The Coastal Road Drive

About two hours driving, south of Melbourne....heading westward....you come to the Coastal Road, and a hour or so down this winding road, you come to the Apostles.

It is a breathtaking moment that ranks up there with the Grand Canyon or Empire State Building.

Oddly, while being a national park, they don't charge you anything.  Go figure that.

I probably could have stood up there for hours.  It was late in the day, with a slight fog developing.

If you wanted to make way to the beach below....you'd have to add another hour onto your situation, with a decent walk.

A day at it?  Well, my suggestion for anyone planning.....plan 12-to-14 hours, and it'd be better to have some Aussie drive your car because there is so much to see.

Note also, there is another park prior to this.....with an actual rain forest type walkway....worth another hour-long stop as well.

The drive back?  This is about as rural as you might desire....rolling hills with farms on each turn.  It's the kind of region where everything shuts down by six, and you'd best have the fuel to wrap up your adventure for the day.

On rankings for things to see in Australia.....I'd put this around number two or three, but it'll consume an entire day.

Australia and Weed

One of the interesting thing I came across while vacationing in Australia in February.....was the pace or path they going for legalized medical marijuana.

The Aussie Senate passed the changes necessary.....to create a national license process.

So, while it's still probably a year away.....there will be two licenses.

If you want to grow medical marijuana.....you will apply for this state license and meet some basic requirements for it.  You could only sell.....to a licensed distributor or shop.

All of this is pumping up some business folks to examine which versions would work best in Australia and fit the requirement of medical marijuana.  Dealers might tell you something....but it's not scientific in nature....just a 'feeling'.  So companies are now engaged and will follow through.

You almost get this impression that bulk plantations will likely come out of this....where some company runs an operation in a fairly warm zone (Brisbane and above), and there would be a dozen-odd people cultivating and collecting leaves for the business operation.

All of this bulk farming business.....means that the small time dealer is probably finished (at least five years down the line).   By 2025....you'd find medical marijuana there in your local distributor shop....grown only by twenty-odd plantation operations over all Australia (my humble opinion).  All of this begs the question of how things might develop in the US, and mass production really goes into the 'norm'.

Sydney and Homes

It is a picture of the opening from the ocean to Sydney Bay, and on 18 January 1788....a Captain Phillip led a fleet of eleven ships and 850 British convicts into the bay.

If you aren't Aussie, you probably don't know the history or the various little details.

Few Americans realize that while a fair number of people from the 1620 period to the early 1700s were all volunteers.....there reached a point in Britain where there were too many people sitting in prisons.  The solution?  Dump them in a very unpleasant place....far from England.  So for a number of years.....they sent prisoners and convicts to the US, until the Revolutionary War ended that solution.  Australia became solution number two.

What Captain Phillip knew of the area probably amounted to a forty-page book and details from an expedition by a Lt Cook in 1770.  If they had done further analysis....it might have led people to rethink the bay.  But from the other prospective.....it was probably bay area that any ship's captain would beg for and appreciate.

The soil there next to the bay?  It would take a year or two for the folks to realize that it was unsuitable for growing just about anything.

Fresh water?  Almost non-existent.

Snakes?  It was a major task to do the work assigned and avoid snakes.

Over three decades.....buildings were erected.  A trading port was established.  Better agricultural properties were found.  Fresh water was sourced out.  They built homes and buildings out of brick and stone.....showing a permanent side to the future.

By 1850, Sydney had grown into a fairly decent port city of roughly 30,000 people.  Oddly enough....in 1851, gold was discovered.  For three decades, this gold 'fever' went crazy.  By 1871....over a two-decade period, they had shifted gears and gone to 200,000 people.  Today, it totals near 4.8 million and growth still continues on a steady path.  Some locals think it'll hit the 6 million point by 2040.

Issues of the day?  Mass transit hasn't really solved the issues of people desiring to live on the outer reaches of the town.  The motorways or interstate system would be described by those who use it.....as marginal, and likely never to get much better.  Home prices within the heart of the city are ridiculous.

So I come to this epic story (more or less).  The house in the picture is 139 Kippa Street, over in the Surry Hill neighborhood, in the south part of Sydney.

Someone ought to sit and write 200-page book over this episode.

It was a home which belonged to Natalie Jean Wood.  Small place...75 square meter (probably near a 1000 sq ft).  Nothing special.  No parking spot.  Extremely out of date and most folks would identify it as being one step away from a slum.

Natalie's story?  In 2011, cops got called out to the house.  A sister-in-law had some reason to contact her and to be honest....they didn't talk much between themselves.  Cops broke down the down eventually, where they found Natalie laying there.....dead for eight years.  Yeah...no one had said much and she kinda kept to herself.

Power?  Cut-off?

This was a woman who had a brief marriage after the war, which ended in divorce after five years.  She went back home to live with the parents for a short period before she bought this house.  From 1979 to 1997....she kept the house but lived mostly with her mother.  After the mother passed on....she went back to Kippa Street.  She was.....for all practical purposes.....a loner.  She didn't have a real life beyond the house itself.  All the cops can figure is that she fell at some point, couldn't get up, and eventually died there in the house.  Months and years would pass.

Since 2011, this property has gone through the court system, and finally ended up for a real estate company to auction off.

Now, you'd look at the outside pictures and be turned off.  The interior pictures were pretty bad, and you'd consider the bathroom to be absolutely non-functional.  Nothing about this place works....except it is brick, in fine shape, and in a highly desired neighborhood.  It is three minutes walking to the central train station, with two city parks about five minutes away.  The pub district?  Maybe two minutes away at best.  The stadium is a 15 minute walk, and the heart of downtown Sydney is maybe a three-minute tram or subway ride away.

