Watching The Cricket at The Gabba!

After watching cricket on TV for many years whenever I've been in a cricket playing nation, and following it on the internet, I finally went to a live game! A test match between Australia and Sri Lanka is ongoing at The Gabba, the cricket stadium in Brisbane, and I went to day 3...test matches can last as long as five days. A test is basically a meeting of two national dream teams...in this case, the best players from Oz and Sri Lanka. Since Australia is the top rated cricket nation in the world, and Sri Lanka's up there, I had a chance to see many of the planet's best cricket players. Very cool! If you like baseball...the two sports are cousins. If you like one, you'll probably enjoy the other. But if baseball bores you, cricket will put you to sleep.

Here Brett Lee, Australia's star fast bowler (think baseball power pitcher) is cranking up a delivery to the Sri Lankan batsman. Lee is the bloke with his arm extended straight above his head...you have to deliver the ball with virtually no bend in your arm. Lee had a good first innings...his line on the scoreboard read

17.5 26 4. This means he bowled 17.5 overs...at 6 balls to an over, that's 107 balls; surrendered 26 runs, and took 4 wickets...cricket's version of an out. Without going into further detail, this is excellent...think of Josh Beckett pitching a 4 hit shutout for the Red Sox and you have a rough equivalent. Like baseball, cricket is quite a chess game. Notice the five blokes at the bottom of the picture. These are all Australian fielders. The bloke farthest left is Adam Gilchrist, the star wicketkeeper for many years on the Ozzie test team. He is equivalent to a baseball catcher, and he's the only fielder to wear gloves, though a cricket ball is about as hard as a baseball. The blokes to his right are, from left to right, playing first, second, and third slip, and the bloke in the lower right of the pic is at gully. The fielders will change position for every batter, and every bowler. It's quite complicated and requires a lot of strategy to place the fielders in the proper position for every situation. There are position changes in baseball, of course, but except for the radical shifts used when Barry Bonds or a few other lefthanded sluggers are at bat, fielders change position much less in baseball than in cricket. Seeing this firsthand is one of the advantages of going to a game in person.

There are 11 players on a cricket team, but many more defensive positions; many are not manned in a particular situation. The names of the positions are a bit bizarre; in addition to gully, you have deep fine leg, long off, silly mid off, and silly point, to name a few. The silly positions are so named because the fielders stand almost next to the batsman, anticipating that he'll hit a little blooper that they can catch for an out. But if the batter hits the ball hard, the fielder will be, uh, knocked silly!

The Gabba is a fine modern stadium. Good concessions, clean, with an artfully designed canvas roof over much of the upper deck. Late in the day, the roof casts a stylish shadow over the ground. The stadium is named for its 'hood...

Wollongabba, just across the river from downtown Brisbane. Incidentially, the Aussies are in command of the match after 3 days, leading by 260 runs. I had hoped to see them bat...they're spectacular offensively...but they piled up 551 runs on only 4 outs during the first two days of the match (think of an NFL team scoring about 50 points) and simply played defense on the day I was there.

A sparkling Day

After three days of rain, the sun returned to the Sunshine Coast in glorious fashion today! It was a splendid day; bright and warm, but not hot or humid. I naturally had to check out of my house in the morning, but stuck around and did 6 km or so of bushwalking in Noosa National Park. The beauty of the shoreline was too dazzling to pass up! Here's a shot looking toward the southwest; in the distance is the main part of Noosa Heads with swish hotels and condos. The beach was jammed with throngs of tourons today, no doubt due to the fine weather after much sogginess. In fact, the night before last it rained about two inches here!

This is Granite Bay, a couple km along the track from the northwestern entrance to the national park. There was a blustery south wind along the east facing beaches, but the shoreline here faces north, sheltered from the south wind. Lots of surfies were out, taking advantage of the placid weather with good swells.

Here's a classic shot of Alexandria Bay, one of the prettiest settings for a beach to be found anywhere in the world. Earlier this week I hiked here from my rental house, only about 1 1/2 km away. This time I came from the main area of Noosa and the trek was close to 3 km, but not very difficult and through beautiful country. I realized that I really, really like it here; the beauty is a major element but I also prefer the level of development. At Sunshine Beach it's rather quiet, but you're in the middle of a community with a small but pleasant commercial area containing all the necessary stores and restaurants. If you want a little more action, you can head for the main tourist area of Noosa Heads, which is rather small but bustling and heavily developed. If you want more peace and quiet, you just stroll into the bush protected within the national park. It's a nice balance.

