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THE
DELIGHTS OF DOWN UNDER
By
Sally Ogle Davis and Ivor Davis
 USTRALIA,
that huge, ancient continent is, outside of the U.S., our favorite
place in the world: The most friendly people, the most beautiful
scenery, the best food and wines, the most intriguing history, and
on and on.
We've traversed the huge
landmass by plane and car many times, from Perth in the west to the
Windward Islands off the east coast, from Kangaroo Island in the
south to Darwin in the north. We've done four different wine
regions, and the Great Barrier Reef. We've stayed on an outback
sheep station and brewed billy tea over a campfire in the Flinders
Range wilderness.
Bather’s
Pavilion in Sydney |
This time we decided to get
off the tourist track and become Aussies. Rather than gallivanting
all over we confined ourselves to the South West. A friend who lives
in Sydney lent us his charming cottage in the Blue Mountains, a
favorite holiday and weekend spot for Sydneysiders, as it's only an
hour and a half drive from Australia's favorite waterside city.
For our second week, we
exchanged our house in Ventura with one belonging to a family
in suburban Canberra, the federal capital, which is not only rarely
visited by American tourists but is foreign to many Aussies as well.
Australians are
anti-government and anti-authoritarian deep down in their DNA—it's
their convict background—and they tend to shun their capital,
leaving it to the politicians who commute weekly from all over the
country to take their seats in Parliament.
Start In Sydney
THIS is a city we
love even though it seems to change every time. This time we were
stunned by the improvements in transportation brought about by the
2000 Olympic Games. A ride from the airport to downtown that used to
include stop and go traffic through suburbs now takes 12 minutes on
a state of the art freeway. Shopping
now includes some of the most elegant malls anywhere. And Australia
opening itself to the world has made the place ever more
sophisticated and cosmopolitan.
Sydney is a city of water
and parks. One of the places where you can combine the two is the
Royal Botanic Gardens, a haven in the middle of this bustling
metropolis, cutting a huge swath through the city alongside the
water. It's home to the most exotic varieties of plants and trees
available anywhere.
The best way to get there
is to walk, from Circular Quay, with its ferry boat stations lined
up ready to take passengers to the shore-front suburbs, then around
the Quay to Australia's most famous land mark, the Sydney Opera
House, and beyond—still following the water, to the gardens which
also house the dignified Government House and the Conservatory of
Music. The beautiful stroll will take you about an hour but you'll
want to linger in the gardens.
You can't say you've seen
Sydney until you take a harbor cruise. This is the harborside city
and the very best way to see it is to get on the water.
There are all sorts of
deals which combine ferry tickets with entrance to top harborside
attractions like the Taronga Zoo, the best place, at least in an
urban environment, to see Australia's unique wild life—kangaroos,
wallabees, koalas and echidnas, a particularly decorative kind of
porcupine, or the Sydney Aquarium at nearby Darling Harbor.
Australia means beaches.
The city has made it easy for you to sun yourself on all its most
famous stretches of sand with the Bondi Explorer Bus, named for the
city's famous surfers paradise. One fare enables you to jump on and
off for an entire day and really see the city.
Our favorite shopping is a
uniquely Australian mall, the Queen Victoria Building in downtown
Sydney. It's a magnificent Victorian edifice on three floors
complete with original wrought iron work, stained glass windows and
gorgeous wrought iron elevators. It's packed with upscale shops,
cafes and bookstores. The perfect place to find Aussie woolens,
opals, bush hats and coats as well as designer clothes for adults
and children.
Darling Harbor, accessible
by ferry or monorail from downtown, combines a shopping mall with
the Australian Maritime Museum with its collection of historic
ships—there's even a submarine—the Aboriginal Art and Cultural
Center, the Sydney Aquarium, one of the largest in the world, the
Australian Northern Territory and Outback Center, and dozens of
restaurants, cafes and bars to refuel between attractions.
