For all my world travels, it’s been ages since I took a bona fide two-week break over the Christmas/New Years period… in fact, other than the big trip itself, the last time I did so was back in my college days.

Continuing to make good on my pledge to nibble at the edges of my world travels on shorter trips, and to maintain that global spiderweb of connections I’d formed on my journey — oh, yeah, plus that modest pileup of Frequent Flyer miles burning a hole in my pocket — I opted for a far-flung destination where I still had a few adventures on my wishlist:

Australia.

After a wonderful first Christmas with my baby nephew and the family down in L.A., I had my posse drop me off at LAX  on Christmas night. In order to get Hunter to bed early I got to the airport with some time to spare. No bother: somewhere along the line I’d been gifted a one-day pass at one of the airport’s Business Class lounges.

After checking into for my Qantas flight I hoofed it over to the next terminal and availed myself of drinks and nibblies in the cavernous, comfy, and mostly empty lounge space. Through the tall glass-and-steel wall of windows I spotted it: the oddly chunky beast bearing the “QANTAS” logo plastered all over it. This was to be my first time flying the double-decked A380, the largest passenger plane in the world.

Bigger planes mean more people, and although it was generally pretty good for steerage class (kudos to Qantas for those netted footrests), more people also translated into… more little ones in tow. I’m still of two minds about infants on planes: I think it’s great that people are getting out there and taking their kids along for the ride; at the same time, sitting two rows behind three crying babies made what could have been a moderately-restful fifteen hours, well… not so restful at all. I consider my siblings, who’ve all gone through or are going through the tribulations as mothers of under-one-year-olds; I can’t imagine any of them subjecting their kids at that age to a journey of this length.

Still, it was worth it: a wonderful, warm Sydney greeting awaited me on the other side, this one from Sarah, my compadre from round-the-world days. Sarah served a pivotal role in my then-unsettled life (check out Wander the Rainbow‘s Sydney chapter for more); our reunion proved, once again, that impromptu soulmates really can be found all over.

Sarah wound her mother’s red Peugot around the Sydney motorways away from the airport and into Sydney’s beach cities. The city sprawls for quite a ways in all directions, but its central core is fairly dense and compact, and fairly close to the city’s beaches. Coupled with cleaner, bluer, and (slightly) warmer Pacific waters than what’s to be found even in the southernmost of SoCal cities translates into a vibrant beach culture more remniscient of Florida or the Caribbean back home – but with a city the size and sophistication of a San Francisco.

The day was a bit moody – Sydney’s been having a relatively cool, rainy summer to date – as we pulled up the hilly, winding road by Bronte Beach. The sand was uncrowded and the waves were temptestuous as we enjoyed a bit of lunch al fresco – I reacquainted myself with my favorite British-cum-Aussie delicacy, Barramundi fish & chips. Afterward, we went on a drive around Sydney’s northernmost south-side beach suburbs: North Bondi, Watsons Bay, Vaucluse. Streets curve over hills both greener and gentler than San Francisco slopes, and are dotted with elegant homes. Though not too elegant: Sydney may be pricey (and with my weak Yankee dollar, as much so as London or Paris), but Australia seems more like Canada than the States vis-a-vis its income divide.

Sarah dropped us off at a pleasantly run-down, rambling beach shack a block from the surf at Coogee Beach. Echoing timber-framed brethren across the great ocean in Venice, California, this onetime summer cottage is home to Mikey, the fellow who I was staying with, and three other housemates: two gay guys, both named Kieran, and a lesbian named Loz (short for Lauren — the Aussies have abbreviations for everything, I’ve come to learn).

That evening we hopped the bus into the city. Call me a city-planning nerd, but Sydney’s transport network continues to impress: spotless, mint-condition, air-conditioned vehicles ply across the city at speed – in our case, rambling through the beach suburbs, across the wooded expanse of Centennial Park, and up Flinders Street into Darlinghurst, Sydney’s gay mecca. We were headed for an evening at Midnight Shift, one of the town’s gay spots, for their midweek trivia night, hosted (of course) by one of the city’s famed drag queens, Miss Summer Salt. I can’t say I’m an expert at Aussie trivia, but I was proud of myself when Miss Summer handed me a purple-colored marker and I was able to toss in a line from Priscilla in context: “it’s lavender!”

Next morning, a meander with Mikey around the city. This was my third visit to Sydney, so I was nominally familiar with the place, but nothing quite beats having a local as one’s tour guide. We meandered through The Domain,  then on through the city’s Botanic Gardens toward Mrs. Macquarie’s Chair, a spot at the tip of one of the city’s many fingers of land protruding into the drowned river valley that is Sydney Harbour. Biggest achievement: I finally learned what those odd-looking birds I’d seen here on previous voyages are: Australian ibises.

“Rats with beaks,” Mikey remarked. Pestilential to Sydneysiders, for me they give the city an exotic feel to my North American eyes. But then, it’s all relative, right?

