Surprises and challenges

Ann & Harry Grynberg greeting us in Melbourne

View of Melbourne

SuperVegan Restaurant in Italian Qtr

Koala Bear by the roadside

Otway Tree Top Walk

Twelve Apostles

The surprises began way back on the first day of our trip but have we found ourselves in the midst of of reality T.V."s "Survival" or "Race"? More below.

Between Shavuot and Sunday, we tasted the great surprise which is Melbourne, with a population which has tripled in the last 30 years to 3.4 million and amazing architecture, ultra-modern juxtaposed to grand Victorian in a glorious mix. Lunch at a superb vegan restaurant in the Italian quarter; wandering through a wetlands forest in a museum; being introduced to the meaning of Aboriginal art, amazed by the variety of Australian trees and shrubs in the beautiful Botanical Gardens, and saddened by the contents of the impressive Shrine to Australia's lost soldiers over the generations. We found ourselves at a bat mitzvah ceremony (Friday night) in one shul and a barmitzvah next morning in another (Ann and Harry Grynberg's nephew, for those of you who remeber them) and joined some of the Grynberg clan for the National Theatre's simply superb "Richard III"-modern dress, sms- texting messengers and video flash-backs to "HenryVI"!

Then came the challenges as we drove down the Great Ocean Road, reached via the Mornington Peninsula and a ferry. The scenario: Darkness falls before 5.30pm. The information office in Apollo had assured us there was a vacant room with micro-wave in an isolated motel in a forest area we needed to pass through, but this wasn't the case. The owner off-handedly directed us to the only other accomodation in the area-16 kilometres distance. (By now it was pitch black on a winding, hilly road .) This turned out to be derelict pub-"we close at8.30p.m. and re-open only at noon"-with one gruesome room to let, smelling strongly of mould. Thank goodness for Supersol's instant soup-there was a kettle.

A day or so later, we were presented with our next challenge-to consume 6 mandarins, 3 apples, a cucumber and a raw potato in 10 minutes!Why? Because suddenly road signs loomed stating that all fruit and vegetables would be quarantined before the border between Victoria and South Australia.Quickly we stopped the car, ate everything except the potato and mandarin peel, which we deposited in the quarantine bin!

Fortunately the pleasant surprises are outnumbering the unpleasant challenges. As we sit in an Adelaide internet cafe, we remember the abundance of natural surprises all the way down The Road. We were forever "oohing' and "aahing" as wonderful views flashed by, but we had to keep to our schedule. We thrilled at the Otway Tree Top walk, learning about the layers of this ancient wetland forest. The Twelve Apostles and othe rock outcrops are far more impressive than we had expected. Walking on pristine sand in the early morning is always a joy.

Thanks to all of you who have been sending emails.Replies will have to wait till we get to Maurice's cousin's in Alice Springs.

Reaching the Mainland

With cousin Pat(Melbourne)

Melbourne City

Melbourne City -river Yara

With Uncle David


Final View of Hobart Synagogue on way to airport

We are now in this fabulous city of Melbourne following a great last shabbat in Hobart. Hobart's fine synagogue was built with the help of ex Jewish convicts sent out to Australia in the 1800's.It is now maintained by a small group of less than 40 Jews & is shared by both Progressive & Orthodox groups. We were hosted by a wonderful Chabad family who, single- handed, look after all visitors. Meanwhile, we now see that Melbourne is a far more interesting city than we had imagined and we are very glad that we arranged to spend an extra few days here. Firstly, both Marilyn & I have met family that until now were just names on the family tree. From my Uncle David I have heard stories about my Dad during WW2 & also about the establishment of the Israeli Air Force, as well as experiences of surviving in France during the War from his wife. We have been staying with our friends, Ann & Harry Grynberg,( who were 7 years in Haifa in the 70's & 80's) & spent shavuot with them and their family, hearing shiurim & visiting different shules in Cauldsfield. We can now understand why Melbourne is considered the Jerusalem of Australia as we have seen there is a very strong community of all ages here led by young dynamic rabbis (several from England) . In addition, I had the privilege of attending a masonic installation, which was fascinating & also gave me an opportunity to speak publicly about the Mount Carmel Lodge in Haifa and the positive work of freemasons across different communities in Israel.

Tasmania

Yet more wood to be chipped up for transporting to China!

Swansea Bay

Port Arthur Penitentiary

Marilyn with cousin Derek on Mt Wellington,Hobart

Tasmamian Devil- very vicious & found in the open country.

Feeding mother & baby Kangaroo

What a welcome to Oz! My(Maurice) hands & hand luggage had to be checked for explosives! We eventually reached Hobart to be met by Marilyn's cousin, Derek, where we spent our first night.

Tasmania is an eye opener to a very different lifestyle. The weather is very variable-on Monday we left Hobart in 21 degrees sunshine and within a couple of hours were on the windswept Central Plateau Reservation in 6 degrees and fog. Today Hobart was a crisp 9 degrees with blue skies but on top of Mt Wellington which overlooks the city it was only 1 degree with icy snow drifts. Over three days we have driven up through the centre of the island and then down the warmer east coast till we reached notorious Port Arthur, the former convict colony and now an historic site. En route, of course we had to visit Swansea, which proved to be a seaside village dependant on local tourism and not the city the name implies but no resemblance to its counterpart in Wales.

