Wild Places and Open Spaces

Camping: is pretty easy as most caravan parks have a camp kitchen (fully equipped) and BBQ’s (their version is a stainless steel hot plate) are everywhere. We even travelled over 20km into the bush to find a lone BBQ! However, there are no picnic tables at the campsites like we are used to. Aussie campers bring their own portable tables with them.

Public toilets: tend to be clean as a whistle…much different than many we encountered in North America (this include the pit toilets in the bush). Every flush toilet we encountered had a much different ‘flushing mechanism’ than we had envisioned. We were waiting to watch the water swirl down the toilet in the other direction (isn’t that what everyone first does when they get to Australia??) but the water in the toilets does not ‘swirl’ due to the mechanism…instead it kind of bubbles up, and spurts everywhere in the toilet (and often on the seat which is quite disgusting when you think about it) and doesn’t seem to ‘get rid of’ all the wonderful things that go in a toilet. Very strange and not very hygenic I don’t think. However, nearly all flush toilets have two buttons on them to indicate if you need a ‘big flush’ or a ‘little flush’ – depending on the big or little mess you made in it. Good idea to save water. Okay, enough about toilets.

Topography: the whole east coast is way more mountainous than we had expected. The outback is very flat and full of scrub brush.

Water: Australia is either ina drought with fires (it’s amazing the whole country hasn’t burned to a crisp), or in a flood.
Freshwater: Australians drink three types of water: 1) treated water in the cities, 2) bore water (well water) 3) rainwater. 2 & 3 usually occur in the countr. The Aussies are keen on their rain water. The rain water tanks collect rain water off the roof…it could be the water from any building…outhouse, barn, garage or house. This tank has NO filter in it, simply a screen that removes the ‘big stuff’. They all drink rain water out of these tanks…what we don’t understand is that bird poo, frog pee, and anything else that gets on the roof ends up in these tanks…but no one seems to care. Needless to say, we didn’t drink it after e heard it is neither filtered or checked…and surprisingly (not) our upset stomachs magically disappeared. We bought 5L jugs of wate, but no water fill up stations exist in Australia. So, unfortunately every time you need to buy more water you need to buy a new 5 jug of it…what a terrible waste of plastic! (See recycling below)

Sea water: The water in the south is beautiful but freezing. The water around Sydney is beautiful and cool. The water around Brisbane is warm and stinger-free. The water in the north is quite warm but unswimmable in the summer due to stingers.

People: We found the people in Queensland to be the most laid back and friendly. There is no such thing as ‘No Shirt, No Shoes, No Service’ in Oz. It is not uncommon to see the majority of kids/teens with no shoes on, men in grocery stores with no shirt, and women on the beach with no shirt.
The road workers, in their fluorescent shirts and wide brimmed hats are much like our city workers – always on a break.
All school children wear uniforms and wide brimmed hats – the hats are mandatory to protect them from the sun as they claim to have the highest rate of skin cancer in the world.
The posties (mail carriers) ride mini Honda motorcycles over everyone’s lawns to deliver the mail (I don’t think that would go over well at home!).

Transportation: People drive either really small cars or utes. People usually don’t drive utes unless they need them for work – unlike we do in North America! Regardless of what they drive, Toyotas are the most popular type of cars. They drive Holdens (GM), Ford, Chrysler, Subaru, Hyundai, Honda, Mitsubishi and Citrons, although Chrysler owns a small portion of the market too.
It is common to come across Road Trains in the outback – they are transport trucks and can have up to 4 trailers on them.
Speedbumps are more like ‘speed jumps’, and there are millions of them.
Roundabouts are common (rather than traffic lights) and it takes a while to get used to them! There are hardly any stop signs (or street names for that matter), rather just ‘give ways’. Australia has fast drivers – 100km/hr on any road not in the city. Fuel prices are a little more expensive off the beaten track. Ferries cost a fortune.

Towns and Cities: Most ‘downtown’ areas are referred to as the CBD (central business district). Most towns have all their downtown on one main street. It is nice to see all the small industries still alive – there are usually a butcher, baker, barber, pub/bottleshop, and cafe in each town. Each town seems to pride themselves on winning the “Australia’s Tidiest Town” award, but it seems every town we entered had won it or is currently holding the title! Seriously though, their towns are clean for the most part, and each one has a public toilet on the main strip and usually a picnic area to boot.

Food: They ae huge meat-eaters in Australia. It was a common sight to see people have only meat for dinner, usually in the form of sausages. Kangaroo is sold in the grocery stores and it is quite tasty. Their fruits and veggies are AMAZING…not always cheap, but always tasty. Meat pies are sold everywhere, and are an Aussie staple. Their food is always well presented in their store fronts – ie deli sandwiches, prepared salads, desserts, etc. Food presentation is huge here and everything alwas looks fresh. However, fast food is on the rise, and most are American companies that we’d recognize: McDonalds, Kentucky Fried Chicken, Pizza Hut, Subway, Burger King. They have wonderful coffee here – it’s expensive, but good. Took us a while to get the lingo down…there is no such thing as a ‘regular’, ‘double double’ etc. You need to order a ‘flat white’ if you want a regular, but you need to put your own sugar in. I think we only ever bought 2… we just couldn’t part with $4.00/cup.
Alcohol is bought in bottleshops, commonly called BWS (beer/wine/spirits). There wine is terrific and cheap as chips. Aussies love their beer – common brews are: XXXX, Carlton Mid, VB, Crown, Tooeys, but NOT Fosters.

Miscellaneous:
Movies are expensive to go watch, and they don’t put butter/topping on their popcorn.

Men wear short shorts, and big hollywood-style glasses are on both men and women.

Electricity is 240 volts and 50htz which wreaks havoc on Jim’s electric shaver. You can hear him a mile away when he shaves.

Radio stations play all different types of music on one station – you can go from Metallica to Enya to Hip Hop to Garth Brooks in 5 minutes. We NEVER found a good radio station.

Weather forecasts: their favorite expressio is “FINE” – we still don’t know what this means however, as it seems to be very subjective.

Internet was readily available in big city centers, but no where else, especially in Tasmania where they seem to be about 15 years behind…

Recycling appears to be almost non-existent much to our surprise. If it exists, it is not organized at all. Very sad.

Stamps are very expensive. $1.20 to send a postcard (hence why hardly anyone got one).

Books were even more expensive…ridiculous money for a small paperback ($18.00!).

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