Australia
East Coast Cruising
The Plan
Planned Flights
It’s unbelievable that we haven’t been back to Australia since 2019. Since then, the world fell into lock down, death, and despair. We (and all other sane people) have stayed home to avoid spreading the virus and suffering from its consequences. But times have changed, and the virus is less deadly now, so it is time to man-up and make the long and precarious journey to the land down under, to visit with our family and friends. My dad is not very well and so this makes the trip even more compelling.
We’ll break up the long flight from Portland Oregon to Melbourne Australia by stopping for a few days in Hawaii (I know, but someone must do it). This will give us time to move our clocks into the changed time zone and allow us to thaw out slowly from the freezing Oregon winter. I’m looking forward to swimming in the warm ocean off Waikiki.
Planned Road Trip
Next, we’ll fly from Hawaii to Sydney and then on to Melbourne. Here we’ll continue our trip by visiting family and friends in my hometown, Frankston. We are both looking forward to seeing everyone, and taking a swim at Frankston beach, not as warm as Hawaii, but warmer than Portland.
After our stay in Frankston, we plan to take a road trip up the East coast of Australia from there to Sydney. The route will take us through where many of the 2019–2020 fires occurred. That bushfire season stretched from June 2019 to March 2020 and devastated vast portions of the country. It scorched an estimated 46 million acres, destroyed more than 5,900 buildings (including 2,779 homes), and killed at least 34 people.
Brave Australian firefighters
The intensity of these and all fires and storms around the world are due to our pumping billions of metric tons of CO2 into the atmosphere each year. I know you know that, but I feel I must remind you of the cost of this insatiable habit we have formed.
Of course, Julia and I will be contributing to this greenhouse gas emission by taking this trip, but then we did generate 1.8 mega watthours of electricity since installing our solar and home battery system. And we have been driving electric cars since 2013, which has significantly reduced the amount of CO2 we have emitted.
Hopefully, we won’t encounter more bushfires on this trip. But don’t worry, the brave and voluptuous, Australian firefighters are there to protect us.
The trip is coming up very soon and we are both getting excited. Here’s hoping all goes well and we have a great time visiting with family and friends, and that we do not contract the virus or spread it about.