sequencing their DNA, which they hope will lead to a cure before one of the cutest animals on the planet goes extinct)

Once you’ve cleared the educational bit, you walk into a two bits of protected habitat, where the Koala’s are essentially caged-in (partially to keep them in but also to keep other Koala’s infected with Chlamydia out) into a sufficient amount of habitat to keep them happy — with supplemental foods dropped off in areas close to but just out of reach of the guests.

Note that some branches are wrapped in plastic in order to discourage Koalas from going out onto the boardwalk

Then you walk up along elevated (but handicapped accessible) boardwalks that bring you up to the level of the branches where the Koala’s like to hang out. So you can get close, but not too close.

It’s easy to spot where Koala’s are because of all the guests collecting there

Me and Mik, and Koalas (there’s one in every picture)

Here’s a video I took of an active Koala (most of them tend to be sleeping, or just lazily hanging out.

This old guy (the staff member told us it was an elderly male), in spite of the best attempts of the staff to keep it from happening, had somehow managed to get from the tree to the ledge of the visitors section of the boardwalk. The guy in the light shirt standing next to Mik was in fact a staff member, who was blocking visitors from getting too close. He told us they had placed a tree limb across from the boardwalk to a tree, and he was just standing there waiting for the Koala to get the hint and cross back to the tree, so that he could remove it.

Katoomba: Scenic World Blue Mountains attraction

Scenic World is a family owned business located at the edge of a plateau near the city of Katoomba, New South Wales Australia, at the opposite end of the Prince Henry Cliff Walk from the Three Sisters rock formation, which is a huge tourist draw. For a fee, they provide three attractions: the first is a cable car ride that goes across the ledges of the rock’s face, thereby offering views that are otherwise unobtainable, and then there are two different way to the rainforest at the base of the plateau (where there is an elevated walking path through it) either a very steep cable railway ride or gentler cable car option.

The first time I got there was on a weekend day, and the line for a one day passes for Scenic World was very long, while the line for the yearly pass was non existent; and, since a one day pass was $44, and one year passes were $99 — and I was going to be in town for a full week, I opted for the latter. That and, normally you need to get there “first thing” in the morning to make a first come first serve reservation to go on any of their rides, and I was warned that these sell out very early in the day during tourist season, i.e., exactly when I was there. As my readers probably already know about me…. I don’t do mornings! With the one year pass, however, no reservations were necessary and when you add it gives 15% off of any purchases at the stores or cafés …. and with the yearly pass I would get 15% off of tickets for friend who came with me (and my travel buddy had already said he wanted to come here towards the end of our trip — when his girlfriend from was going to join us for a few days) which ultimately didn’t happen …. I felt the $99 ticket was the better option. As it stands, since my accident negatively impacted my visit, my plan is to go back to Australia later this year (within the one year window), and I’ll be able to use the ticket again then.

Views from the balcony building, and the gift shops

That said, since I HAD a year-long pass, and the weekend crowds were making the lines for any of the rides SUPER long, I opted to do just walk around checking out the facility, and then come back on a week day.

[NOTE: That said, I’m writing this blog post well AFTER my visit. I was in the Blue Mountains about 5 months ago, on Jan 12th to 18th, 2018, and since my accident, which resulted in a sever concussion, happened only 8 days later I just haven’t gotten around to writing about it till now. The accident made it impossible to focus my brain the way I needed to in order to blog, and as such I fell woefully behind on the posts the Australia trip … but as I’m currently holed up in the Chicago area (i.e., my home base) doing things like doctor’s visits — including some related to the post concussive syndrome which I am STILL suffering from (albeit very mildly at this point, thankfully) and the fact that I hit the ground so hard that I dislocated my jaw (requiring some expensive visits to my dentist who is trying to fix the damage) — I am taking the opportunity of being back on my home turf to rectify that lapse.]

Like I said the one year pass included a 15% discount from the gift stores (where I didn’t find anything I actually wanted), and from the cafe (where I did). That said, there are two food options, and small one offering coffee shop type foods and outdoor seating, and the Tuckshop which offers more in the way of hot food options, and indoor seating.

