We slept in a little on Saturday.  Between the tropical air, the six am flight the night before, and the whirl wind of a trip so far, we all needed a little extra shut eye.

So we got up, chatted a bit, and talked about what we wanted to do for the day.  In the end, deciding that the mountain town of Kuranda, supposedly with plenty of craft type shops and stalls, rainforest galore, and other tourist attractions, would be a good way to spend the day.

We hopped back into the van/mini-bus and made the drive back towards Cairns.  Thought Kuranda was close as the crow flies, driving there can be a bit of a hassle…along the windy coastal road, turn by the airport…and take an even windier path up into the coastal mountains.

Sarah’s stomach was churning again….

But we made it safely into Kuranda, parked the car, and proceeded to take in this little mountain tourist town.

And it is a tourist town in the truest sense of the word.  There is a train that comes from the central shopping mall in Cairns twice a day, the shops opening coincide with its arrival, and they shut at 3pm, exactly the take off time of the last train back to Cairns.  In between, they delight the travellers with the details.  Tropical fig trees line the main street, their roots hanging down out of their branches.  The security posts that prevent cars from jumping the curb and driving down the sidewalks are of bronze and have small birds, mammals, and insects cast on them.  The store fronts are all open and inviting.

It is like a massive, planned, open air, tropical, craft shopping mall.

With a butterfly world, reptile world, and snake museum thrown in for good measure.

We wondered the streets as the girls did their power shopping.  Grabbing lunch at one of the resturaunts that served good, simple, overpriced meals.  I went with the crepes, because first, it was the cheapest thing on the menu, and second, because like seeing fish on the menu and cracking halibut jokes, crepes is one of those things that gives you plenty of material that will last the balance of the meal (”would you like berries on your crepes?”  “Sure, what the crepe!” “OK, cut the crepe and hand me the sugar.”)

Lunch done, Tom, Mary and the girls headed to the butterfly exhibit, something that they would have had to pay ME to go too, while I wondered the streets.

The town did have a history to it.  It was far from the reach of Japanese ships and planes and had a good railroad network, so the town was essentially commandeered by the military during World War II to be used as a hospital and place for R & R for US servicemen.  The town was founded as a mining town, but quickly became the gateway to the fertile Atherton Tablelands just up the road.  The owner of a honey shop let a couple of hippies set up shop on land next to their store, and the craft market sprang up around them.  Turning it into the tourist town it is today.

A quick phone call to Tom and Mary to make sure that they made their train, and I stopped for a bit of damper (Australian bread served with butter and jam) and I hit the road…but not for Cairns.  Knowing that they had a good two and a half hour train ride in front of them, I figured that I’d stop and see one of the local attractions - the magnificent waterfall and surrounding jungle.

Main Street Kuranda

Sign Marking One of the R & R Centers….on the Pub….

Security Pole, Looks like a Tree Trunk (The Gecko isn’t Real Either)

Authentic Australian Damper Bread

 For supper, we made our way to the Iron Bar.  A bar, true to its name, that was covered in corrugated metal and with the rustic outback feel, with big gum tree timbers and disused mining and station tools and trappings hanging from the walls.

The ladies played supper safe…Tom and I were adventurous.  We got the mixed grill platter.  Perhaps directly off the highway…Emu, Kangaroo, and Crocodile all on the plate, with a mixture of roasted vegetables to go along with it.

Overall it was pretty good stuff.  Even Abby, who less than a week before seemed terrified to try anything beyond McDonald’s (Macker’s) tried the emu and kangaroo.

Then came the true cultural experience of the night.  And one that the poor girls will have nightmares about for the rest of their lives….cane toad racing.

I paid the $3 for three of us to get in, brother Tom and sister-in-law Mary having no interest to see this unique cultural display.  I grabbed a seat in the back, while I encouraged the girls to sit closer to the action.  Hoping that they wouldn’t get selected to be one of the racers.

Not realizing that the tickets that I bought would determine the people expected to race the cane toads.  Each ticket numbered with a corresponding number on a slip of paper in a bucket that would be drawn out and would determine the racers.

