Dispatches from Down Under

As I examine the time that Sue and I spent Down Under, I struggle with how best to describe Australia to those who have yet to visit. Allow me to try:

 

Australia has approximately the same land area as the continental United States. The climate ranges from temperate in the south to tropical in the north to godawful in the interior. In terms of latitudes, Australia unevenly extends from Melbourne at about 37.8 degrees south to Darwin at 12.5 degrees south. Reposition the continental U.S. between Richmond, Virginia, and Managua, Nicaragua, surround it by water, and you have a northern hemisphere Australia. 

 

Next, take the 25 million people living in North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia, place 80 percent of them within 40 miles of the Gulf and Atlantic Coasts, about 10 percent in San Diego and spread another 10 percent throughout the entire rest of the country, and you have the basic population distribution of Australia.

 

We drove over 700 miles along the coast from just north of Sydney to Melbourne, Australia’s two largest cities at over five million each, to see opening day of the Australian Open. This is roughly the distance from Charleston to Trenton, New Jersey, which is a ridiculous example because no one would purposely drive to Trenton. At the end of our ride we saw a world-class tennis facility in a modern city with no fewer than 10 hot pot restaurants per city block. It was heavenly. 

 

Along the way to and from Melbourne we stayed in vibrant small towns with cafes and local shops, with not one miserable small-town-killing Dollar General to be found. Instead of lodging at chain motels at nameless interstate off ramps, we stayed at mom and pop motor courts and tourist parks. We had the quintessential 1970s American road trip in 2023 Australia. To pass the time between towns, we counted kangaroos, although they were seldom seen in the heat of the day and greatly outnumbered by cattle, sheep and horses.

 

No 1970s American road trip would be complete without a string of disappointing roadside attractions, and 2023 Australia holds its own. Move over Pedro with your Eiffel Sombrero overlooking mile upon mile of backed up traffic on I-95, we climbed the Big Merino Ram to look out one of its eye holes to see a gas station across the street. Exactly the same, and completely different.

 

Australia has over 100 “Big” roadside attractions, including a Big Banana to celebrate their Cavendish Banana industry, a Big Lobster, a Big Prawn, and a 20-foot tall steel-pot-helmeted “Big” Ned Kelly in honor of Australia’s less-sane Billy the Kid. These “Big” attractions are as awful and fabulous as any U.S. tourist trap, and they are worth every kilometer we traveled off the highway to see them.

 

So, yeah, Australia is on the other side of the world, they say things that even Google can’t translate, they have weird animals that all want to kill you, and they drive on the wrong side of the road. 

 

But there is something familiar here, even if we would have to turn the clock back 50 years in the U.S. to rediscover it.