This is the outdoor seating for the coffee shop (looking towards the building) but in the other direction it has great views — see the pics of me against a railing (above)

The second time I went the weather was a balmy 70 F … Although it was supposed to hit 100 F a few days later. And, way fewer people where there than had been there the previous weekend, as I had hoped.

First, I had my morning coffee while enjoying the view, and then I went down into the rainforest via the train ride

This train is so incredibly steep that you’re knees end up pressing hard, up against the safety bars, and more than few people felt the need to hold on to the safety bars above…

These views go whizzing by so fast, that you’re lucky if you manage to get the shot

You can see finger smudges on the glass walls

The train drops you down into a rainforest, complete with vines that Tarzan would have loved and prehistoric fern trees.

According to a complex display at the bottom and off to the side of the tracks, they were first put in place to bring down coal miners.

It was so frigging cold the first time I took the train into the rain forest that I was uncomfortable so maybe 62 F (a good 10 degrees cooler than higher up). I wasn’t dressed for it and my teeth started to chatter, so I opted to go back up and come back again the next day when the forecast promised warmer weather, and intended to dress in layers just in case.

When I came back the 2nd time, it was warm enough that I had to take off my 2nd layer (WAY more pleasant than Sunday’s temps). I did a 45 minute walk through the rainforest…

Just to give an idea of how elevated some of the pathway was, I’m on one elevated point looking down at another elevated point

Firstly I was really excited to see the sort of vines I imagine Tarzan swung on, my first time outside of a movie or TV programThese sorts of palm trees I was pretty sure I HAD seen before, but in the prehistoric dinosaur Garden in Disneyworld’s Animal Kingdom. There’s a garden there (adjacent to the dinosaur ride) that most people walk right by that ONLY has living plants that we know existed during the time of the dinosaurs.

Here I’m looking up at the massive rock feature directly adjacent to the start of the ride, giving you an idea of how far down I am

Algae, Lichens and Mosses… can we all say biodiversity?

Ultimately I completed every ride and in every direction

This is rock formation I was looking at from the ground, to give the distance perspective

At one point with all the running around I somehow managed to lose my sunglasses (called sunnies in Aussie) but they were turned into lost and found (shock and awe!)

Sakura! Cherry blossum season in Tokyo

Bucket list item: See the Japanese cherry blossoms… in bloom in Japan….. CHECK!

While most Americans have heard this song at some point or another, celebrating the tree’s blossoms, if only while eating in Japanese resturants, they do so without appreciating the extent to which the blossoming of these trees is a central element of Japanese cultural identity. To quote this site, “the contemplation of cherry trees has long been perceived as a philosophical activity more than anything else. Based on the philosophy of mono no aware, appreciating the beauty of ephemeral things, hanami is an activity that encourages introspection.”

fullsizeoutput_3ef5 — This tree was adjacent to the train station near my Airbnb

As I’ve said previously, this has been one of my bucket list items for while. I had seen them multiple times in S. Korea while living and working there, but (I explained in detail in this previous blog post) the Korean cherry blossoms look entirely different than the iconic Japanese ones. I had finally managed to see the Japanese variety in 2017 when I caught them in full bloom in D.C., but in spite of the fact that I’ve cumulatively spent maybe eight months in Japan over the years, it was never during the appropriate time. FINALLY, this year I did it!

After seeing the first tree in full bloom near my Airbnb, I called a very old friend of the family, Yasuko (her husband and my father worked together, and the first time I stayed at their home I was in my 20’s) suggested we do something, and when she asked me what I wanted to do, I told her I wanted to see the cherry blossoms. First, she took me to this street, which she was supposed to be one of the best “non-park” viewing locations and considered good for night-time viewing.

I kind of felt bad for the cars who made the mistake of trying to drive down this street as it was so clogged with people enjoying the cherry blossoms

This is our family friend Mrs. Yanase, who was kind enough to show me this. Note how there are growths and flowers all along the length of the tree

After this, Yasuko and I took the train to Rikugien Gardens, a park that she told me is normally never open at night…

but for the Cherry Blossom season they have special illuminated evening showings. She was actually kind of excited because in all her years of living in Tokyo (most of her life) she had never gone to one of these special nighttime events at the park.