The organizer was classic Aussie, in his accent and mannerisms.  He was like a Steve Irwin (The Crocodile Hunter) only with Cane Toads.  He regaled the crowd and got them involved.  Bringing up each cane toad that would be raced that night one by one, starting with the one about the size of a golf ball…and ending with the one that was larger than a soft ball.

They were disgusting.

Oh, and they secrete poison.

It was at this point that Abby and Sarah moved back to be with me, far away from the cane toads.

Each toad had a name, most of them slightly in appropriate.  They didn’t seem to mind the children that were listening (though if they understood the names, they probably weren’t that innocent).

The man in charge proceeded to give us the history of the cane toad.  The long and short of it - it was America’s fault.  The cane toad was brought in by American’s that were trying to kill a sugar cane killing insect…the problem was, the insects were at the top, the cane toads were at the bottom of the plant, so they rarely met.  In the meant time, the cane toads went from a small group to something that borders on plague proportions.  Millions of these things roam the countryside.

All courtesy of the US of A…I swear, we take the wrap for everything…

Soon, the numbers were drawn out of the bucket, and a look of horror stretched across Sarah’s face…her number was up….

“You take it.” She said trying to shove it into my hand.

“Just don’t say anything.” I said.

“No, they might find me.  Just take it.” Sarah said.

“You don’t have to go up.” I reassured her.

“Just take it!” she hissed at me.

Luckily, with one person not stepping forward, they drew another number…Sarah was relived.

Each person had to pick up their cane toad, kiss it, and then try to get it to jump around a table.

In the end, it wasn’t particularly thrilling.  We left after the first heat to find Tom and Mary, who went to do a little grocery shopping.  We went to bed early that night, me resting comfortably with the knowledge that I had given the girls a unique cultural experience…the girls with visions of cane toads dancing in their heads…

 The back of the Iron Bar

Pre-Cane Toad Kissing

Post Cane Toad Kissing

We made it onto the plane and in the early morning light, were soon winging our way northward from Melbourne, which still in the grips of their winter (not to be compared with a Minnesota winter…more like a Memphis winter…) and heading north to Cairns, which was in the gripes of their winter - which meant sunny days, highs in the 80’s, and no deadly jelly fish.It sounded like a great trade to me.

I think we all slept a little on the plane, especially those of us that had pulled the first all-nighter in the last twelve months, I’m just out of practice.  When we weren’t sleeping, we were enjoying the fantastic view of Australia from the air in the morning twilight.

Landing at Cairns was a shock.  The whole airport seems to be under construction.  The airport in Cairns is a relatively new feature in its own right, only decades ago, planes would land on the wide, sandy beaches…probably at low tide…

But we found our car, actually, a Hyundai  van…that really seemed to resemble a mini bus, set up the GPS and made our way out of town.

Through miles, and miles, and miles of round-a-bouts….

Finally, clearing the last round-a-bout, we made our way north of Cairns, heading for Port Douglas.  I will admit, once we hit the open road, the blue waters of the Coral Sea shone on one side of the car, on the other, the thick underbrush and woods of the Queensland coastal rainforest obscured most of the view.

Both were inspiring.

In many ways, it was hard to believe that I was here, off the Coral Sea, as a history buff, this was prime fighting waters for World War II.  The supremacy of the Japanese navy was fought in this same body of water seventy years ago - the first major engagement with the Japanese after Pearl Harbor.  How a place of such beauty could also have such carnage was beyond me.

We slowly wound our way along the road which followed the coast like a ribbon until we hit the town of Port Douglas.  Until recently, Port Douglas was merely the last stop on the highway running north out of Cairns, with better roads, it meant that more tourists could come up and see the beauty of the town - the closest point to the Great Barrier Reef, Four Mile Beach, iconic downtown, and gateway to Daintree National Park.

