Australia Travel Log, Part 2

By Jenine Stanley

One thing I forgot to mention about our stay in Sydney was the water. They were still under a boil alert for their water supply. The hotel provided every guest with a 2-liter bottle of water on the bathroom sink. They told me they'd get me more if the dog needed it. Glenn also brought me water, which was most appreciated. He was also kind enough to get me a bag of Eukanuba Lamb and Rice, which was exactly the right size for my trip. I had to remember not to drink any water from the sink in Sydney, never fill Toby's bowl or water bucket from it. I cleaned his bowl with very, very hot water from the coffee maker. Needless to say, neither of us suffered any ill effects and it turns out that the whole water alert at that time was overblown.

We left Sydney, very reluctantly, Friday morning. I started the day off well by getting into the hotel shuttle van and promptly turning the wrong way and sitting on the floor. Oops. The driver just laughed and said all we Americans did that.

Now, here's the refreshing thing I found throughout my trip. Most of the people I met didn't focus on my blindness. It just wasn't an issue. They would mention blind people they knew, but there didn't seem to be the hesitancy and inappropriateness that can make so many interactions uncomfortable here. Political correctness is not exactly the same in Australia either, something I found incredibly refreshing. Keep in mind that I was in the really tourist-y areas, but I also didn't find the anger and frustration that we seem to harbor here in the states. People seemed much more friendly, ready to say hello and were much more customer service oriented, especially in the mall in Perth and the airport shops in Sydney.

The flight to Perth was made very interesting by the fact that I was dropped off at the wrong terminal. The Sydney airport has two terminals, which are about two miles apart. Because my tickets read United Airlines, they took me to the international terminal. But my flight was to Perth on the Australian domestic airline, which, of course, now I can't remember the name of. It was a domestic flight.

The airport people were very good though and very low stress about it. They rushed me over to the other terminal and the airport person and I literally ran, a la O.J. Simpson (sans White Bronco <g>) through the airport. We hit moving walk-ways at a trot and she was amazed at how excited Toby got. He was into this running through the airport thing.

We made our flight and even had time to catch our breath while we waited for them to prepare our seat. As Mazz has said, the airline will upgrade the guide dog and handler to first class bulkhead, which is very nice on the A-300's and A-123 type planes. I don't know for certain, but these planes remind me of a DC-9 with the space under the bulkhead wall. The airline also puts down a dog pad in case of accidents. We all laughed at how ironic this is given that Toby had flown over 14.5hours without one. He thought it was a bed. <grin>

I have to say that I have never received such courteous, non-patronizing service as I got on that flight. And… they have excellent airline food! The flight was about 5 hours to Perth. The airline staff really went out of their way all around for the dog. That in and of itself was refreshing.

We arrived at the airport in Perth, which is much smaller than I'd imagined. It looked like it was also fairly easy to learn. They had a spot for relieving dogs located so that you didn't have to go back through security to get back into your gate area. This was most helpful when we left. The hotel I stayed at, the Berswood Resort, which was next to the conference center, was a casino hotel. It reminded me very much of a Las Vegas-type hotel with a huge atrium lobby.

There was a fountain, which made for a good reference point and the echoes weren't bad. They were actually useful once you got accustomed to the place. An odd feature of hotels in Sydney and in Perth, was that in order to get the lights, TV and some other things in the room to work, you had to insert your card room key into a slot on the wall near the door. It's actually a clever energy saving device.

The bathrooms also had a central drain and all pipes from sinks and tubs emptied into this drain. It was a bit weird, hearing water run down the sink drain, then, a few seconds later, it was gurgling down a drain behind you in the floor. Every outlet also had an on/off toggle switch. I was impressed with all these energy saving things.

It continued to be cold in Perth. It was a bit colder there than in Sydney with temps in the mid 60's during the day. At night it was in the low 40's. A couple days it got a little warmer, but not much. On Sunday and Monday, beginning late Sunday evening, it absolutely poured down rain with high winds and hale. Yep, it looked like March back here in Ohio, which would be about right.

The conference didn't officially begin until Sunday evening, but there was a trade show Friday through Sunday. I never did get through the entire floor at the trade show though. Friday afternoon we got as far as the Association for the Blind of Western Australia's booth. People were flocking to see Toby. He was the only guide or service dog at the conference.