When we arrived there was a very long line of people waiting to enter the park the snaked outside of the park and down the street (and police standing there with lit lanterns to make sure the cars saw them).

This isn’t a bush, but rather a tree that is ginormous with massive branches extending out that are held up by poles. The crowd of people surrounding it was at least 10 people thick, and if you look towards the bottom of the tree you’ll see people’s darkened heads, which will give you a better sense of the perspective.

The above are all pictures of people taking pictures of small branches of the same humongous tree shown above

This is the same tree from a different angle (same tiny heads at the bottom), as we walked through the park there were tiny traditional Japanese tea houses (which Yasuko wanted to go to but they were closing just as we got there). Instead we found a less ritzy tea house selling the same foods, but with less pomp.

After the park we walked to nearby train station, where there was also a of flowering trees in bloom

I loved the way the light from the Denny’s sign made the pink blooms even pinker

Katoomba, Australia : Three sisters & Prince Henry Cliff Walk

Spent my first day in Katoomba appreciating the rock formation that is The Three Sisters, in all it’s glory (and it is pretty glorious); and, I got in a good two plus hours of mostly easy hiking between Echo point and Katoomba Falls, along the Prince Henry Cliff Walk: a paved walkway which skirts just below the top of the plateau upon which the city of Katoomba sits. In this case I think the pictures speak for themselves, while at the same time doing no real justice how it feels to be in the presence of this sort of natural beauty in real life. Really, this view IS worth the trip.

As such, there’s really not much for me to say about these photos, other than I had wonderful afternoon enjoying the views, so I’ll let them do the talking.

This is the document that the QR code on the left links too: http://www.naturetourismservices.com.au/3sisters.html

The QR code link is worth following as it loads a really well written description of the location and the available walks (better than what I could do here).

I began my visit at what is called Echo Point… I’m not sure why as I didn’t hear any echo’s when folks called out… but maybe if EVERYONE was quiet, and one person did, we might…

After enjoying the views from Echo point I took the ramp (which leads off to the right of the point — looking out towards the sisters) down to the Prince Henry Cliff walk that goes from the point to the falls

In this picture I was actually as impressed with the foreground as the background, especially the color

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A former Apple employee took this with the new phone and airdropped it to me — while it looked WAY better on his phone, I’m not sure it looks better on my computer screen… could be he airdropped a low pixel version

You’ll notice that it was windy as heck, and that the Australians were all wearing sweaters or coats… that’s because along with being windy it was 66F, which in my mind made it great weather for some serious walking…
Menapause and carrying around 30 lb of excess fat, it’s a thing

Also, before I started the walk I was very specific with the park staff about how I had bad hips and knees and needed to know if there’s be any serious amounts of stairs and or climbing along the way… suffice it to say they lied when they said no difficult stairs and that the whole thing was well paved throughout. There weren’t a LOT of spots like this, but if I were actually handicapped I’d be seriously pissed off… as it was it just slowed me down for a bit.

Everglades National Park: Shark Valley area Tram

Because Miami is nice, but the EVERGLADES!!!! The Tram is the lazy way of traversing the 25 mile biking and walking path through the marshy freshwater slough. Apparently it’s called the shark valley because its where the Shark River begins it’s flow to the ocean… not because there are any sharks in the valley. However, when the river approaches the Bay of Ponce de Leon Bay and becomes brackish (mixture of fresh water and salt), that is where you will find the sharks.

The drive from Miami to the tram ride is about an hour, in light traffic. A housemate of mine at the Airbnb warned me that he had gone there previously, during the Xmas vacation period (which begins this weekend) and he and his parents were stuck in traffic for much longer than that, which I can believe as the road, which is one of the main ones through the Everglades is in spite of that, only one lane in each direction.

The cost to enter the park is $25.00 per car, $20.00 per motorcycle, or $8.00 per hiker/biker — and that gives you access to any of the Everglades entrances for a full week… or like me you just show your trusty $80 one year pass.