We found our hotel right off of the main drag and stopped in.  It was a gleaming white building with columns, as we walked in to see if we could check in (it was only eleven o’clock in the morning), we saw the big mechanical fans, slowly moving back and forth above us, the big pool beyond the front desk that meandered through the compound.

Our rooms not ready, and we all needing either a nap or a good bite to eat, headed for downtown.

We were not disappointed.

Our first stop was at the Courthouse Hotel, a classic tropical hotel with the wide veranda’s and plenty of taps behind the bar.  They were just in the throes of opening up (though there were plenty of people drinking already), so we ordered our food and waited.

The food was worth the wait.  I got the Barramundi sandwich, a good piece of fish on a Turkish roll with some of the fixings - lettuce, tomato, a little mayo.  It was a darn fine fish sandwich.

With lunch under our belts, we proceeded to walk the main drag and do a bit of shopping.  There were dozens of shops and stores lining the sidewalks that covered the range of clothing stores, knick-knacks, tourist information booths, real estate offices, and the occasional hippy type store.

My nieces and sister-in-law loved it.  Tom and I tolerated it.

No offense, but as much as I dislike shopping when I’m well rested, after pulling an all-nighter…you know, I just dislike it as much, I guess I’m just grumpier about it.

Soon enough, we were able to make it back to the hotel, shower, change, settle in, and my nieces were able to swim a little, while Tom and I enjoyed a good malt beverage by the pool. 

Australia Sunrise

 Anyone that schedules a six am flight when dealing with teenagers, or pre-teens for that matter, should have their head examined.  As if they aren’t moody enough, without operating on far less sleep than normal.

Someone remind me to schedule that appointment because I was the one that booked the tickets….

Truth be told, they were pretty good.

We made it to the airport with plenty of time to spare, we were there right at 5am.  We made it to the front of the line, which was packed, much sooner then I would have expected, and made our way to the gate.

Then our thoughts turned to breakfast.

“I’ll take the girls and get something.  Any requests?” I asked my brother and sister-in-law who were still trying to handle the early morning departure.

With a request for something with yogurt and fruit and ‘anything that looks good,’ we made our way back to the food court.

Where the lines were amazingly long.

To make matters worse, one niece wanted Burger King (sorry, he has been dethroned down her and left to starve…) I mean Hungry Jack’s, another wanted a sandwich, and the yogurt/fruit combo was only available from a third vendor, with twenty minutes to spare before we started to board, I figured we still had just enough time.

So while Abby (the older niece) waited in line for her Hungry Jack’s breakfast, Sarah and I bought the yogurt salad and waited in line for the breakfast sandwiches on the Turkish bread.

All was going to plan and I was five minutes away from getting the sandwiches (they were being toasted) and by my watch, they would have just started boarding the plane, which meant we should have time to spare.

That is when my phone rang, it was older brother Tom at the gate…”They just called last boarding call!” He said in a panic.

“Wait, this should be the first boarding call.” I said.

“It was both.” He replied.

I sent the girls on their way and waited for the sandwiches.  As they rounded the corner out of my sight, I thought of what I had just done….left my two little nieces out of my sight…in an airport…in a foreign country…

I could picture them being hustled off by airport security, captured by some international terrorists, being used as drug mules by some international trafficking crime syndicate.  I would be banned from entering the USA for crimes against children.  My family wouldn’t want to see my again.  I had just let the two first born grandchildren to my father be lost forever in the wilds of the Melbourne Airport!

I grabbed the sandwiches and RAN, I mean really ran through the airport, Even with a head start, I almost caught up to them.

“I’m sorry girls, I shouldn’t have let you come back by yourselves!  Are you ok?” I said breathlessly as they gathered their things, looking at me a little strangely.

“Uncle Mark, I AM A HIGHSCHOOLER now…” Abby said a little haughtily.

They were right, terrorist and drug crime syndicates would never put up with the sarcasm of teenagers.

 Dropping the family off at their apartment, I headed back to mine.  There was a lot of work to do, and we had to be to the airport by 5:00am the next morning.  It was going to be a short night.

