A Visit From Phil and Jane

It's now nearly 4 weeks since my brother, Phillip, and his partner, Jane, returned to England after their 3-week visit to Australia. It was his first trip here in about 30 years and Jane's first ever and both had a great time. Alas, I've been very busy since they departed for home and it's only now that I've found time to record their visit on this blog.

After their arrival in Sydney early one morning we soon hit the road doing the traditional sights of Sydney, where they spent the first two complete days. And guess where we headed first. Yes, Bondi beach! It was a gray, cool and blustery day early in October so there wasn't much life on the beach and both our visitors were rugged up.

I and Phil were born just 1 year and 20 days apart. And he was delighted to see that one of central Sydney's main streets was named after him!

The next stop was also hardly surprising. Here's the Corso at Manly which one reaches by a lovely  ferry trip from Circular Quay. The three characters are, of course, Phil, Jane and Dot.

Max was also with us since it was school holidays and I picked him up at Sydney's airport after Bec had placed him a plane in Canberra. Once again P and J  posed on the beach-front for a photo.

And, on our return journey, Max was amused to see a water taxi named after him!

After two days seeing the local sights the five of us departed for Armidale, but we couldn't all fit in our Rav4 given the huge amount of luggage P and J brought with them. The solution was simple I drove P and J with me back home and we had a race with Dot and Max who took the train. In Europe the winners would have been the latter two, but Australian country trains are rather slow. The c. 500 km rail journey to Armidale took over 7 hours and we beat them by a cool two hours. We took the back-road home via Thunderbolt's Way, named after a 19th century local bush-ranger who held up stage-coaches and robbed passengers. This route has some interestingly named small villages on it, including Stroud, Stratford upon Avon, and Gloucester! After those, the route heads through 200 km of almost empty and often beautiful countryside.

On getting to Armidale we did some local sights in the town and surrounding countryside. One was a ritual trip to Wollomombi Falls, which captivated them. Here are P and J admiring the gorge and waterfall.

Another trip took us, including Dot, to visit the nearby National Trust historic home, Saumarez. In particular we explored its lovely gardens and had a delightful lunch.

Another ritual trip was to Dobson's distillery c. 40 km south of Armidale. This local farmer turned to making some exquisite drinks - for example gin and whiskeys - many of which have won awards. And there is a nice restaurant attached, where we had lunch.

And our return journey took in some historic sights like this attractive little church at Gostwyck which served a massive nearby farm of the same name.

A couple of days later we took to the road again to Brisbane - the subject of the next post. En route, the two ladies on the trip had the opportunity to extract Excalibur from this stone in a paddock at Glen Innes. The flag flying nearby was also interesting. Have a guess what it's about ... answer at the end.

Well, what's a common theme for all components? Yes, they're all Celtic symbols ... from places like Wales, Scotland, Ireland, the Isle of Man, and Brittany. Well, Glen Innes claims to be the Celtic capital of Australia.

AS

How wealthy are you?

I've just turned up some interesting wealth statistics provided by Credit Suisse's research arm. I welcome comments and responses to what I'm about to show you,

The world rankings of household wealth per adult place Australia in second spot on US$411,060 slightly behind Switzerland ... a very good achievement.

And nations' proportion of adults with wealth less than US$10,000 are amazingly varied. Only 6% of Australians are that poor, while the respective figures for the UK and the USA are hugely higher: 18% (UK) and 28% (USA). So the latter has vast hoards of poverty stricken people. The adult population in the USA is about 250 million, so about 45 million of them are living in great poverty. At the other of the spectrum, the parentage of adult Australians with wealth  > US$100,000 is c. 67%, the fourth highest in the world. So wealth here is much more equally shared here than in the USA ... or Britain for that matter.

Looking at median wealth statistics bears this out. Median wealth per adult in Australia is c. US$191,453 and that's the highest in the world. Switzerland comes in a close second. Canada is in 6th spot on US$106,343; New Zealand and Britain hold 8th and 9th spot respectively on about US$98,000 (or less than half of Australia's figure); Ireland in 15th place on US$72,430 beats the USA in 18th spot (US$61,667) by a wide margin; and Germany comes number 24 on just US$35,169. So wealth in Australia is clearly spread around much better than many other places and there's a lot of it.

Why is Australia's median wealth per adult considerably more than three times the United States figure? And what, if anything, can anyone do about it? Since Canada's figure is almost double the US I'm surprised there isn't long queue to cross the border northwards just like there's a queue on the northern border of Mexico.

AS

Re-Birthday

Emily has just reminded me - a day late here, but on time on the Pacific Coast of the United States - that I have reached another milestone personally. The 19th November is of course my Re-Birthday.