The Tram however while sponsored by the parks, is a separate thing, and costs $24 for adults, $12.75 for kids (3-12), and $19 for seniors ($62+ with ID). You buy the ticket at the park office which is split into two sides, the private store and the park office, and you can’t pay for an item you picked up on one side on the other sides cash register. In the building you’ll find some food (snacks and cold sandwiches, nothing fancy) and there’s a drink machine that accepts credit cards as well as cash, and a bathroom… but no WiFi (although they said they were working on getting that brought in).

I sat right behind the woman narrating the tour, which I discovered was a strategic error; I should have sat behind the driver, who seems to be the one who determines when the tram slows down (go figure) …

While clearly, there are equal numbers of animals on both sides, the tram stops — that allow you to take the best pictures — are based on what the driver sees, not the narrator… (who was facing us the whole time)… and as such, I was forced to take most of my pictures over the laps of the other people in my row.

In spite of that, every once in a while I got lucky….. but the tram never stopped for what was on my side

The trail takes visitors out to a viewing tower, which is at about the 1/2 way mark, where we’re given about 20 minutes to do some exploring (and there are bathrooms there).

and then we head back to the starting point.

One of the plants that the narrator pointed out to us was this tiny nondescript yellow flower on a bed of muddy green leaves that is very common in the waters. Apparently it EATS mosquitoes, as in actually eats them, and is part of what helps to control their population throughout the glades.

When we finally got back to the starting point I was disconcertingly exhausted — I think it was all the sun and wind — so much so that I was staggering around a bit when I first stepped off the tram. Now as it turned out, this can be a bit dangerous because the alligators seem to LOVE hanging out there… it’s like they’re camera fiends. There are a lot of signs about not feeding them, and sharp eyed park staff to levy massive fines on you if you do, so it’s not that they’re expecting to be fed.

There were like 3 of them just laying out and not moving… a lot of people got way closer than I was willing to … … the lady who worked there said the only time in the whole history of the park that anyone got bit was a kid riding on a bicycle lost control, went right into the trench and landed right on top of one.

This is not to say they’re safe, just if you leave them alone they’ll leave you alone… She said it was kind of amazing considering the really stupid shit she’s seen people do… for example, one lady didn’t believe they were real and sat her 4 year old on top of one for a photo (according to the staffer)

By the way, these photos have convinced me that tucking my shirt in just makes me look fatter… so I’ll stop… That, and I’m not a fan of how my hair is looking, the last dye job did not make me happy. When I get to Orlando I’ll probably change it again.

Niagra Falls, Canadian Side

I know from childhood pictures that my parents had taken us here as little kids, but I had no personal memories of it, but now I do.

I’ve been spending most of August in Stratford, Ontario and I’ve purchased tickets to all 13 productions they are putting on this summer as part of their yearly Shakespeare festival. The one day Trip I really wanted to make was to Niagara Falls. Like I said, I know from old family photos that I’ve been here before, but I think was maybe four or five years old, and have no memory of it. As such, it was a bucket list event.

From Stratford to Niagara is a two hour drive each way, and I was a bit late getting started as I got reminded by an email from the family lawyer that I needed to file some paperwork ASAP, which meant I was going to have to spent the night in Toronto and get to the relevant consulate for a 12:10 appointment. (I’ve actually had to do this for months, but the consulate I needed did not have offices in any of the other places I’ve visited over the last two months, but there was one in Toronto — which is only a one hour drive from Niagra). This of course meant I had to find lodgings for the night there, so between that and printing out the documents he wanted filed, I didn’t get out of the house till noonish.

The first impression of Niagara was that it is NOT an affluent town, at least not in the sections I first drove through. Then as you approach the falls you enter an almost Los Vegas type/Orlando type atmosphere with Casinos and tourist trap attractions from hell (Ripley’s believe it or not, dinner theater, various gardens, a historic battlefield, etc) — but clearly there’s more than enough available in the area to fill three full days of intensive vacation time, and probably enough to justify I devote two full weeks to the place at some future date.

Driving along the parkway the falls were generating SO much spray that I had to keep the windshield wipers going, and then after parking whether or not you were being drenched with the water while walking on the sidewalk depended entirely on which way the wind was blowing (see picture below).

