The Pinnacles

A while back I got the itch to go exploring. I had heard that there were some interesting rock formations called the Pinnacles within a day’s drive up the coast, and that the area between Perth and there was fairly remote. I decided to drive up the coast a few hours to see the Pinnacles and to see whether it's really as remote up there as I had heard. There were a few places I wanted to check out along the way too so I made a day of it. Perth is wedged between two of Australia's most noted wine regions, the Margaret River Valley and the Swan River region. The Swan River region is the closer of the two to where I live, maybe about 40 minutes northeast of the city. There are dozens of vineyards in the area. I’m not a wine nut but I think some of the notable ones are Sandalford, Fish Tail, and Riverbank Estates. Even if you’re not a wine afficianado the scenery is nice. I sped through the vineyards away from civilization and pretty soon got north of Yanchep and out into the real countryside. There was nothing for miles on end except scrub and the road I was on.

After having been south along the coast and around the city already I thought I knew what to expect once I got north of Perth, but no. The coastline south of Perth is dry but still has forested areas and green pastures, especially in the sheep ranching areas. Going north is a whole different experience. After I got out of the Swan it got really dry, really quick. No farms, no houses, and very little vegetation. This part of the west coast is so undeveloped that roadhouses show up on map atlases that cover the entire country. Ones that are open 24 hours are rare, and are printed in bold. It's equivalent to seeing Bob's Mini Mart on a Rand McNally Atlas of the US.

It continued that way for 2 or 3 hours until I got to the little town of Lancelin. Lancelin is like so many other tiny Australian towns. There are no significant businesses to speak of. It is a lonely outpost on the west coast of Australia that has a cluster of a few dozen nondescript houses, a run down fish and chips shack next to the local roadhouse (which also serves as the post office, hotel, pub, social club, and general center of local commerce and social life), a few mangy dogs, and some even mangier looking bogans. At first glance Lancelin doesn’t seem to have any real reason for existing except that it is literally the end of the road. Highway 60, which is a proper 6 lane highway in Perth and at least a sealed road until Lancelin, abruptly becomes little more than a dirt path in Lancelin. There are three ways of continuing north from this point: parking your car and walking (which will more than likely kill you); driving into the great unknown on an unmaintained, rutted, poor excuse for a road (which also has a fair chance of resulting in your demise, and does so for dozens of foolishly adventurous motorists in Australia every year); and turning around and backtracking about 20 miles to the next road inland.

I was about to take the third option for leaving Lancelin when I rounded the corner and saw the reason that Lancelin exists. It was one of those rare postcard moments, the kind when you take a picture because you feel you have to, but knowing full well that the camera won’t do justice to what you are seeing. Laid out in a perfect half circle was one of the most perfect beaches I have ever seen. Perhaps the only more picturesque beach I have ever been to was on the extreme eastern end of Vieques, but that doesn’t count because it was so nice only because at that time it had been kept under lock and key by the US military for the last 60 year or so. This place was a public beach, accessible to anyone who took the time to find it. The water was so clear I could see a reef sitting under breaking waves about a mile offshore. The sand was pure white, the sea bright green, there was no trash, and I could see for probably a mile in either direction and could only spot maybe 10 or so people and a handful of windsurfers running between the beach and the reef. There are no signs to tell you it’s there, which is probably due equally to two facts: as I was to find out later in the day there are so many of these beaches around north of Lancelin that it’s not locally noteworthy, and there wouldn’t be very many people around to read the sign if someone bothered to erect it. I had my lunch there before remembering that I still had to get farther north in time to see the Pinnacles before dark.

Driving north out of Lancelin the road got more lonely than it had been before. It was about three hours straight of bush on my right, and low hills with sand dunes beyond them on my left. Every now and again the Indian Ocean showed as a thin ribbon of blue through the dunes. Even more occasionally I’d see a pasture or a dirt track leading to some unknown desination over the horizon. It lasted like that all the way to Cervantes.