While standing at the booth, we met Jill Allen King of the U.K. Jill is a guide dog handler and was presenting a paper on accessible pathways and pedestrian environments. She said she was missing her dog horribly and had a human escort with her. We had a good laugh when Jill looked over my harness. She proclaimed that the U.K. didn't use the off set handles anymore, save for people like her who were "very fat". I'm glad she said that, not me. <grin>

It was beginning to make me feel a little odd though that both Australia and the U.K. primarily use the offset handle for people who are overweight, and not just a few pounds overweight either. Hmmm, are they trying to tell me something? <grin>

Saturday, my friend Rosemary Mathias, who some of you may remember from the ACB convention in Houston, and I went on a tram-tour to get our barings in Perth. We were rooming together and wanted to get the lay of the land. During that weekend, Perth was holding its annual wild flower show. They said that one quarter of the species of wild flowers on the planet could be found at this show.

Well, this meant that the tram was packed with older people. They called it the Moldy-Oldy bus, affectionately, of course. We made the mistake of getting off at Kings' Park where the flower show was. We were dying of thirst. The climate in Perth is much drier than in Sydney, kind of like California's central coast when it's dry there. Hand lotion, eye drops and throat lozenges were in great demand. So we got off the tram, which you could do at each stopping point in our 90-minute ride. We had 11 minutes to run up and grab a Coke.

Yeah…right. The line was huge and there was one person working behind the counter. She processed each order and didn't begin on the next one until that person had gone. Let's just say she'd never make it in a McDonald's. We missed the tram back and were forced to spend 90 minutes at the park. This was rough duty I might add. The day was sunny and the temps were in the low 60's with a light wind. It was gorgeous.

We got our food and then went for a stroll. There was more freesia and some other flowers that to me smelled like grape soda. There were also 35,000 pansies between the hotel and this park. Literal carpets of pansies. I could just see Kent with his lawn mower and a maniacal expression…he hates pansies!

The Swan River runs through Perth and through Kings' Park. The river looked like it was used a lot for recreation and was fairly deep. The land around it is rolling hills and the vegetation looks almost desert-like. Just a side note here about Coke and other soft drinks in Australia. Imagine being in Australia and not drinking alcohol? Well, it can be done. It's not fun, but it can be done. <grin>

I noticed immediately that Coke, and yes it was Coca-Cola, tasted different. The Diet Coke tasted different. When I ordered Coke in the bars and restaurants, they'd toss a lemon in it. I love that. The Coke was not as sweet as ours and the diet Coke didn't have that odd aftertaste. My favorite soda was Lemon Squash or Bitter Lemon. Lemon Lift is okay, too. Then there was this thing called Orange Magma, a soda that tasted kind of like an Orange Julius. I only had one of those but even it wasn't nearly as sweet as our sodas. Not liking really sweet soda, I was in heaven.

The drinking water in Perth is absolutely excellent. It is like mountain water. I can't drink our tap water here now. I keep tasting mold in it. <grin>

Well, back to the trip. The rest of Saturday was pretty uneventful. On Sunday, Rosemary and I took a tour to Underwater World, a Sea World type place on the ocean. This turned out to be quite an interesting day. It was still sunny but a bit cooler. By afternoon, the wind had really picked up and by late evening it was storming to beat the band.

Underwater World is really a giant aquarium and an outdoor dolphin sanctuary. There wasn't much else, but it was interesting. In the tidal pool for petting, they had starfish and other things. The most interesting fish, one I'd never petted before, was a cuddle fish. This fish seemed to really enjoy being gently stroked and would come around every time I put my hand down.

The cuddle fish is the one with the bone they use in birdcages for birds to chew on. It's also the fish that if not cut exactly correctly in food preparation can kill you. Lovely. It's related to the octopus and squid and has three or so tentacles on its front that make it look kind of like an elephant with multiple trunks coming down.

The body seems to spread out like a stingray, with those bat-like wings that flow and help it move through the water. It had a sort of flipper-like tail, that I'm not sure even was a tail, but it was at the rear end of the thing. There looked to be a substantial body underneath the wings too. The whole fish was maybe 18 inches across and a foot long. The body was maybe 4 inches thick. It was a big fish.

The most interesting thing about the cuddle fish, though, aside from its friendliness, was the feel of its skin. If you've ever felt a sting ray, the skin is soft, but tight fitting. It kind of feels like an inner tube or rubber. The cuddle fish's skin was almost like a gel. It was like a latex, soft and not fitting tightly. It rippled over the muscles and structures of the fish. The skin was a dark reddish brown. This fish was something you just wanted to keep touching, it was that tactually interesting.

