Sun, surf and Paradise?

We have landed in Surfer's Paradise, a part of the "Gold Coast" on the eastern Australian seaboard, about 40 minutes south of Brisbane. It's balmy, in the low 80's. I've been for my morning walk on the beach, and am looking forward to a relaxed month of not doing too much of anything. Yeah for warmth!

We arrived in Australia two weeks ago, spending three days in Sydney, where we connected with a cousin of Phil's (Becky Ridge), friends from Madison Park (Neil & Patty Inman) and stayed with Elva Sinclair, mother of Valerie Reynolds (she and her husband Charles have stayed in our house for the past three summers while we sailed).

After that whirlwind visit, we flew to Tasmania, where we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves touring the island for 10 days. We poked into most of the corners of the island, seeing the rich inner valleys on the east coast where there's lots of agriculture, driving along the north coast which forms the south side of the famous Bass Strait, then down the west side through the mountainous region that houses Cradle Mountain and Lake St. Claire, two of the "must see" destinations. Back to Hobart, where we started, to check out the local scenes and then our last two days were up on the lower east coast at Swansea, which was our base for doing a little hiking in Freycinet national park.

In all, we saw the great variety that the island has in a total square area about the size of Maryland. A lot of the landscape on the north coast reminded us of Lopez Island--with rolling hills (a little taller than Lopez's) and cultivated or grassy fields with sheep. In all it was a great tour, and a nice introduction to the "laid-back" life style of Tassie (as Tasmania is known here). Wonderful fruits and vegetables, great seafood and tasty dairy products. Saw lots of wallabys, unfortunately most of them roadkill. No Tasmanian devils, which we did not make an effort to see in a wildlife park, and none wandered by au naturel.

The biggest challenge was driving. Aussies drive on the left side of the road, like the English. We're been attempting to retrain our reflexes, both as pedestrians and drivers) but it's a slow process. It's surprising how much of car handling you automate--you find out when you try to reverse it. I found it most difficult to navigate curves smoothly, especially inside curves (which here means a curve to the right). Since the Tasmanian roads were also quite narrow and often curvy, but the trucks and tourbuses the same size as usual, this makes driving quite exciting at times. We survived the week without scratching the car, which somewhat amazed us, but are relieved to let go of driving for awhile and use our feet (or ride with the Reynolds while they are with us).

Right now we are lodged in the apartment Charles & Valerie have in Surfer's Paradise (the name of this community), and they are here too. We'll spend a few days together so we can enjoy their company and get oriented to our surroundings. Then they will take off to visit friends and we'll be on our own. At some point we'll venture further north to visit friends who live up by Gimpy (about 2 hours north of Brisbane), but for now, we're happily into kicking back and doing not much of anything.

I'll post again when there's something exciting to share.