Here's a last few miscellaneouses / honorable mentions / etc.
Nubbies:
Everywhere you go in Australia if you look down at your feet in an urban area, you are likely to see multiple rows of round steel nubbies. They’re about an inch and a half in diameter and maybe ¼” high, arranged in multiple rows typically across the path of foot traffic. Placement is often at or near an intersection, at the top and bottom of stairs, but often just randomly located in the middle of the sidewalk. The first thing we did when we landed was drag our suitcases a few hundred meters over many of these phenomena to our hotel. So my first impression of these nubbies was that whomever invented them was somehow annoyed with people pulling suitcases and wished to express this annoyance profoundly. The reason this phenomenon is not present in Canada is that our snow shovel lobbyists are too strong. In the end we did not satisfactorily resolve the correct purpose of the nubbies but looking at any patch of them, I can’t help but think that this is what shouting must look like in Braille.
Nubbies, nubbies everywhere.
Most memorable meal:
Meal presentation is an ever-aggrandizing field. I was delighted to have a wide range of vegan choices in one particular Sydney restaurant. My choice, although I no longer remember the exact wording of the item, promised greenery (“served with sprouts”). I have included a picture to show you that even though they promised high, they also over-delivered! I have not previously seen such a monolithic display of shrubbery on a single plate. Somewhere beneath the façade was an actual meal, worthy of consumption. I wasn’t sure whether to ask for a machete or light a match. The meal filled my stomach once, but the entertainment value lives on…
"...served with sprouts..."
How to get a great shot of wildlife:
There’s no better result in photographing wildlife than when you catch a critter unawares. Here is Rick sneaking up on an animal in the brush, waiting for the perfect time to snap the unsuspecting shot.
Stealth - the professional photographer's greatest attribute
Farewell to Australia:
I write this after being home for two weeks.
· Thanks to all the friendly Australians who intuitively stopped to help with directions when our feet stopped and our faces turned quizzical. We always seemed to end up in the right place.
· Thanks also to the many Australian drivers who were on the road at the same time as I was. Take heart in knowing that your defensive driving lessons have paid off.
· I would call two months in Australia a ‘starter kit’. We were thrilled with every place we visited and the only disappointments we faced were that we did not have enough time to spend in any of them.
· General Douglas McArthur’s famous “I shall return” words referred to the Philippines, but were actually spoken at the Terowie Train Station near Adelaide. So I don’t feel out of context as I sit here in Calgary, refer to Australia and say “I (we) shall return”!
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