I had to pack, arrange transportation, print up some documents at work, send some emails, and do a lot of laundry.

Plus a few other things thrown in too boot.

I scurried around the apartment and did a plethora of things.  Then, about eleven o’clock, I hit the office.  There were emails to check, documents to sign, and a host of other things to be done, about two o’clock, I started for home.

I’ve always felt safe in Melbourne.  Never had an incident where I haven’t felt like I’ve been threatened.  But this night, with drunks stumbling out of the casino, things just didn’t seem right.

As I was crossing the King Street Bridge, I could hear footsteps behind me, the faster I went, the faster they seemed to come along…looking over my shoulder, I saw one young man, with a group of three coming up behind him.

I decided it play it cool…I had cash, my passport, and my computer on me…four guys approaching behind me, and no one else around that seemed to care.

The long guy came up along side of me…

“Hey, how’s it going tonight?” I asked nonchalantly.

“No bad.” The young man said.  “You aren’t from around here are you?” He asked.

“Nope, from the States.” I replied as we came to the light, the three other guys turning off in the other direction.

“Welcome down under!” The young man said. “Mind if I walk with you awhile?”

“Not at all!” I said.

Eighteen years old and fresh from a country town of Eucha, he was working at the casino, living at a hostel, and planning on getting into University and make a name for himself.  He had been mugged a couple of nights before, and I seemed like a safe person to walk home with.

Teaches me to judge a man harshly and jump to conclusions.

“You alright?  You going to be ok?” I asked as he got ready to turn into the hostel.

“I’ve got a job, I’ve got a bed, and with any luck, I’ll have an apartment.  Life is good.” He replied.

We need more youthful optimism in this world, not less.  We need more people willing to venture out and try new and different things, not less.  We need people willing to get mugged and robbed and get back up and try again, not less.  We need more courage, not less.

The kid was going to be alright.

With that in mind, and no sleep under my belt, I went home, finished packing, and got a van to take us all to the airport to meet out six o’clock am departure for Caines.

 I was pretty darn young, but I remember it clearly.  Old enough to be out doing chores and milking, but young enough to still be second string, I was probably about ten or eleven.  On this night, Sunday, Dad let me come in early to let he and the older boys finish up milking.

I remember flipping through the channels, including the new one that was just hitting the airwaves in our neck of the woods, FOX Broadcasting.  Popular to me and the family thanks to old re-runs of Batman and its numerous John Wayne marathons.

On this particular night they had a not so funny variety show called ‘The Tracy Ullman Show’ on, not something that I’d watch…but I was stunned to see a cartoon come on as I was flipping through.

It was spectacular.  The animation was rough, but the storyline was brilliant.  Crude, irreverent, but smart and funny.

The one that sticks out is of a family going out for a picnic and dropping the baby out of the car on accident.  As the family zooms through the countryside, the baby falls into the river and fights her way through various situations - ending with a death defying plunge over a waterfall…only to fall at the exact spot where her family was just stopping for their picnic.  The baby, calm as ever, the family going on unsuspecting of the drama that had just ensued.  It was like an all American family, very dysfunctional.

Who knew that I was watching the birth of the longest running sitcom and television show in history.

Two years later, too much chagrin by decent people everywhere, ‘The Simpson’s’ had their own television show.  D’oh!

At the time, the show was derided as crude, inappropriate, and teaching children bad manners.  “Don’t Have a Cow Man,” “Eat My Shorts,” and a host of other t-shirts featuring some of the catch phrases spelled the end of civilization.

But something happened between 1989 when the show debuted and today.  The Simpson’s stayed relevant.  Not only that, but the family themselves stayed consistent and they kept on trying.  Sure, Homer was a bad Dad, Marge was a martyr of a mother and wife, and the kids were dysfunctional, but they also ate meals together as a family, they went to church every Sunday (and faced the wrath of God if they didn’t), and in the end, usually ended up loving and supporting each other regardless of the situation.

In short, they went from being crude and insensitive, to a symbol of a dysfunctional family that kept on trying.