Just outside Cervantes I finally reached the Pinnacles. The Pinnacles are a collection of stone pillars that cover about 30 square miles in the middle of Nambung National Park just south of Cervantes. According to the favorite geological theory at the moment, the Pinnacles are the remnants of a limestone deposit that leached away through a complex combination of chemical and biological erosion. According to this theory after the limestone was deposited in the form of coral reefs, the ocean receded and a forest grew over the limestone. As tree roots gradually fractured the limestone, acidic groundwater leached into the limestone along the root channels and dissolved the vast majority of it. The Pinnacles are what’s left of the limestone, and they only exist where a calcrete layer between the limestone and the acidic forest humus was too thick for the roots to penetrate. Sounds good to me.

The Pinnacles are an eerie place. It’s always changing because being near the coast the wind nearly always blows, and the sandy soil shifts in the wind constantly, exposing new pinnacles and burying others as the dunes move. Most are roughly cigar-shaped, and to me they are faintly reminiscent of tombstones.

The landscape is almost completely without vegetation, but certainly not without life. I found emu tracks in the sand, as well many numerous other tracks that I couldn’t identify. I also saw a sand monitor on the road and a pair of emus just outside the park on my drive home. Emus are ugly birds and I found out that they are curious about people as long as people don’t show an interest in them. The birds were in the bushes along the side of the road and watched as my car rolled by and came to a stop. However; as soon as I got out to take a picture they bolted out of sight through the bush.

After driving and hiking through the Pinnacles it was time to head back to Perth. I was white-knuckling it all the way for fear of hitting kangaroos, but luckily the roos stayed off the road and I got back to Perth in the middle of the the night without incident.

1. Lancelin Beach

2. Me at the Pinnacles

3 and 4. More Pinnacles.

5. Emu track in the sand.

Speaking Australian - Part 2

Done a funny-this is the same as “stuffing” something up, but I like this term better. The other day when a virus got loose on our servers at the office I asked the administrative assistant what had happened. She replied “The system’s done a funny mate, and now we’re stuffed.”

Smoko-used to be a smoke break, but now that smoking is falling out of favor a smoko is any break from work. I think the sneaky one is gradually replacing the smoko.

Dunny-can be any toilet, but is mostly refers to a Porta Pottie or an outhouse.

Kenny-a fictitious character in an Australian mockumentary by the same name. Kenny cleans and rents dunnies for a living and he happens to be the most popular man in Australia at the moment, even though he’s not real. Just as you cannot be any keener than mustard, you cannot be any more Strayin than Kenny. If you don’t believe me Google Kenny and Australia and see what happens.

Willy willy-this is not a stuttering relative of mine, it’s a mini-tornado. Or as they call them in some parts of the US, dust devils.

Bottle O-Liquor store. There’s a local bottle-O chain that employs a guy in a yellow foam bottle suit to hide in the bushes outside their shops and jump out to serenade their customers on the way in (scaring them half to death in the process). They film it and turn the footage into TV commercials. He always jumps them on the way in, instead of on the way out when they could drop their bottles of booze on the pavement. He’s so considerate.

Bugger-We covered this a little bit before but I’ve realized since then that bugger is a highly versatile word. It can be an adjective meaning small or very little, as in “He’s got bugger all chance with that bird”. It can be a directive, as in “Bugger off, you bogan!” Just a simple “Bugger!” is an exclamation of disgust or frustration.

She’ll be right-To an Australian this means something between “No worries” and “It’s ok”. It’s also often said as a way of giving up and going to the pub when things are so feral they simply can’t be put right again. What’s that you say-a white pointer just bit your leg off? No worries mate, she’ll be right. You’re burning to death? She’ll be right, have a sneaky one and you’ll be heaps better. A death adder is sucking on your carotid artery? She’s a keen bugger, but she’ll be right. You get the idea. To be Australian is to be unflappably relaxed no matter what occurs, because after all, she’ll be right.

Ordinary or average-In Australia, ordinary means average, average means bad, and fine means good. Confused yet? If an Australian surfer tells you the waves are average, surf conditions are so bad it’s not worth getting the board out of the closet. If the weather’s ordinary, it’s pretty nice, and if it’s fine, it’s perfect. However, Western Australians are spoiled in the weather department, so it has to be really excellent to be fine. Anything short of excellent is at the very best ordinary, which is not really so bad, but nowhere near as good as fine. Got it?

Higgeldy Piggeldy-This is a close relative of feral, but it’s heaps more fun to say.