The auction folks were kinda surprised.  at fifteen minutes prior to the episode....there were twenty-eight people in the room and prepared to bid.  Over the last fifteen minutes prior to the auction....it doubled in nature.  Almost sixty people in an active for a crappy small house, which needed massive renovation.

The final bid to win?  $1.1 million Aussie dollars.  That's 823,000 American dollars.

If you figure the money required for the renovation....at least 150,000 American dollars.  Then the dump is valued at a million easily.

Most everyone involved in the estate or the sale....were shocked.  But it is an indication of where Sydney is going and the scale of cost involved in home ownership.

What happens in twenty years?  That's a curious thing.  Unless some massive public transportation project takes off and shifts people out to thirty miles (say the southwest of town), you won't be able to find any home in the city for less than $1.5 million American dollars.

It begs questions, and radical solutions.  Luckily, the Aussies have the same type political figures as you find in the US.  So don't go and expect much.

Notes on Australia

 From my trip to Australia, there are three things that I came to note.

First, it doesn't matter where you go around the country....you feel like you are in the 1950s of America.  Buildings are updated or modern....they all have that brick look and feel like some small town atmosphere.

It has a sense of appeal....a place where you'd like to arrive....open up a coffee shop, and get a feel of home-town real quick.

In the US, most of these places have been torn down and turned into some cheap looking aluminum buildings.

Then you come to this second observation....about humor.

This was a newspaper piece that I saw one day....a missing poster for Tazmania.

You see....if you go and look at most general maps of the country (not the fancy atlas type), they all miss the little island to the far right bottom of Australia.

Folks in Tazmania.....talk about this a bit.  They realize they get no respect and hardly anyone in Australia regards them as part of the country.

So, they turn this into a bit of humor.....noting that they are missing.

Then I come to my third topic.....Krespy Kreme Donuts.

You see....in Australia....they love the franchise as much as Americans.

In Sydney, you can't go more than two blocks without seeing operation.

This one that I took the picture of?  It's just inside the airport terminal.

It didn't matter where I went....Brisbane, Melbourne, etc....they had them everywhere.

Pricing?  Well....it's almost the same as the American shops.  And the quality is about the same.

Hitler This and That

If you Google up the word "Hitler".....just on web activity.....there's not much being reported over the internet.  If you Google against new items?  Oh, there's probably 500 Hitler mentions in the past month....all leading back to Trump.

I sat and looked at one news report....trying to tie enthusiasm at some Trump rally into a Hitler moment.  It was the same enthusiasm that I noted in 2008 during the Obama build-up and it's odd that no one want to observe Hitler-like enthusiasm in 2008's campaign.

At some point near the 2008 election point, someone wrote a major piece comparing the Obama period to likely be like Nazi 1930's-like government.  Some journalists got hostile about that accusation and defended the incoming government.

At some point in the 2004 election period, between Bush and John Kerry.....I can recall one significant usage of the Hitler accusation on Bush.

The thing is....if you go and list the thirty-odd platform positions of the Nazi Party in 1932 in simple English today.....without attributing them to the Party, then over sixty-percent of society today would readily advocate their enthusiasm for the platform, and that would come from both Republicans and Democrats.

Some people think that once you mention the Hitler-word, then folks freak out.  That comical way of thinking probably disappeared in the 1990s.  If you asked a hundred people under the age of 25 of Hitler today.....fewer than a quarter of them would be able to identify him to Germany.  World War II is almost forgotten, and even the Vietnam War would be identified as an ancient war.  If you asked most people to identify the last eight Presidents....most would gaze at you and probably get through Bush, Obama, and Clinton.  Half of them might remember Reagan, and maybe ten percent might be able to include Carter (only because he seems to still write books).

So, it's nifty trick to write up critical commentary and slant it with the Hitler-word.  Hitler this, and Hitler-that.....then pat yourself on the back.  Even I might have read into the commentary back eight years ago and at least noted it.  But I've tired of the Hitler comparison enough.....that it really doesn't work anymore.

If you have some idiot talking up the Hitler business.....stop him in mid-sentence and ask him how many voters (percentage-wise) stood up in November of 1932 and voted for Hitler.  Note, the answer is 37-percent.  Yeah, that's all it took because you see.....so many people were frustrated and angry with German politics.  They'd spent three years working through a massive economic stumble and the two major political parties simply stood around to blame each other and play out theater-like antics, so from the other parties available......they found another option.  So if some Hitler-game was to be played out today.....I'd sit and blame both the Republicans and Democrats for creating the atmosphere and making the public so hostile.....they'd ask for something a bit unusual.  That's the sad analysis to this whole thing.

Aussie Warning Sign

One of the more interesting tours I took in Sydney....was the Sydney Opera House.

It was kinda a surprise to me that they run five or six different shows each night, with different rooms or halls available in the building.  Most of my life, I always had this impression that the Sydney Opera House was just one big hall.

So, in the hallway leading up to one of the 300-person rooms....was this sign, and the Aussies were kind enough to warn you ahead of time.

The tour guide noted that a number of people....including Americans....show up in Sydney for a performance at the hall, and some folks get a bit disturbed over Aussie views....which naturally include references to alcohol and includes some boobs being shown.  So.....they warn you ahead of time.

I thought it was nice of them....at least giving some folks a last chance to avoid something that would get them all hyped up or disturbed.

Clothing

Two weeks ago, I stood for a brief minute in the Melbourne, Australia railway station, and here was this guy.  Naturally, being from Alabama....I noted his style of clothing and colors.

It's not something you could buy off the rack at Sears or JC Pennys.....but to be honest, it's the kind of thing that I would have liked to have bought and worn on my last day at work (when I was retiring).

It would have said something.