Sydney has some of the most
sophisticated restaurants with the most beautiful views anywhere in
the world. It's all about the water. The variety of ultrafresh
seafood boggles the mind.
The Rocks area where the
first settlers caught a glimpse of the new continent, the Opera
House and vicinity and Woolloomooloo Wharf just on the other side of
the Botanic Gardens are just some of the areas with elegant upscale
restaurants with terrific wine lists packed with the kinds of
Australian boutique wines that we rarely find outside the home
country.
The Blue Mountains
From Sydney we rented a car
and headed off to the Blue Mountains, so called because of the light
mist of oil emitted by the eucalyptus trees which, combined with the
greenery, shines with a strange blue light in the mist. The native
gum trees choke the steep gorges—the mountains are actually
steeped carved canyons plunging downwards rather than up. Think
Grand Canyon rather than the Rockies.
Our Friday evening drive
out of Sydney through jammed suburbs like Paramatta, was a bit of a
nightmare. As the road gradually climbed we realized we were
following the route of three famous Aussie explorers, Blaxland,
Wentworth and Lawson, who in 1831 found their way through the
mountains and discovered desperately needed grazing lands on the
other side to help feed the growing colony in Sydney. Of course
Aboriginal hunters had been crossing these mountains unheralded
since time immemorial.
One of the delights of any
country drive in Australia is the wild life. Though there were
Kangaroo crossing signs everywhere we didn't see a single one, but
passing a bush we thought bore white flowers, the flowers suddenly
took flight—they were gorgeous white cockatoos.
Later ensconced in our
cottage we were visited every morning by flocks of rosellas—fluorescent
red and green parrots who dined lavishly on the seed we put out for
them and entertained us with their chatter, that is when they could
be heard above the squawks of the Kookaburra, the nosiest bird
hereabouts.
Parliament
in Canberra |
The cottage was in the very
picturesque town of Leura, one of three main centers in the Blue
Mountains for exploring, bush walking, rock climbing and rappelling
which are the main attraction hereabouts.
We were just off the main
street, named The Mall, which had enough truly charming shops,
boutiques, delis, bakeries, tea and coffee houses to have kept us
happily exploring for months. It was early April, fall in Australia,
and the Blue Mountains were much colder and damper than we had
expected, sending us off in search of sweaters and scarves.
We didn't have to travel
miles to experience the beauty that makes the area famous. A couple
of turns from the end of the Mall brought us to Sublime Point, a
viewing spot overlooking the cliffs and canyons of the Jamison
Valley looking down on a dense canopy of eucalyptus as far as the
eye could see with heavily carved gorges on either side. Australia
really is a topsy turvy country because here we were looking down at
trees instead of up.
Across the street from this
magnificent view is another treasure: Luerella—the most authentic
art deco mansion in Australia with its interior entirely panelled in
Queensland Maple.
The house is owned by the
Evatt family who still live in part of it. The rest has been turned
into a toy and train museum because Dr. H.V Evatt, the former
Attorney General of Australia, was an inveterate collector.
There are dolls from all
over the world, tin soldiers, toy trains—an entire WWII diorama
depicting with startling accuracy the German and allied positions in
the Battle of the Bulge, near another model laying out the
regimental pomp of an Indian Durbah. Upstairs is a Barbie doll
collection from 1959 to the present near an Alice in Wonderland
clock runs appropriately backwards.
In the 12 acres of gardens
there's a complete locomotive on the grounds with a train station,
platform and railway advertising of the era. We chuckled at a tin
sign proclaiming, "Smoking is good for you."
From the museum we took in
the most famous view of the whole Jamison Valley from Echo Point.
There the multitudes come to view The Three Sisters—three jagged
rock pillars side by side, one of the most famous rock formations in
a country with scores of them.
At night when the Sisters
are floodlit, the view is almost supernatural. But this was Sunday
afternoon and the place was packed. There are plenty of places to
have lunch overlooking the view. Aboriginal performers in loin
cloths sell jewelry and blow didgeridoos for the benefit of the
tourists.