The country is heavily wooded and the main local controversy concerns the future of the lumber trade. Scenically, there are similarities with both Ireland and North Island of New Zealand, though the vegetation and animals are different from both, see the pictures above.In fact, we suddenly found ourselves driving on unsealed roads.All car rental agreements exclude cover on this type of road but we had no choice unless we wanted to drive back another 50 kms. We have been advised not to travel at night as it is very dangerous with so many animals. Also because it becomes dark so early at around 5pm we have to finish each day before this time. People are laid-back , friendly and pleased to welcome visitors from Israel.After Shabbat with Chabad in Hobart ,we shall continue to Melbourne where we shall spend Shavuot & next Shabbat.

Chag Sameach

Motel adventures and rare creatures

Christchurch in the rain

View from the boat in Milton Sound

By the side of the road nearDunedin!

Rainbow from car window

Sea Lions on the Beach Otago Peninsular

We have found staying in motels the easiest way to self cater and find accomodation at reasonable cost. However it hasn't always worked out as we expected. One morning this week in Portobello village on the Otega Peninsula, we were awoken at 6 by what sounded like an air-raid siren. On automatic Israeli reflex, we rushed outside in our pyjamas (at 2 degrees C), only to discover that it was the alarm from the local fire station, which was a few metres away. Later we were told that a car had skidded on the icy bay road and "fallen into the drink", a regular occurence for the early morning going to work traffic.

We usually find ourselves the only inhabitants of these motels as it is the tourist off-season at present, but on Thursday morning an elderly gentleman next door began chatting. When he realised we were "Jews from Israel", his joy knew no bounds. He recited the 23 psalm-being a retired sheep farmer, this was appropriate- and pressed religious pamphlets on us. We have promised to send a postcard from the Holy Land.

The natural phenomena still manage to overwhelm us. We can't believe that we had the privelege to sail on a fiord, watching seals bask on the rocks and dolphins play, or wander on an isloated beach among exhausted sea-lions, who sleep deeply as they build up their oxygen levels ready for their next spate of deep sea diving for food. On a couple of occasions, we witnessed-from nature hides- shy yellow penguins and little blue penguins return to shore at the end of a day or more of fishing out at sea. We were amazed suddenly to see an immense glowing rainbow, its colours so intense, and next day to watch a mythical albatross glide in on its 3 metre wingspan to feed its young.

Tomorrow we fly to Tasmania, after a fascinating shabbat in Christchurch, which is a sepatate story altogether.

Is anyone reading this blog apart from our close family?

Marilyn and Maurice

Wellington to Queenstown

Flooding in Queenstown




Landing on Fox Glacier


















Tranz-Alpine Railway

Sailing on the lake from Queenstown





This is the end of our second full week in New Zealand, during which we have journeyed from Wellington, at the south-east tip of the North Island, to near the south-west tip of the South Island and have had many experiences. We'll tell you about four of them now and add a few photos.(We are finding it rather difficult to download photos, so you will have to forgive us for not adding more.)



Last Sunday was Anzac memorial day for New Zealand's ( and Australia's) soldiers throughout the generations.This particular Anzac day began with tragedy, when an army helicopter en route to the fly-past at the main Wellington ceremony crashed at dawn due to poor visibility, killing 3 young airmen. The national media involvement with the tragedy over the following days mirrored similar situations in Israel and reminded us that this, too, is a country with a small, but nationalistic, population. That afternoon we visited the Parliament buildings and were fascinated to hear that, although the Westminster system strongly influences day to day workings, there is a mix of proportional representation and constituency-elected members.



Two days later, on the scenic alpine railway between Christchurch in the east and Greymouth in the west, we met a Kiwi couple (the name New Zealanders tend to call themselves- probably to avoid any racial bias of the international name as opposed to the Maori one, Aotearoa) who explained the political system to us in more detail. They added that Maoris can choose to vote directly for Maori candidates instead of for a local member of Parliament as today they are scattered throughout the population centres. Our conversation was punctated by frequent trips to the open part of the carriage to try to capture the beauty of the mountain range, despite the heavy cloud and gusts of rain which obscured many of the famous peaks.



Though this weather has dogged us all week, we have woken twice to find towering peaks glittering outside different motel windows, where there had been cloudy sky the night before. So when there was a break in the rain over the Franz Josef and Fox glaciers, we quickly decided to take a thrilling helicopter trip, zooming up and down each glacier and actually landing on crunchy,pristine snow at the Fox Glacier.



Driving south is like crossing an enormous botanical garden, with overhanging plants, waterfalls and high snow-capped mountains. Many of the roads are very winding and the numerous river bridges are often open for one direction of traffic at a time. Consequently one has to be very careful and patient and not drive for longer than 2-3 hours without a good break. This is particularly difficult in blinding rain when some of the roads are barely passable. Because petrol stations are to be found mainly in towns, it is important to fill up when you see one. Towns may be as much as 100kms apart!



Queenstown has proved much quieter than we expected, an excellent place to spend a few days now that the torrential rain has passed and especially as we found a comfortable apartment at low-season rates. The rivers are too full for jet-boating (Maurice's plan) so we had to make do with the more sedate pleasure of a steamboat trip (to Marilyn's relief) down the long lake, which is causing flooding in the town itself.The surrounding mountains change from minute to minute . Watching them is a pastime of its own. At sunset tonight they looked like a cardboard backcloth for a stage-set, lit from behind.Nearer hills are clothed in glorious autumnal colours, which are beyond verbal description.



We have met people from all over the world, including a Samoan taxi-driver, but no Israelis.

Enjoy Lag B'Omer

Maurice and Marilyn

Video near Franz Josef Glacier