“I felt that way about squirrels in your country,” Mikey added.

Equally captivating to me were some bulb-shaped creatures hanging from the tall trees: Sydney’s got its resident population of bats, who sleep (yes) upside-down in the trees before taking wing at dusk over the city.

“To fight crime, no doubt,” I offered up as their raison d’etre. Dork, was the look I got in response. That’ll learn me to provoke a comic-book nut (Mikey’s collection borders on the encyclopedic.)

We continued over to the iconic Opera House, adding to my ludicrously bloated stash of photos of the structure; I maintain it’s one of the grandest works of modern architecture, and possibly one of humankind’s greatest buildings ever (forget it; I’m not adding another picture of it here). Just as we were completing our circuit at Circular Quay’s Overseas Passenger Terminal, and right after I asked if the building is still in fact used for such a purpose, my question answered itself: a beefy white vessel sailed under the Harbour Bridge.

It’s my third visit to Sydney, and I still haven’t been to the Blue Mountains. Next morning came time to remedy that as we hopped on a bus and a train to the country town of Katoomba, a couple hours west of the city.

Most of Australia’s population lives to the east of the Great Dividing Range, a spine of mountains running vertically down the country’s east from the northern tropics to the southern state of Victoria. They’re not enormous by any standard: no peaks exceed eight thousand feet.  Nevertheless, as I remarked on my world tour when driving up north through Nimbin (yes, weed-lovers, you can guess why I went there), they felt, to me, like a craggier variant of America’s Appalachians: green and forested, but more sheer and dramatic than the rolling hill country of America’s East.

A fairly full train ride on the city’s beat-up but very functional exurban train system dropped us smack in the middle of Katoomba. The crowds bore evidence that this was a touristy spot, and I was hoping that the natural attractions would overshadow the visiting hordes – much as, say, Niagara Falls does back home. A quick bus trip to the rock formation known as the Three Sisters revealed more touristic mobs – but the majestic views of the monument and the Jamison Valley beyond proved my working mantra true yet again: some spots become tourist traps for good reason.

We figured a short hike would dodge the crowds, so we followed signs to “GREAT STAIRCASE”  that looked to get ever closer to the Sisters. The steps were narrow, steep, and pretty crowded (though a trio of surprisingly loud and astonishingly fetching French guys in tank-tops made it worthwhile). Meanwhile, the hike was proving not so short: the steps continued down, and down, and down… no way we’re hiking this back up, I mused. At least the crowds thinned out, and by the time we reached the flat trail about halfway down the valley through the woods, we had the place to ourselves

We soon figured out why: we’d missed whatever signage there may have been for the 25-minute hike… and soon found out we were on the three-hour circuit. Though I was skeptical when examining the mileage: 2.5 km on a mostly level trail shouldn’t take more than 45 minutes for we fit walkers… assuming no further surprises were in store.

Luckily, none were, and we enjoyed a splendid hike through lush foliage. As expected, about three-quarters of an hour later we reached a couple of motorized conveyances to get us back to the top; we picked the closest one, an inclined railway that bills itself as the world’s steepest funicular. Something of a slo-mo roller coaster in reverse, I don’t doubt the claim.

Up at the top, at the once-again crowded and even touristier Scenic World facility, we stopped for some ice cream… and it was here, as I mentioned favoring less sweet ice cream flavors as I got on in years, that Mikey popped the question:

“So, how old are you?”

We’d met over San Francisco Gay Pride on one of those dating sites, and, in our talks about sci-fi and movies, and other, ahem, shared interests, the subject had never come up. Happily, my still-youthful looks confounded him. It made for a good chuckle over ice cream as he fingered my driver’s license and agreed the photo made me look like one of the 9/11 hijackers (all of whom, I think, were younger at the time than I am now — admittedly a dubious distinction.)

Back home, I got changed to meet Sarah and a friend of hers at a fab drinks & dinner spot back in Darlinghurst: the Victoria Room. Echoing the British Raj, the joint serves up a colorful array of drinks care of a friendly, attractive waitstaff. As we enjoyed Tiki-style drinks out of retro-ridiculous drinkware, a lively conversation ensued on unconventional relationships; with Sarah herself divorced, and with Sarah’s friend embroiled in relationship concerns, the ladies offered up a perspective different than mine on the open-type relationships I’ve had in my past.

“I just don’t think they work,” Sarah said. She counts herself as one who finds herself stung when she learns a potential paramour is into such arrangements.

“But think about it,” I offered. “If all people who decided they weren’t into traditional monogamy were free and open to choose it without stigma, then the truly monogamous wouldn’t have to worry about somebody lying to them or cheating behind their back.”

At least that’s my hope, if we ever come to live in a world more honest about what each of us really wants. I mean, heck, if we can’t all agree on a type of Tiki beverage to enjoy, who says all our relationships need to fit into a single mold?

Food for thought among the Tikis.

In my next entry: the real reason I came to Australia (sort-of) — Sydney’s New Years fireworks!

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