It's the date when, 11 years ago, I had a massive heart attack, was hospitalised in an induced coma, and then flown by air-ambulance to Newcastle (the Aussie version) where I eventually had a defibrillator installed and was discharged home.

Eleven years on I'm in great shape! I can still run, walk for a couple of hours, climb mountain trails and ride my bike up to 100 km a week. Moreover, the defibrillator has never been actioned as far as I know and my regular medical check-ups show nothing serious other than a slight decline my hearing.

So I count myself very lucky indeed. But this may have something to do with the circumstances behind the attack. Basically, I was running late for an appointment and cycled home furiously. Somewhere en route a bit of plaque broke off in my blood circulation system and ended up jamming my heart - or part of it. Yet when the doctors opened me up surgically the most any vein was blocked was only c. 40% and many were apparently pretty clear. My subsequent lifestyle improvements (mostly food and exercise) have wound back most adverse readings even to the extent about being warned that my cholesterol level is too low.

So I'm a happy chappy and intend going full bore for the next 29 years. By then I'll be 102 and possibly celebrating my 40th re-birthday. Put the date in your diaries.

AS

Crushing Sugar Cane

My final blog post from Central America explores one other interesting thing we did, namely a visit to a farm growing sugar cane where we saw how it was crushed decades ago in Australia. This is the farm HQ, which has been turned into an interesting tourist experience.

Interestingly, the premises were also home to a cactus garden, something that interested me greatly as a cactus grower in my own home.

The farm must be a successful operation judging by the quality of the buildings and the display we were given below! The star performer was the enormous bull shown below. We saw it awaiting being harnessed to the crushing gear and then being attached to the wooden equipment by our guide also shown below.





















Here she is about to commence her explanation of the process involved. Basically, the animal goes around in a large circle while freshly cut sugar can stems are slotted into the press. As the bull rotates, the machine crushes it to release a sugary / sweet liquid that can then be refined in various ways to produce sugar as we know it.
Here's the press equipment shown in greater detail

On the left you can see a green stem of cane being fed into the press equipment. Of course, these days the press equipment in Australia - and also I imagine Costa Rica - is powered electrically. I've been to several factories in North Queensland performing that task and just two weeks ago drove past several crushing plants on the NSW North Coast, not far from where I'm typing this.

Still it was an interesting re-enactment of past practice.

 AS

Family Matters

So far in my exploration of, and documentation about, Costa Rica has focused on things. Perhaps it's about time to shine a light on members of my extended family enjoying, perhaps celebrating, Emily's birthday. Only I have featured in my essays so far.

Let's start with Emily and Rebecca enjoying a mass pool-side work-out involving dance movements to music led by by  the gut in charge below.















The proceedings were watched by Dot sunning herself on a nearby seat. And the dude below looks like Flynn enjoying himself in the pool.











Here's Greg playing table-tennis with Ella, a game which attracted participation from many members of group.
















What better of relaxing at our resort than swinging in a cane chair, as Ella is doing here?

Emily and Flynn both seem to agree with my observation!
















A lot of time was also spent on the beach, which hardly surprising given the high humidity and great warmth of our location just 10 degrees north of the equator. Sea temperatures were also very warm. Here's Flynn running towards the Pacific ocean with his enormous floaty ring.









 Both kids loved the water!






And here they are admiring what looks like a Lemur. However, I can't recall whether it was alive or, more likely, stuffed! Something's amiss! Oh! I know what it is. The final member of our party hasn't yet appeared in my pictures. Apologies, Max. Here he is accompanying his mother, Bec, in the warm waters of the Pacific.









AS

Some Central American Wildlife

My second essay on our stay in Westin resort in Costa Rica concerns local wildlife - both animal and vegetation, which we saw around the resort itself and nearby, and also on a boat trip we took along a river with tropical forests on either side. I'll let my pictures do most of the talking.

Let's start with coastal vegetation alongside our resort. And, below, the view from our boat as we glided up-river through tropical forests.











On the right you can see one of the numerous lizards on a tree branch.



And, the next view on the right reveals a small crocodile floating in the water. Another, below, lays still on the river bank















On the right, a large lizard, maybe an iguana, nestles on a tree branch. And below that, a bird of prey sits on a tree-branch awaiting a meal to reveal itself.

 And on the left can you spot what looks like a camouflaged lizard lying horizontal on a branch?

Below, another lizard suns itself at our resort.

And yet another scans me warily on some rocks near our rooms at the resort. while below something like a raccoon plays on the grass.

Such animals populated the trees around us in abundance and always made for interesting conversation.










Also around in great numbers were monkeys swinging from branch to branch in our surrounding tress.

All up, surrounding nature provided us with a great experience.








AS