They have followed me as well.  From high school, where when Mom and Dad were gone my senior year, I’d watch them on the television (Dad still can’t stand them), to college where they were watched in one of the rooms of our fraternity as reruns every night at 6:30 (eventually beating out “The Dukes of Hazard”).

Regardless where I’ve moved, Sunday nights they were still there - Illinois (no television, but like a good college town, would always show them in the bar), Wichita (over supper with friends), in Minneapolis, in Ohio, back to Minneapolis.

Why even moving to Australia, that first day, tired and exhausted, I turned on my television and the first show that I watched was the Simpsons….and as luck would have it, it was the episode when Bart was forced to go to Australia and get ‘The Boot’…just goes to show, they are still relevant today!

The drive back from Cape Otway was a spectacular one.  It was also long.  And curvy.  It was spectacularly long and curvy.  The road went from the ravines and canyons of the coastal mountains and right down to the coast…following the curves valleys and ravines with the sheer cliffs on one side and pounding ocean on the other.Over the course of the last ten months, I’ve gotten used to these types of roads.  But they are still nerve racking with sheer cliff and rock on one side and ocean on the other and a wildly varying speed limit, from 80 km per hour (about 55 mph) down to about 40 km per hour (about 25 mph), most of the time was spend at the lower, simply because the straightaways were so sparse and the curves were so prevalent.

Abby, now the teenager, sat in the seat next to me, listening to her i-pod despite repeated attempts of me trying to start a conversation.  At one point, physically noticing that she had the ear bud out, but failing to get a response from her to a question…causing me to say a sharp “ABBY!” and she turning her head…revealing that the other ear still had its ear bud firmly in place.

For about forty kilometres of the up and down over the hills and curves of following ridges, we pulled into the city of Lorne (believe it or not pronounced ‘Lawn’) and stopped for gas.

As I got out to pump gas, the back seat passengers rolled out of the car.  “Everybody doing ok back there?” I asked with some chipper in my voice.

“We’re all getting sick back there, I’m not sure why you have to drive so darn fast around those corner.” Came the reply from Tom.

Call me crazy, but at the back of my head, I thought to myself, “I wonder if they aren’t doing very well in the backseat….”

The balance of the trip took a long time.  I visited every pull out.  I took it easy.  “What are we doing uncle Mark?” Abby asked at one pull out.

“Letting the car behind me go around” I replied, wanting to add, “so that your sister’s fish and chips are swimming in your hair….”

But we made it home, after a stop at the Geelong (pronounced Ja-long…not Gee-long…) Subway.

A good trip on a great road…a Great Ocean Road! (ba-dump-bump).

 Most people don’t think of the southern Australian coast line as a rainforest, even most people in Australia.  Yet, that is what it is.  Through the coastal ranges, which cause most of the moisture blowing off the oceans to rise, form clouds and deposit moisture in the gullies, canyons, and valleys, we drove.

It was a great drive.

Through the small towns, through towering forests and past fantastic sights we wound our way through on the Great Ocean Road (which, for this sixty kilometre stretch, does not actually follow the ocean).

The girls dozed in the back off and on.  Tom, Mary and I were in awe of the scenery out of windows.  Stopping occasionally at turn offs overlooking spectacular valleys filled with cattle and sheep.

We zig-zagged our way through the trees, when suddenly, I saw the turn off I was looking for…Cape Otway.

At one point in time, Cape Otway was one of the most remote lighthouses in Australia.  Twice a year, a boat would deposit supplies to the families that lived and manned the lighthouse, including the kerosene to run the gas light that protected sailors from the ragged, rocky point and guide them on their run into Melbourne.

“Keep your eyes open girls!” I said, “Last time I was down here we saw a few wild animals.”

The first couple of kilometres were uneventful.  Where I was hoping to see an echidna or two like last time, all we saw were muddy cows.  When the road widened and we entered the area where the eco resorts ended and the national park started, our luck changed.  There were a couple of cars parked on the side of the road almost right after entering.