Budgie Smugglers-These are the little bikini bottom swimming suits that European and (unfortunately) some Aussie guys wear at the beach. A friend of mine distinguishes them from underwear purely on a geographic basis. If you can’t see the water from where you’re standing they’re underwear, if you can they’re budgie smugglers.

Sydney

History, architecture, and giant bats that fly around in the daytime-Sydney's got it all. I spent 4 days in Sydney a couple of weeks ago. It's not nearly enough time to see all the city has to offer but I did my best with the time I had.

After I arrived on the midnight terror (Australian for a redeye flight) from Perth I found accomodations and began the whirlwind tour. First stop was Hyde Park. Sydney is full of typical urban parks with fountains, sculptures, green lawns, and walks lined with huge trees, but the best thing to me about Hyde Park is the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC) memorial. It's a small rotunda at one end of the park. Inside you look down on a sculpture of a soldier laying on a sword stretched across the ANZAC insignia. Engraved into the wall all around are the names of the major battles and campaigns ANZAC has been involved in over the past 100 years or so. They also have an eternal flame for fallen soldiers and a small but well-presented exhibit of ANZAC history and artifacts. I didn't realize it before visiting the memorial but ANZAC has partnered with the US military in many of our major actions over the years, so ANZAC's history has closely resembled the history of our own military. Beside learning of our significant history of cooperation, I also learned that our troops probably weren't sharing rations in their foxholes. Most of us Yanks find Vegemite nasty but judging by the numbers of Vegemite tins on display at the memorial it seems that Vegemite is a critical part of any Australian soldier's rations while overseas. Apparently Aussies just can't get by without the stuff.

After Hyde Park I went to the Royal Botanical Gardens. It's a massive green space between the CBD and Circular Quay, which is the wharf in downtown Sydney near the opera house. It has all kinds of displays of vegetation from all over the world and is a great place to spend a day. It also has views of the harbour, opera house, and harbour bridge from the lower gardens. I was walking through a section of tropical vegetation from Indonesia or somehere like that when what I can only describe as a pterodactyl-like shape blotted out the sun overhead. I looked up to see the largest bat I'd ever seen flying through the trees. I looked around and realized that I was surrounded by hundreds of them. I later learned that they are fruit bats and they roost in the botanical gardens in such large numbers that they are killing the trees in the gardens. They sort of look like giant hairy brown teardrops hanging from the trees. I admit it was unsettling seeing a bat with a three foot wingspan flying around in the daytime and then realizing that about two hundred of his friends were staring at me from not very far away.

I finished up the day by doing some of the more conventional touristy things in Sydney, like walking the Sydney Harbour Bridge and checking out the opera house. Both are nice; the views from the bridge are pretty spectacular and the opera house is impressive, although it's a bit smaller than what I had imagined from the postcards. I also walked through some of the oldest sections of town by the base of the bridge. It's full of little old shops and pubs that have an out of the way feel to them.

The next morning I took a tour of Government House, which is the governor general's official residence in Sydney. The governor general is an appointed representative of the queen in New South Wales. The house was very stately, and the tour guide related some amusing anecdotes about the early government in New South Wales. For example, one of Sydney's first police chiefs or judges ( I can't remember which) was himself a criminal who had been exiled to Australia for a long string of offenses in England. After being shipped here as a criminal he had a long and illustrious career enforcing the laws he had broken at home. Another amusing anecdote concerns the artwork in Government House. At the time the house was built photography had not been invented, so the original decorations were all paintings. Of course Sydney was still a convict colony at that time, so it wasn't a very appealing place for accomplished artists to go to paint their masterpeices. The queen couldn't convince a qualified artist to go to Syndey to decorate Government House properly, so she commissioned an artist in England to paint scenes of the harbor and the surrounding countryside from written descriptions, and she shipped the pieces down to be displayed. The predictable result is that the paintings hanging in Government House today purport to represent Sydney and the harbor, but they look nothing like the real Syndey landscape, then or now. Of course the paintings can't be replaced now because they're priceless antiques, so the Governor General will probably just go on presenting a room full of pretty pictures of places that don't exist to foreign dignitaries.

