2019/11 Australia trip - Melbourne arrival |
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Saturday November 2nd
When we landed in Melbourne we were told that one of our passengers was ill and would have to be checked out by medical staff before we were allowed to disembark. There was some speculation that if the passenger turned out to be infected with the dreaded lurgi we might all be shipped back to Canada. Luckily we were all allowed in; but Edna and John were kept waiting for another hour; an expensive hour at Melbourne’s exorbitant parking rates.
The weather in Melbourne had been 35C (95F) a couple of days before but now it was a cool steady drizzle, closer to what we’re used to anyway.
I was trying to stay dry as we walked to the ramp and I realized that even with my limping, shambling walk I was leaving John behind. His back has deteriorated a lot since we last saw him in 2015. He said it had got worse recently; he was a lot better on last year’s trip to England. Apart from that they both looked to be doing well; John looked to have lost some weight, but it’s tough to keep it off when you have visitors.
It stayed wet and dark all the way through Melbourne to Mulgrave; the area hadn’t changed much in four years but there was a new house across the road. All their immediate neighbours are now Vietnamese and most of the others also come from Asian countries.
John and Edna both have hearing aids and Sandie had an ear infection which was making her deaf. With three deafies and one mumbler (me) it was going to be a month of misunderstandings, particularly with the background noise of driving at highway speeds.
The kids and grandkids were all doing well; more information about them later as we’d be seeing them all we hoped.
Edna’s cousin Grace, who’d come to Australia before they did, had died just a few weeks earlier, but Grace’s husband Tony is still alive.
Which brought up the question of where we’d be going. The original plan was to visit the national parks around the border of New South Wales and Queensland; they are mostly mountainous rain forest, usually warm and damp with a wide array of plants and wildlife. On our last trip to the area in 2010 we’d had to bypass most of the parks because of extensive flooding. On that trip we’d also run out of time and not been able to visit Fraser Island, so for this trip we made that our target and turn around point.
However, John had warned us a few weeks earlier that the area was now afflicted by a really bad drought. Every year since those 2010 floods had been low on rainfall and many places had empty reservoirs. There were large fires burning even though it was only early spring. The situation had not improved since then and there were now road closures and evacuations in the worst-hit areas. We decided to go visit the family in Lakes Entrance and in Sydney and then decide what to do.
This was going to be our first trip to Australia without a camper; our Troopie was sold after our 2015 trip. This time we were all going to be traveling with John and Edna in their Mitsubishi Outlander, and staying in motels, not as much fun as camping, but easier on the body. The Mitsubishi has four wheel drive, but it doesn’t have the clearance so we’d have to be less ambitious on rocks and sand and water crossings.
The weather stayed wet and cold so even though the pool was ready to use, no one felt like swimming. John braved the weather to barbecue for us. We stayed awake long enough to partly overcome jet lag, but I don’t remember much beyond enjoying dinner.