“G’day!” I said.

“There is a koala in that tree!” One of the adult passerby’s said enthusiastically.

Getting out a tree, sure enough, there was a koala, about eight feet off the ground, munching on some leaves.  We watched for a while, snapping pictures with a passle of other tourists.

We got into the car and drove another half a mile to the next group of cars.  There were TWO koalas in the trees.  We got out, snapped some pictures, and watched for a while.

We got into the car, and drove another half a mile to the next group of cars…and you thought these things were endangered…only their eyes from the darn camera flashes.

At the fourth sighting (no cars this time) I told the girls to just wave at them outside of the windows.

By the tenth sighting, I started fearing for our safety, what if these things were planning on overthrowing the Australian government and starting their revolution right here I thought…but then soon realized that most people probably won’t care and the government might actually run better….

Eventually, we made it up to the lighthouse, or at least the place to pay before going up to see the lighthouse.  Then we made the walk to the lighthouse keepers cottage.

There had to be something special about living in such a remote spot of the world, isolated from all but your small community of people.  As I sat looking out over the mast with the flags (to communicate with passing ships), and the distant lighthouse from the veranda, part of me wondered how they could live a life out in the middle of a wilderness, with nothing but the cattle and sheep of the station and passing ships to greet them.  But part of me too believed it would be a good and pleasant life.  Daily tasks (cleaning, cooking, recording ships, maintaining the lighthouse) mixed with family, solitude, and silence with the backdrop of the sea.

We walked to the lighthouse and made took the steps to the top.  The lighthouse itself is a marvel.  Constructed out of rock blocks, cut by a shipload of master masons, there isn’t anything holding it together - no mortar, only the exactness of the cut and the fit of the master workmen.

From the top (once we all made it up, some of us more scared of heights then others), the sight was amazing.  The wild Otway Peninsula behind us, the mighty sea on the other three sides, with only the few buildings of the lighthouse station to see between us and the wilderness, and the crashing waves on the beach below us between us and the sea.

We walked up to the gift shop, made from one of the other cottages (assistant lightkeepers I believe), then to the radar station…circa World War II.

This place had seen some action, this was one of the first lookouts to the approach to Melbourne, so radar and coastal watches were a necessity to protect the acting capital of Australia during both World Wars.

All too soon, we had to make the break back to the highway, but not before revisiting our friends the koalas.  I will admit, we stopped for two more…but when you can count them in the trees when driving forty miles an hour over gravel, you do start to wonder how they would taste on the grill…

 Our walks to the school bus marked the passage of time.  From Labor Day, when summer gasping its last breathes, right to the first snowfall in early November, we saw fall unfold for us.  In reality, it was more than just the walk to the bus, it was the whole routine - from waking up early to do chores, to that walk down to the bus every morning.  But from Labor Day to the first snow, we could see nature slowly change her gown.

The leaves told the story of fall.  And as much as the weather and seasons directed my feeling of life, there was such beauty in the look, feel, and smell of autumn in the upper Midwest.

The plant life was the first sign of fall.  Once the small grains came off in August, the barren stubble fields would be reborn with the weeds and grasses that had laid dormant under the waving stands of wheat, barley, and oats, starved for sunlight under the dense canopy.  These weeds were combined with the stray seeds that had missed the hopper of the combine.  Combined, in the late summer sun, they had formed a carpet of green, after that first frost, this carpet of green would dull and slowly brown.

The rest of the grasses too would know that fall was here.  In the sloughs, ditches, and pastures, the once verdant landscape would slowly turn back to browns and yellow, the energy now focused on creating seeds of retreating into the deep roots to live out the winter.  We would watch the lawn turn from bright green to a dark green, and from grass that stood up straight and tried to constantly grow, to a matt of grass that huddled close to the ground, finally turning a dull brown.

The ground would know when fall arrived, it seemed to start to extrude the smell of mustiness, the initial smells of decay from the grass of summer and without the heat and intensity of the summer sun, the moisture would linger speeding up the decaying process and releasing the pungent smell of drying grasses combined with the decay of fall.