After grabbing some fish and chips down at the quay and talking to some people from the US that I met on the tour, I jumped on the harbour ferry. The view from the ferry was of exclusive waterfront neighborhoods wedged side by side with ruins of prisons that held the worst of the worst transported convicts. We passed Sydney's version of Alcatraz, Fort Denison. These days they rent it out for weddings. As we passed the fort I had been having a very pleasant conversation with a couple about my age about life in Australia. The sight of the fort prompted me to remark to them that Australia, which is largely a safe, pleasant place, is what happens when you give the inmates the keys to the jail. I don't think they appreciated the irony and the conversation got a bit icy after that.

The ferry docked at Manly Beach, which is one of the better known surf suburbs of Sydney. It borders a headland that forms the north shore of the habour known as North Head. There is a waterfront walk along the entire beach that leads up through the woods on North Head. Apart from the water dragons that dangle from the rocks and trees along the way, the waterfront walk is reminiscent of a mediteranean stroll through a Greek village. If the the scenery wasn't enough to make me think I was on the Riviera, all the overweight Euorpean men in little bikini swimming suits completed the effect.

The views from North Head are spectacular. Cliffs hundreds of feet tall front on the Pacific Ocean. The bright blue of the ocean and sky create a striking contrast with the tan and red of the cliffs. Looking out over the ocean you almost expect to see humpback whales breaching offshore, and in late summer you've got a good chance of doing just that as they make their way up the coast from their summer feeding grounds in the Southern Ocean. If you turn around and walk through the woods away from the ocean you see the skyline of Sydney. Further up North Head there are ruins of anti-aircraft gun placements that were installed after the Japanese bombed Darwin at the outset of hostilities in the Pacific during World War II. Although Sydney was eventually torpedoes by Japanese midget subs, the aerial attack on Syndey never came, but the munitions magazines, gun foundations, and concrete bunkers indicate how seriously the Australians took the threat.

After walking around Sydney, Manly Beach, and climbing up to the top of North Head, I was knackered, so I decided to call it a day. There was nowhere else to go except off the cliff edge anyway, so it was back to Manly, across the harbour, and out for a nice Indian dinner in Sydney. I only had two days of work before I was to see what all the fuss was about at a big rock that I heard so much about in the middle of the desert.




1. Eucalyptus trees in Hyde Park

2. Sculpture in the ANZAC memorial

3. Fruit bats in the Royal Botanical Gardens

4. A curious fruit bat

5. Sydney Opera House

6. Sydney Harbor from the bridge

7. Government House

8. Water dragon

9. Cliffs at North Head

10. Antiaircraft gun placement

Yanchep

One of the great things about living in Perth is all of the public land that’s around. Virtually the entire coast is public, and they have all kinds of bushland reserves and national parks scattered everywhere. Here national parks are very different to the ones in the US. They are smaller than the ones in the US, there are a lot more of them, and they're more like our state parks in terms of size and the types of resources they offer.

One of the national parks I’ve visited is Yanchep, about 45 minutes north of Perth. We checked out a cave which had some nice flowstone and other formations, but had really been beaten up by intensive tourist traffic over the years. We also saw some koalas that weren’t quite wild, but nearly so. I was amazed to learn that a big tourist attraction in Australia is “koala cuddling” which is pretty much just what it sounds like: people paying to pick up, hug, and generally antagonize koalas. They are nuts-I have seen the claws on those animals and there is no way I’ll be cuddling any koalas.

The best part of Yanchep by far is the presentation on Aboriginal life. Our teacher was a member of the Noongar people, which is the primary aboriginal group in the Perth area. First we learned how the dot paintings that aborigines make are actually like our books, in that they tell stories. Then we watched an aborigine make a special glue out of tree sap, ashes from a fire, and kangaroo poo (no kidding). It looks like tar but it dries hard in about twenty minutes. They use this stuff to bind just about any kind of natural material together. The best part about it is it's strong enough to hold tools like axes together, but if the tool gets worn or dull you can heat up the glue and it gets pliable again, so you can reuse it over and over. After going through some of the traditional tools he showed us how to make fire, but I need to go to remedial fire making class because all I could get was a little smoke. I don't feel bad though because at least I tried. The only other guy who tried didn't even get that far.