Underwater World also has four dolphins that had been taken from a marine park and released back into the wild. They didn't do well in the wild and were acquired by Underwater World. Three are adults, one 25-year-old male, one 27-year-old female, one 9-year-old female, and a female calf, age 4 months.

After the last show of the day, the staff took me down onto the platform where they were feeding the three older dolphins. These were Indian Ocean Dolphins and the two-year olds had their share of scars from life in the ocean and at their former home. To get to the platform, we had to climb down a stairway made of uneven rocks. My very good- looking young male escort, with a sweatshirt over his wet suit, guided me down by taking both my hands and walking in front of me, backward. We looked like we were dancing. <grin>

I tried to explain how to do sighted-guide, and honestly wouldn't have minded just letting him go first and grabbing his waist, but alas, no such luck. <grin> There I was, kneeling on the edge of a platform, petting the three dolphins. Unlike my experience with the Sea World dolphins this summer, these guys definitely gave me the impression that they were wild. They enjoyed my petting and were not nippy or grabby for fish like the greedy little Sea World dolphins. <grin>

Though their bodies felt the same, that smooth rubber, inner tube type-feeling with undersides that felt like thickly stuffed cotton pillow cases, slightly warn. The scars were noticeable as rough patches on their skins. They didn't seem to have any feeling of pain when I gently rubbed them. The big male liked being rubbed under the chin and came partway out of the water so I could do it more.

That was a real treat for me. I think the cutest one was the nine-year-old. She was so small that she could squeeze between the larger dolphins and the platform to be petted and food, and was so cute about it, making these very little noises. Toby was quite disturbed waiting up on the landing with Rosemary. He was happy to see me dance back up the rocks with Gordon, our guide. He wanted nothing to do with Gordon though when we introduced them formally. I got the sniffing down of my life. <grin>

I think Toby is singularly unimpressed with dolphins. Too bad, Mr. Toby. I happen to love them!

From Underwater World we walked down to the pier area. There were shops and apartments and lots of charter boats going. This was whale watch time of year in Perth and every morning on the traffic report, they'd report whale sightings. I wish I'd been able to stay and take a boat out to see the whales. They said the pods were large this year and there'd been many sightings. Toby now has the distinction of having his feet in three different oceans. I told him he's not getting in the Antarctic Ocean if I can help it. <grin>

We went down onto the beach of the Indian Ocean, through rocks that looked like they might be found along a Maine coast. Since Toby grew up going to Fire Island in New York, he skipped over these things like he was back home. He doesn't swim in the ocean but, boy!, does he perk up at boat docks and on those rocks.

The Indian Ocean near Perth is, or was, cold and a bit saltier than the Pacific in Hawaii. It was clearer and less salty than the Atlantic, though. There was a lot of seaweed at the tide-line and people gather sponges just a bit further south.

The tide was also much bigger than we'd thought. It looked deceptively calm from up on the road, but it wasn't at all when you were standing at the tide line with tide coming in fast. A wave that looked like it was gently rolling in soaked Rosemary up to her waist and me to my knees. Luckily, we dried quickly as we walked back to catch our ride to the hotel. It took days for our pants to really dry and get the salt and sand knocked out of them. Toby walked around for a while with this self satisfied look until he made the mistake of licking the salt and sand off his feet. Yuck!

The conference began on Sunday evening with a cocktail reception. Here I met Glenda Jackson for the first time. Many of you know her as an actress. Don't ask me to recite all the movies she's been in. I remember her best as Queen Elizabeth I in a PBS series from the '70's called Elizabeth R. She is now a Minister of Parliament and is Minister of Transport for the U.K. She also does a lot of work with women who want to get into politics.

Initially, she came off as rather cold and official, but as the conference went on, she definitely lightened up. I guess she doesn't like people always commenting on her acting and not her present career, but this conference did have to do with that career, so maybe this was different. We spoke briefly and she noted that I wanted a photo with her and Toby. Several times, four in fact, throughout the conference, I saw Ms. Jackson in the elevator of our hotel. She always spoke and asked to pat Toby. Only once did I have to say "no" as Toby was acting up and needed to be left alone that day. She obliged gracefully and said she understood.

Toby was made the official conference mascot, with my permission. They did it very respectfully, by asking me first if this was appropriate. Since he was the only dog there, it seemed fitting and everyone was on his or her best behavior, most of the time, around him. He was incorporated into the daily briefings each morning with some witty comment.

Monday I presented my paper. This was my first professional paper and I was a bit nervous. Luckily, I didn't have to read it word for word. I would have been in a heap of trouble if that had been the case as I'm a terrible Braille reader aloud. I summarized.