But it was the trees that were the true story tellers.  From the green leafy days of late spring and early summer, to the seemingly darker hues of high summer, to the seemingly overnight turning of green to yellows, oranges, reds, and browns - which would then lead to the shedding of the leaves and the bare branches of the oaks, elms, maples, and box elders rattling in the fall breezes.

The walk changed too.  As a young kid, you could play in the puddles from the late summer rain storm, sure you feet would get a little wet, but in early September, that wasn’t a bad thing, the heat of summer was still there and you knew they would quickly dry.  Slowly, those puddles would turn from warm to cold.  By the end of October, we would look at the intricate designs on the surface of the water - the ice crystals that formed on the surface.  Only a week or two later, we would be sticking our toe in the center of puddles, trying to just break the surface ice, now much thicker, and create spider web designs.  By the first week of November, we would try walking across the puddles, the ice moving from intricate designs to thick coatings.

Inevitably, the snow would come, covering up the brown of the dead grass and fallen leaves.  Freezing out the musty smells of fall, and turning what puddles were left frozen for months.

But we knew that winter was a temporary condition that would be followed by spring, then summer, and fall would be back to us soon enough.

Up the road from the Loch Ard Gorge was the infamous Twelve Apostles.  Twelve islands with sheer cliffs that hug the coastline of Australia, eroded away from the coastline by years, thousands of years, of erosion.Sorry you can’t blame global warming.

Though the name can be a bit deceiving.  There aren’t actually twelve.  Thanks to the constant action of erosion, there are really only eleven left, since number twelve did the old heave ho into the Great Southern Ocean about a decade ago.

Don’t quote me on this, but I think that islands name was ‘Judas.’

Even on this cold, windswept day, the parking lot of the visitors center was relatively full.  We made our way through the center (yes, I went into cafe the wrong way Abby, but there was no one else around, so GET OFF MY BACK!).

All of us needing a little time out of the car….

The path down to the cliff edge was paved and well laid out, crossing under the road and branching out to allow maximum viewing pleasure.

The last bit of the trail actually went out onto a peninsula that jutted out from the cliff face, with a slight swag in the rock formation.  Out on the end of the peninsula, you could see up and down the coastline for miles.  The rock formations were sticking out of the angry sea for miles up and down the coast.  The sea meeting the beaches, the beaches hitting the cliffs, the islands, sitting off short, jutting up like fingers and knuckles out of the frothy ocean.

It is humbling to see the majesty of the ocean.  To see the slow steady progress of time.  To think that the very ground that we were walking on a thousand years ago was well inland, and the steady progress of the sea was unrelenting.

It was enough to make us hungry.

While it was still early for lunch by Australian standards, we figured there had to be a place to get a good bit to eat.  So we headed for the closest town for twenty miles, and the one spot that I knew made great fish and chips.

It would be a stretch to call Princetown a town…more of a hamlet really.  A few houses, one gas station and general store (closed and for sale) and the pub (open, but for sale).  And while we were early for lunch, it didn’t stop the staff, mainly young twenty-somethings, still in their pajamas and looking like they were still recovering from the night before from helping us.

We could tell, service might be a little slow.

Soon after us, a group of travel weary Americans, came a group of French tourists.  So we didn’t feel too bad.

And the food was worth the wait.  The fish and chips (I’ve called them the best I’ve had, but I think it is just the only food around, so I’m just so darn hungry) were good…and a quick look next to their dumpster revealed one of the secrets…tallow.  Those babies were cooked in pure animal fat baby.  Killer to the arteries, great for the taste.  Cottonseed is probably better for a good crisp chip…French fry to those reading this in the states…but tallow has that good, “I come from a cow and I don’t care” flavor about it.  Like doing something that you mother told you not to, in a good way (…to be clear, not like peeing on the electric fence).

With a meal in our bellies and our arteries begging for mercy, we got back into the car and headed for our next stop, Cape Otway Lighthouse.