After the fire making failure it was time for music and dancing. He showed us how to play the digeridu, which involves breathing out into the cheeks, then forcing the air out of the cheeks while breathing in through the nose. Using this technique a digeridu player can play continuously without pausing for a breath. He explained that authentic digeridus are not manufactured by people, but are created from trees that are naturally hollowed out by termites. After the digeridu lesson he taught us traditional party song and the accompanying dance, and finished the session by performing the traditional fishing dance, which is basically a ritualized version of the movements one would use to stalk and spear fish in shallow water. It was all great fun and I learned very much.





Photos:

1. Flowstone, stalactites, and stalagmites in Yanchep cave.
2. Me failing to make fire.
3. Playing the digeridu.
4. The fishing dance.

The Stirling Range and Albany

My first big trip out of Perth was to the Stirling Range, which is a short ridge of mountains that runs roughly east-west in the extreme southwest portion of Australia. Its highest peak is Bluff Knoll, whose summit is 1073 m high, or roughly the same height as some of the higher peaks in Western Maryland. Bluff Knoll is much more striking than our Appalachians to me however; because it rises almost straight up from perfectly flat surroundings that are very close to sea level. Its a beautiful place, very often covered in clouds, and one of the few places in WA that gets snow on a regular basis. It's also a global biodiversity hotspot, with over 1500 species of flowering plants, including 82 that are found nowhere else on the planet. The range is about 4 or 5 hours from Perth, depending on how many road trains (tractor trailer convoys) you get stuck behind.


I went on a three-day weekend and camped the first night just outside the Stirling Range National Park at a place called Poinjup Springs. We had a wind storm and a massive eucalyptus tree came down fairly close to my camp, but other than that the first night was uneventful. The next morning I got up and began a long trek down a deserted country road toward the range. Once I hit the trailhead the trail went straight up and didn't stop for 3 1/2 miles. It was a tough climb, sometimes on fairly exposed faces, but reaching the summit made it worthwhile. I was lucky that I summited on a clear day which made the views spectacular. The Aborigines had many names for the mountain, but they all referred to the many cracks and holes in the face, which they perceived to be the eyes of the mountain's spirit watching them. In the traditional Aboriginal dreamtime belief system the clouds that cover the mountain are the physical manifestation of this spirit.


The trail basically ends at the summit of Bluff Knoll, and the views from the summit were breathaking. I could see the ocean, which was about 40 miles away. The locals tell me this experience is uncommon due to the cloud cover that usually covers the mountain. Except for the ocean to the southwest, it was farmland, bush, and salt pans as far as I could see in any direction. The airspace immediately off the summit is very popular with gliders because of the updrafts it creates, and there were plenty of gliders buzzing the summit the day I was there.



The idea was to pack ultra light and get up the mountain fast, then get as far into the true backcountry as I could for a one night trip. When I got up to the top I realized that the passes between mountains were a bit steeper than what I wanted to try while hiking solo, so I was trying to figure out what to do when another solo backpacker showed up on the summit. We struck up a conversation and decided to hike together the rest of the way. He turned out to be a very nice fellow and happened to be from Perth too. He had soloed the entire range walk, which although relatively short is still very impressive.


We went across the next pass and camped on East Peak, the next peak into the park. Enjoyed a nice evening, and turned in early. I woke up about 3 hours later in the middle of a wicked wind storm that felt like it might actually blow me off the ridge. Even camping on exposed ridges above treeline in the Rockies I rarely guyed my tent out, but I was glad I had bothered to put the guy lines out that night.


Next morning the clouds I had heard so much about had arrived. I couldn't see 20 feet in front of me. There was only one way off the mountain across a narrow spine, and the vegetation was chest high in some places, so I had to be very careful not to walk off the edge. Anyway I found my way off East Peak, back down the pass, and back up Bluff Knoll. At the top I met a teenager who had slept up there the night before as he was breaking camp. We hiked back down together while he told me his rather amazing life's story. He was born in Zimbabwe, and some of his earliest childhood memories were of being on safari and being stalked by hyenas and lions. His father fought for the SAS on the losing side in Zimbabwe's civil war. As a penalty Robert Mugave expelled his family, and they settled in WA, where he and his father now fly gliders around the Stirlings. We worked out that I had seen his dad flying the day before.



