Queensland Holidays
I'm actually not in Queensland any more. I'm in Melbourne at an Internet cafe with a very slow connection, sending annoying jpgs to our friend JJ because his name popped up on an exhibit in San Francisco International Airport. The exhibit was about Karlheinz Brandenburg, JJ's collaborator in the invention of the MP3 standard. This is JJ's favorite of our photos. Take that, Karlheinz!
We felt very proud and honored to know someone whose name had been put on public exhibit in an airport breezeway. Literally thousands of people with briefcases and bad moods run past it every day!
We left Queensland this morning after three days of snorkeling on the Great Barrier Reef. That was all we did in Queensland. It wasn't really enough reef, but Queensland is a little like Disneyland. There isn't a lot to do that's worth doing, and you find yourself ekeing the good stuff out of the dreck, like Al Hackett's Bungy, and Cane Toad World. Our tour booker tried to entice us to go on one trip by describing a visit to an ice cream factory with SAMPLES! Damn! We don't have any ice cream in the United States! Better get us a taste of that while we can! The real reason to go to Queensland is to see the rainforest (which we did on Hinchinbrook Island) and to see one of the last great wild places on Earth, the Great Barrier Reef, before it is gone, a victim of reef smothering, overnutrification and planetary warming: in short, of Too Many of Homo So-Called Sapiens and too few of everything else (except as previously noted, annoying species like termites and groundhogs).
We did get out on to the reef on a couple of boats that go to multiple sites. One featured an excellent marine biologist who goes by the name of Mr. Fluffy. I've had shipmates with some unusual nicknames, but no Fluffies. He wasn't intellectually fluffy, in any case and I learned a lot from listening to him. We also went out on a little boat called the Wavelength which took us to some rarely seen areas of the reef that were just awe-inspiring - sea turtles, polychaetes, tunicates, schools of huge buffalo fish...the water was rough and definitely could have been clearer, but it was so spectacular. They pull up the boat in a shallow place, shove you out the back, and off you go.
Matt was, predictably, extremely excited. He kept saying how healthy the fish looked. Healthy compared to what? I thought. Compared to the fish he is so used to seeing in fish stores. Now he's seen the real thing, and understands why I see no point in having marine fish tanks. Seeing a Moorish Idol in a fish tank is like looking at a rock from Mount Fuji. It's a thousandth of the experience of seeing a Moorish Idol in nature.
Melbourne should be low-key. I've been here before for work so we'll walk around and see the sights. I also have friends in New Zealand who are here for a vacation so we will get together tonight for dinner. Tomorrow I'm getting a really original haircut.
Next stop: Tasmania, another of the last great wild places.
We felt very proud and honored to know someone whose name had been put on public exhibit in an airport breezeway. Literally thousands of people with briefcases and bad moods run past it every day!
We left Queensland this morning after three days of snorkeling on the Great Barrier Reef. That was all we did in Queensland. It wasn't really enough reef, but Queensland is a little like Disneyland. There isn't a lot to do that's worth doing, and you find yourself ekeing the good stuff out of the dreck, like Al Hackett's Bungy, and Cane Toad World. Our tour booker tried to entice us to go on one trip by describing a visit to an ice cream factory with SAMPLES! Damn! We don't have any ice cream in the United States! Better get us a taste of that while we can! The real reason to go to Queensland is to see the rainforest (which we did on Hinchinbrook Island) and to see one of the last great wild places on Earth, the Great Barrier Reef, before it is gone, a victim of reef smothering, overnutrification and planetary warming: in short, of Too Many of Homo So-Called Sapiens and too few of everything else (except as previously noted, annoying species like termites and groundhogs).
We did get out on to the reef on a couple of boats that go to multiple sites. One featured an excellent marine biologist who goes by the name of Mr. Fluffy. I've had shipmates with some unusual nicknames, but no Fluffies. He wasn't intellectually fluffy, in any case and I learned a lot from listening to him. We also went out on a little boat called the Wavelength which took us to some rarely seen areas of the reef that were just awe-inspiring - sea turtles, polychaetes, tunicates, schools of huge buffalo fish...the water was rough and definitely could have been clearer, but it was so spectacular. They pull up the boat in a shallow place, shove you out the back, and off you go.
Matt was, predictably, extremely excited. He kept saying how healthy the fish looked. Healthy compared to what? I thought. Compared to the fish he is so used to seeing in fish stores. Now he's seen the real thing, and understands why I see no point in having marine fish tanks. Seeing a Moorish Idol in a fish tank is like looking at a rock from Mount Fuji. It's a thousandth of the experience of seeing a Moorish Idol in nature.
Melbourne should be low-key. I've been here before for work so we'll walk around and see the sights. I also have friends in New Zealand who are here for a vacation so we will get together tonight for dinner. Tomorrow I'm getting a really original haircut.
Next stop: Tasmania, another of the last great wild places.