An Unusual Meeting of the Waters

As happens around Monterey during the winter rainy season, rain on the Sunshine Coast sends the local creeks running into the sea. But some of them have an unusual twist. There is a lot of tannin in the forests covering parts of eastern Australia, and when the tannin gets into the water it turns it the color of tea. Near Byron Bay, south of here, I've swum in a large tea colored lake. The water is clean and clear, but not blue, to say the least. This pic is a few km south of Sunshine Beach .

The amount of tannin in the water and the water's depth can create variations in the shades of colors that are wonderfully abstract.

Aussie Oddities

In general, Australians are somewhat irreverent and usually humorous. Things are commonly looked at with tongue in cheek, and frequently with a little casual raciness. There is also a preoccupation with Big Things. These are normally local icons, with a visitor center/ souvenir shop attached. This is the Big Pineapple, in Nambour, just inland from the Sunshine Coast. The noble edifice is perhaps 10 meters tall, counting the stem.

I found this van in the car park at Noosa National Park today. It's a rental, obviously from a company with a sense of humor.

There are a great many people in Noosa who are in good shape. The locals tend to be young, athletic professional types; sports opportunities are endless: and the weather is conducive to outdoor activity. In fact, last weekend was the Noosa Triathlon; I always seem to be in town for the event. Even the dogs are fit, I reckon!

Creatures of the deep

The Sunshine Coast has not, uh, lived up to its name very well the past two days; lots of clouds and rain, virtually no sun. Can't begrudge the locals the rain, though; southeast Queensland has been in a severe drought for several years; Brisbane's reservoirs are only 20 percent full. So a good soaking is welcomed. Besides, on a gray day I can just visit indoor attractions, like Underwater World, an aquarium in Mooloolaba, a resort town about 40 km south of Sunshine Beach. Not as large as our aquarium in Monterey, but they do have some interesting critters to say the least. This monster is, believe it or not, a giant squid! It's encased in a block of ice and is about 7 meters long...the eye is at least as large as a softball! Very few of these creatures are ever found washed onshore, and a live one was not actually observed until 2004, I believe. I had no idea a carcass was on exhibit anywhere, but here's one in Mooloolaba! The picture's not too great, but its tentacles are to the left with the body to the right. Blow up the pic for more details.

This is a little more conventional critter, a big grouper. The aquarium has a large tank that you travel through in a glass enclosed tunnel. There are many sharks and rays, but I couldn't get a decent picture of them. However, the grouper (known locally as a groper) turned out OK.

This bizarre animal is a sawfish. It actually prefers fresh water to salt but can live in both environments. Despite its hostile appearance, it's fairly gentle and will not attack humans unless they really hassle it.

Random Aussie Shots

Here The Lizard has taken over the house barbecue at my place in Sunshine Beach. The barbecue is an Australian cultural icon. Almost any park or picnic ground has them; often, they're gas barbecues free of charge. I'm doing almost all of my cooking on the barbie...chook, snags (sausage), steak, whatever. Nice setting for a barbie, I reckon! My friend Wayne in PDX is a master barbecuer...he'd fit in well here!

Australia has quite a good system of parks. This is Alexandria Bay, a gorgeous beach in Noosa National Park that I first visited in 1985. It's only about a 1 1/2 kilometer walk from the Balinese Beach House, so it's a pleasant stroll...and you do have to stroll. No roads into the area. It's a fine wilderness beach. You can continue on the tracks and wind up sipping a latte on Hastings Street in the heart of Noosa Heads in about 4 km. The mix of sophisticated urbanity, beach culture, and bush wilderness here is superb! By the way, being an offroad beach there's no need to wear a cossie here...but mind your bum if you don't as the antipodean sun is fierce!

There are many national parks here as they basically encompass areas that would be either state or national parks in the US...there are no state parks here that I know of.

This is a brush box tree in the rainforest of Lamington National Park, near O'Reilly's. These big trees are remnants of a cooler, wetter era; apparently they're not reproducing much nowadays. The brush boxes are up to 1500 years old. Being fat around the base and massive in general, they're kind of like Australian sequoias.

Slumming in Noosa

I'm now in the Noosa area. This is Australia's La Jolla, an upscale community blessed by a gorgeous combination of sun, sand, and sea...with a bit of forest thrown in. There are fine bistros, superb beaches, and really nice homes to rent. This is the third time I've rented a place here...I'm staying in the Balinese Beach House in Sunshine Beach, about 3 km from Noosa proper. It has Balinese wood carvings, rugs, with the odd Krishna figure thrown in...there's even a gong! Much of the construction is natural wood as seen here in the steps and the post on the right of the picture. A unique domicile.

The view is, uh, not shabby. I'm about 7000 miles across the Pacific from Monterey. This is Sunshine Beach...it runs for miles toward the south. It's nice to take a morning stroll along the beach; about a kilometer to the south is the commercial area of Sunshine Beach, where you can stop for brekky, or just pick up a coffee, baked goods, and a paper, then hike back, maybe sloating on the sand for awhile enroute. Not a bad lifestyle, and you do get some exercise; obviously, the house is some distance up from the beach, and it's warm and somewhat humid, so a workout is obtained.