To finish off my trip I continued down the Albany Higway to Albany. The countryside is dry, barren, and wildlfires were burning on the sides of the road as I drove. Considering that this was at the height of the rainy season I can only imagine what kind of fires we'll have in a couple of months. It was a cool morning so lots of the resident reptiles were basking on road, including one of the southwest's more well known residents, the blue-tongued lizard. This one was not happy to have its picture taken.




Albany is one southernmost towns in Australia, and in the world for that matter. It was a whaling town as late as the 1970s, but now its just a quaint fishing village on the Southern Ocean with a massive wind farm on its coast. It's not hard to see why they've installed the turbines there; the wind was howling the day I was there. The turbines are massive at 90 m (330 feet) tall. If you're ever in Albany, make sure to try the prawns. They're fantastic!





Photos (from top):
1. Wildflowers in sheep paddocks on the way to the Stirlings.
2. Bluff Knoll.
3. Looking northwest from the summit of Bluff Knoll.
4. Pass between Bluff Knoll and East Peak.
5. Campsite on East Peak.
6. Blue-tongued lizard on Albany Highway.
7. Albany wind farm on the shore of the Southern Ocean.

Speaking Australian

Australian speech is a wonderful thing. Technically we speak the same language as they do, but in practice our languages are much more dissimilar than I realized before coming here. First, their usage of common words is often different than our own. Add on top of that strong accents and all the words that are uniquely Australian and you get the picture. A very nice lady I work with told me that if I didn't know what people were saying it was ok to ask because sometimes they forget how little English they actually speak. I could not have said it better myself. Here are a few of the lingual oddities I've noticed so far.

Australians have a general fondness for verbal brevity. I’ve heard brekkie for breakfast, cossie for costume (and for ladies swimwear-I haven’t figured out the connection there yet), roo for kangaroo, sunnies for sunglasses, and rather unattractively Scabs for Scarborough, the town I live in. I assure you the term does not do the place justice, it’s actually quite nice. They don’t even call themselves “Australians”. The local pronunciation is a two syllable affair that phonetically resembles “Stray-in”. And they refer to their country simply as “Oz”.

They also shorten people’s names. Paul Hogan the movie star is known as Hoges, and the late Crocodile Hunter simply as Steve. I have been called Jase, J, Wil, and Wils. Something that I find absolutely amazing is that here, thousands of miles away from home where I am reasonably certain most people have never heard my surname before they ALL pronounce it correctly, but at home where Willeys are everywhere it’s mispronounced more often than not.
Trainers-tennis shoes

Singlet-Tank top

Foreshore-beach

Cashed up-recently paid

Ute-pickup or SUV, basically anything bigger than a regular passenger car

Stubby-a regular bottle of beer, or the little shorts guys used to wear in the 80s in the US, and still wear here.

Bird-slang for girl, same as “chick” in the US. There’s an amusing anecdote involving this term, a car rental company, prostitution, and a very successful ad campaign here in WA, but it’s complicated. If you’re interested remind me sometime and I’ll tell you.

Keen as mustard-If you are keen, you are enthusiastic or focused on the task at hand. When I passed another bloke on a hike the other day he exclaimed that I was a keen bugger. If you are keen as mustard, you are as enthusiastic as one may possibly be. As far as I can tell it is impossible to be more keen than mustard.

Bogan-The closest thing to this is our native redneck. The typical WA bogan is likely to live in an outback mining town like Kalgoorlie and to arrive every so often in Perth cashed up and keen to get pissed and find some birds. He drives an ancient ute with a massive bullbar on the grill and bits of hair from roadkilled roos wedged under the fenders. His preferred cossie consists of tattered jeans or stubbies and a dirty singlet. He has a penchant for spitting in public and drinking large amounts of Victoria Bitter. When he goes to the pub he is either barefoot or in steel toed work boots.

Whack-This has at least three meanings as far as I can tell. You can whack something onto something else. For example the other day I was asked to whack my signature on a letter to a client. You can also “whack” (make) a turn while walking, driving, etc. The least common meaning is a lot of something (see the next paragraph). Australians often also say “heap” in this context as well, as in the advice I got from a bogan the other day after I told him I lived in Scarborough. “There’s a heap of birds in little cossies in Scabs I reckon. When I take the missus, I wear my sunnies so I can get a peek!”