However, if the spray was coming right at you, and you were willing to get right up into it, you got to see some amazing distortions of image, rainbows… (Mind you… great lakes water is so dirty that I usually avoid swimming in it, so one really has to question ones willingness to stand in that spray without goggles.)

Parking at the falls is DisneyWorld expensive, $22, so if you’re going to drive there do so with the intention of staying a while. On the converse side, they don’t charge you anything to walk along the promenades and enjoy the view.

There’s a visitor’s center where you can shop, eat, and buy tickets to various excursions including a boat the goes to the base of the falls, a trek that goes behind and along side the falls (I seriously thought about that one, but then decided against — maybe next time), and various other things… none of which are cheap. I ate at the restaurant and was seriously unimpressed, but it did have a good view:

As I was walking along the promenade I noticed across the street was a small park area devoted to Nikola Tesla, the favorite scientist of all of my engineering friends. You’d think they’d like Edison but you’d be wrong… although bringing up the topic can result in hours of debate:

Edison never really invented much of anything, he hired other people to build things for him. What Edison was, was a CEO type, rather than an engineer. Granted he was brilliant salesman who had vision and understood what the customer really wanted with regards to technology, but he lacked the skills to build much of any of his ideas (think of him as being Steve Jobs); Tesla, on the other hand, was more like Steven Wozniak (affectionately known to geeks as “The Woz”) the guy who actually built and designed the first Apple computers (which Steve Jobs had the good sense to recognize for what it was). Tesla invented a lot of the things that made our world what it is today.

One of my very good friends used to be the head patent attorney at Apple Computer in San Francisco, and to quote her, part of why she made the big bucks was she had a knack for getting engineers to actually do the paperwork necessary to file patents. Engineers like building things, they HATE doing the paperwork necessary to protect their inventions. Edison would come up with ideas and then hire a bunch of engineers to to invent things for him, and then would run to the patent office and file all of their work under his own name…

Tesla was just such a brilliant engineer who had started out working for Edison, and was known for inventing amazing things but never bothering to do the paperwork necessary to protect them, or at least not at first. In fact, as the story goes, early in Tesla’s career Edison offered him a huge sum, about a million dollars in today’s money, to solve the engineering problems Edison was having with the electrical generators (DC or direct current) he needed to build and install before anyone would buy a light bulb. Once Tesla had the thing working, he came to Edison to get paid, and Edison basically laughed in his face claiming the offer wasn’t a serious one (Edison knew a verbal contract is only worth the paper it’s written on) so that it was now Tesla’s word as the young engineer against that of his boss, the famous Edison. (But like I said, it’s one of the stories, hard to know if it was truth.)

So, what did Tesla Do? Firstly, he got into the habit of filing his patents, but equally important, he invented the far more efficient electrical AC system (Alternating Current), which is what the electrical station at Niagara generates. The reason in the US we hear more about Edison than Tesla is Edison played a lot of dirty pool games to discredit Tesla and convince the US government to always listen to Edison rather than to Tesla… hence why the rest of the world is mostly using AC current while the US uses the far less efficient DC variety.

In fact, Marconi, who is credited with having invented radio (and winning the Nobel prize for it) … created that system by utilizing 19 different technologies that Tesla had been the one to invent.

At some point I’d like to go back, spend the night and enjoy it a bit more leisurely; drive across Honeymoon Bridge.

Clayoquot Provincial Park, Ucluelet B.C.

Where Clayoquot Park meets the Pacific Highway (BC-4) there is a scenic pull-off worth stopping at.

On a fence next to the site people were loading it with locks, just like the one in Paris

Cathedral Grove Forrest, Macmillan Provincial Park, B.C.

Located along route BC-4 on Vancouver Island, is the otherworldly Cathedral Grove Forest, in Macmillan provincial park.

Both Tom and I had the same reaction when we first stepped into this grove of trees, it seemed unreal. It reminded Tom of the forests of Pandora in the movie Avatar, I thought it was a bit like Star Wars… either way it was a magical.