After tromping up the hill from the beach, The Old Sloat may be a little hot and sweaty but this is no problem, because I have a pool. It's not Olympic size...only about 5 meters square...but it's plenty big enough for a cool, refreshing soak. Then you skull a VB and commence sloating out by the pool. You can also sloat out in the pool on a large bench about 2 feet down in the water. Doesn't suck!

More Aussie Shots

This is the nest of a Satin Bowerbird...right by the side of the road at O'Reilly's. Blow the pic up to get a better look. The male bowerbird builds this contraption and also forages for and deposits all kinds of trinkets around it...favoring blue objects since the bird is navy blue. Once the nest is finished, the bird spends hours and hours dancing around the nest and squawking, trying to attract females. If a female is interested enough to enter his bower, this is the equivalent of crossing the threshold; the male mates with her...(takes about two seconds...talk about wham bam!) and the female then flys off and that's the end of it...she more sensibly builds a nest in a tree to hatch her young 'uns.

My mate is a King Parrot! The birds at O'Reillys are used to people, to say the least. However, if you want them to be your friends long term, you have to come up with some tucker!

The rainforest around O'Reilly's is lush, receiving 60-100 inches of rain a year. Massive old trees tower above the bush. They are frequently beset with strangler figs, which begin growing far up in the tree, then descend over the years, eventually reaching the ground. In time the figs may do in their host tree while becoming sufficiently thick and stout to replace it entirely.

Australian Critters

One of the most entertaining elements in a visit to Australia is the wildlife. It's largely endemic... found only here, or on occasion here and in just a few other places. And the critters live everywhere. This good sized goanna, over a foot long, is posing on the Brisbane riverwalk, in the heart of the city. You can tell that he's an urban lizard by his sophisticated sense of design, posing within the tile pattern!

This is a pademelon, a rather unromantic name for a cute, gentle, small wallaby. These guys can be found hanging out at O'Reilly's Rainforest Resort, a fine hostelry deep in the mountains along the Queensland/New South Wales border. The woods here are full of birds and other animals, and the resort has a vigorous program that will immerse a visitor in the environment. You can hike, take 4 wheel drive vehicles into the bush, or simply see many birds and other animals right on the grounds of the resort. Gourmet food is also included. It ain't cheap, but I reckon that's mainly because everything has to be hauled up a winding 35 kiilometer road up the mountains; paved, but only one lane wide in many places. Here in the mountains, the fog drifts in and out, and an ethereal beauty and peace pervades the scene.

The crimson rosellas that live around the resort are rather tame. You can buy special food for them, but they relish chompin' down on Nobby's salted peanuts as well. This bloke would fly right up onto the railing of my deck when I appeared.

Meet brush turkey! These birds hang out on the floor of the rainforest, and they seem to like living close to people. In virtually any settled area in this part of Australia, you'll have them for neighbors. They can fly just enough to get up on your second floor deck and bludge (beg) a little. Interestingly, the males, with the wattles hanging down from their necks, do most of the egg maintenance. They build a large nest of leaf litter over the eggs laid by a female by kicking the litter into a mound. Then they adjust the mound so that the heat generated by the decomposition of the litter stays at 33 degrees C (91F) until the eggs hatch. They don't care for the infant turkeys, though; as with all other intruders, from pythons to humans, the turkey kicks leaf litter onto the alien fellow that may be threatening the nest. Other than the usual male vs. male competition, this is about the only time a brush turkey becomes the least bit agitated!

The Lizard does the Antipodes

Well, g'day! I'm in Australia! This is my seventh trip downunder since 1985...as you may reckon, I like it here. When I first came here in '85, I remember thinking that I wanted to make it here about every three years. I stayed on schedule at first, returning in 1988, but flagged in the '90s when I only visited once. However, this is my fourth time here since 2001, so I'm returning to my original plan. The last time I was here, in 2005, I figured out that I simply liked the Aussie lifestyle, from drinking VB (the best hot weather beer in the world) to hanging out on the beach, to watching the cricket, to grooving on the really cool birds and other critters, to just living in a friendly, informal, slightly irreverent mode. And guess what! The Lizard came along too. He didn't much care for the trip over...it's rigorous enough for a 6 foot 4 bloke to ride coach for over half a day, and the Lizard had to endure the whole trip in my less than aromatic sneaker inside my suitcase! But we both made it and now we're enjoying Oz. Here he is at Brisbane, which like Portland, Edmonton, and Sacramento is a fine river city, with many parks and walkways along the water.