There is a whole “whack” of special words centered around drinking and the bar culture. A “sneaky one” is basically a drink consumed at a time when one ought to not be drinking. As part of my initiation I was taken for a sneaky one at 1 pm on a Wednesday afternoon. I soon realized that a sneaky one isn't really all that sneaky, because there are lots of other people doing the same thing at 1 pm on Wednesday and any other weekday too. A “stubby” is a regular-sized bottle of beer. A “midi” is a small glass, roughly half a pint, and a “schooner” is a pint glass. And to make thing more confusing, these terms only apply in Western Australia, they’re different in the east. One of my favorites is the toast I heard the other day. Midi held high the bloke yelled “Get this up ya”. Simple and to the point, which is good when you’re talking to drunks. (Although here you don’t get drunk, you get pissed). I've told lots of people about tinnies and eskies already so I won’t review them here. I’m sure there are tons of others but that’s all I know at the moment.

Bob’s your uncle-this phrase is spoken to indicate that a task is completed, and completed well. See next paragraph for an example.

Piece of piss-an easy task. I’m not kidding, this is real. I asked a guy the other day for some directions to a place that as it turned out was just around the corner. He replied “Piece of piss, mate. Up the road, whack a left, and Bob’s your uncle.” I said cheers and walked away moderately confused, but I did find where I was going. I even heard one of the guys who work for me use it in a business meeting. I was thinking that pretty much validated its use in polite company, until about ten minutes after he used it he flipped our client the finger when the client made a joke he didn't like. Strayins tend to be an informal bunch.

Flyaway-coupon. The first couple times I was asked in a checkout line if I had any flyaways I was utterly at a loss as to what they were asking me.

Stuffed up-messed up, or wasted, as in “She’s stuffed up that contract”.

Done and dusted-finished, as in “That job is done and dusted”. This is a rare case of Australians saying more than is necessary. I would think that just saying something is done would be sufficient, but apparently in a business context something cannot be done without being dusted as well.

Flash-fancy or nice. I wore my nice pinstripe pants to work the other day and as I stepped in the door a colleague exclaimed “Flash, mate!” He had me ducking behind the nearest potted plant to check my zipper.

Washing powder-laundry detergent.

Getting the mickey out-making fun of someone. I observed the other day to an office mate that Australians seem to be generally cheerful people. She agreed and opined that it was because , in her words “Strayins are happy folks because we get the mickey out of our mates, but we’re just as happy to get the mickey out of ourselves”. Which is to say they don’t take themselves too seriously, and I agree.

Pull a shifty-Trick or fool someone. Used car salesmen (and some consultants) are famous for pulling shifties.

Quicksmart-with haste. As in “Don’t stand on the foreshore, or the crocs’ll have you for brekkie quicksmart.”

Feral-disorganized

Under the pump-harried or stressed. An office worker told me the other day that she was a bit feral at the moment because she’d been under the pump. I just nodded.

Cheers for now

Welcome

I've been talking to Angel and she's been telling me that some of you back home have been asking for information about how I'm doing. In a perfect world I could phone you all and tell you what a ride it's been so far. But that's not on (as they say here), so hopefuly this is the next best thing.

It's been a little over three months now since I left the U.S., and so far the experience has been hard to describe. In some ways Australia has been exactly what I had expected. The people are precisely as I had heard they would be-warm, friendly, and exceedingly open. The land is exactly as the writers describe- in a single word, immense. But in more ways it has been totally different than I had imagined. There have been so many surprises here: the language is even more different than I thought it would be (even to the point of being an obstacle to effective communication in some cases); the cost of living is much higher than I expected; and I've been pleasantly surprised at the tact that most people show when it comes to voicing their opinions on U.S. politics and foreign policy, even though both are clearly unpopular with most people here. Perhaps the most significant surprise in my experience so far is how many small, seemingly insignificant differences exist between US and Australian society. The net result of these difference is that Austalian culture is fundamentally very different than our own. We have some things in common, but it's a mistake to think of Australians as basically the same as Americans with a charming accent.

Anyway I'll be using this space to keep those of you interested enough to look updated on the latest goings-on down here. Hopefully you'll find the stories and observations here worth the read. Feel free to comment, say hello, or whatever.

Cheers,

Jason