The group gave me outstanding support both during the presentation and afterward. Everyone was very kind and helpful to this first-timer. I presented a paper on "low tech" accessibility options to make transit systems accessible for blind people and did get much positive feedback. I could go on about the conference, but that strays a bit from the dog-related focus. Needless to say, it was worth the money, sweat and toil.

The next one is in 2001 in Warsaw Poland. It looks like I will be on that committee to advise on provision of alternative format materials. Toby will be nine-years-old then and everyone said they hope he'll be there. Me too. <grin> No reason he shouldn't be, right?

Monday night was the absolute highlight of the trip. The Great Aussie Barbecue turned into the Great Aussie Hale Storm! This affair was supposed to be outside, with aboriginal dancers coming out of the rocks and all. Well, it was maybe 45 degrees if that, outside and between sheets of rain were sheets of hale.

We had our dinner and performances inside. As we entered the building to eat, we were greeted by some of the most adorable creatures I've ever seen. There were three six-month-old kangaroos, two koalas and an echidna. In order of introduction to me, the echidna is a very round-bodied porcupine-like animal. This one was still young and was maybe eight inches long, a foot high with quills. The quills are thicker than porcupine quills and stand higher.

The echidna has little feet with nice claws. I didn't see a tail, but as I was feeling the back feet, uh, I was "anointed". Oops. The echidna has a long anteater-like snout that feels like skin, kind of like a finger. This poor little guy was very cold and kept shaking and trying to bury himself in the lady holding him.

All of these animals were rescued when their parents were killed. The people showing them raise them. All have been raised with dogs and showed no fear at all of Toby. Toby, on the other, hand-danced around a bit when we first went over to see them. He wasn't quite sure what to make of them. He definitely wanted no part of the echidna. <grin>

The two koalas were twins. The little female was very cute and friendly but the male looked and acted like the koala on the old Quantis airline ads. He had a bit of an attitude. <grin> Koala fur is every bit as fuzzy as it looks on stuffed animals. Their ears are quite fluffy. The fur is like that of a medium-haired cat. In fact, they felt a lot like our Smudgy cat, not silky but thick and fuzzy with soft fur underneath.

The koalas had these little arms and hands with very long, almost plastic feeling claws. Their noses, which I just barely touched on the female, are shiny leathery feeling and definitely don't feel real.

Now for the winner of the most adorable baby animal! They let me hold a six-month-old baby kangaroo. "Memu" was her name and she was a red kangaroo whose mother had been killed by a car. When a kangaroo hits your car, it's like a deer here in Ohio. It does a lot of damage and usually kills the animal.

The parallels between deer and kangaroos were very evident as we talked. Memu and the other joeys were held in pouches about a foot wide and maybe eight inches deep. They were lined with cotton padding, like pillowcases, and had knitted basket parts on the outside. These kept the joeys warm and dry. At six months old, the heads and upper bodies have fur. The fur is thin and very fuzzy.

The ears are at least six to eight inches long and huge, like rabbit ears. It's funny when they shake their little heads and those ears just go like mad. The heads are small but look kind of like a fawn's head with the nose and muzzle. The joeys have little arms and front paws with nails sort of like cats' paws. If you gently run a finger down into the pouch, you quickly find that there's no hair and the skin is very smooth and shiny feeling, like baby skin.

The back legs are there, but they are definitely way under-developed, as is the tail. The joey doesn't come out of the pouch completely until it's about a year old. At 18 months old, the joeys are transferred from these people's homes to a paddock with other kangaroos to begin to learn to live with their own kind. They get too big and destructive to live in the house at that age also. <grin>

They are very gentle animals generally and this little girl loved to lick my fingers and chew on my hair. They make very little noise as well. I bent down so that Rosemary could get a picture of Toby, Memu and I. Toby reached over and slurped her good. She didn't get scared, but she did spend quite a while working those little arms and cleaning her face. It was hysterical.

Well, this has gotten pretty long, so I'll wrap it up and save the remainder of my trip for the last installment. Nothing beats holding the kangaroo, but there are some interesting bits yet to tell.

* * * * *

Note: This travel log was originally sent to members of the Buddy-l e-mail list for guide dog handlers.

Jeninems@infinet.com
Consultants on Access to Transportation
President, Guide Dog Users Inc. (GDUI)
http://www.infinet.com/~jeninems.

For more info about GDUI, call them at 1-888-858-1008 for a free guide dog disk, or send e-mail to: jcsheehan@smart.net.