The other great tourist
base is Katoomba, an Aboriginal word meaning "shiny falling
waters," not surprising since nearby are the Katoomba Falls and
Cascades, the Bonnie Doon Falls, and Minnie Ha Ha Falls. A scenic
cable car, The Skyway, traverses the valley and is the best way to
see this spectacular and totally unique area.
The town itself can only be
described as funky, a place beloved of refugees from the
sixties—lots of batik clothing , antique galleries and crystal
gazers. But it contains a couple of unique architectural
masterpieces: The Paragon Café and chocalatier, a perfectly
preserved art deco masterpiece. The bar looks as if Ginger Rogers
who once visited , and Fred Astaire who did not, should be sipping
martinis in the corner. There is no whispering baritone but taped
golden oldies add to the authentic atmosphere.
Steps from the Paragon is
The Carrington Hotel, a huge Victorian pile in the grand style,
built in 1880 with one of those sweeping wrap around verandas made
for large feathered hats and afternoon tea. It has been recently
sympathetically restored and is well worth a visit.
Time for Canberra
CANBERRA
must be one of the world's most underrated cities. Once a vast sheep
pasture, it was built as the capital when the two rival cities,
Melbourne and Sydney, refused to give up their respective claims to
the honor.
Elegantly designed, full of
flowerbeds and parks, easy to navigate and with wonderful
countryside close by, it's an easy place to live, and offers
multiple attractions for tourists. The climate, however, tends to
hot and sticky in summer and cold and wet in winter, so spring and
fall are the seasons to put Canberra on your itinerary.
War
Memorial in Canberra |
Don't miss the National
Portrait Gallery at Old Parliament House, King George Terrace (www.portrait.gov.au
02-6270 8222), which has a wonderful collection of the icons of
Australia. It's a great way to get a quick pocket history of the
country.
Also not to be missed the
National Museum on the grounds of the National University of
Australia, which houses the finest collection of Aboriginal art in
the country.
The very impressive
Australian War Memorial houses a great collection of Australian war
art. The works include paintings recording their gallant history,
from the Burma Railroad days through to the Vietnam War. This is a
people who love their country and are justly proud of their military
contribution and sacrifices in other people's wars. (Anzac Parade, www.awm.gov.au,
phone: 02-6243 4211).
Although we were staying in
the house we swapped for our home in Ventura, we had to revisit
our favorite hotel in Canberra. The Hyatt is another one of those
places where you step through the doors into another era, this time
the upper class world of gracious twenties and thirties living.
On the shores of Lake
Burley Griffin, the manmade waterway at the center of Canberra life,
you're within easy distance of all the museums, the aquarium and
other landmarks. Have a cocktail in the Speakers Corner Bar and
you're likely to run into diplomats from around the world. Afternoon
tea on the terrace will make you feel like a colonial bigwig in some
outpost of empire.(Hyatt: Commonwealth Avenue, Yarralumla.)
We were staying between the
leafy suburbs of Griffith and Manuka, virtually in the shadow of the
modern wedding cake Parliament Building. This is the Beverly Hills
of Canberra, with lots of charming upscale boutiques and restaurants
in a village like atmosphere. On warm evenings, with diners eating
alfresco in the many restaurants, we could have been in any major
European city dining on food from Thailand, Greece, Italy, Spain.
We dined at The Tryst,
serving clean fresh Thai accented meats and salads, on Bougainville
St, Manuka Phone: 612-6239 4422, as well as at Belluci's, a lively
Italian bistro, on the corner of Franklin and Furneaux Stree, also
in Manuka.
We also stopped for dinner
at The Boat House By the Lake, which was built on the site of an old
boatshed but now has the best view in Canberra for dining. The
ambience is elegant, especially since the view includes a flock of
black swans sailing by on the lake.
And the food, surprisingly
for a popular tourist spot, measures up. Chef Darren Tetley serves
rare low fat Kangaroo, as well as some
of the best lamb in town.
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Where
To Stay
IME
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