Australia
On the 14th of November,
after a great day with Christine, Anthony and their freinds
on the Nge island, we leave New Caledonia. The high pressure
settled on Tasmania should give us beautiful conditions for
this 700 mile passage to Lord Howe Island. In Panama, an Australian
sailor made a very convincing description of this island and
we decided to make a stop.
Half way the high vanishes and a beautiful low appears…
centered on Lord Howe Island and heading North… in our
direction! OK, Cephee, has already lived strong winds and we
count on Lucien (the wind vane), to keep the boat going…
Everything is fine in the end but we are happy to pick up the
mooring. Lord Howe is small jewel of an island. Classed natural
reserve, tourism is limited and strongly nature oriented. The
check-in turn out to be one of the easiest one we've had on
the contrary to what we thought (we were really afraid to loose
our patés and best bottles). Richard, the customs officer
is really cool, and since there are not many foreign boats stopping,
he takes good care of us. We are alone in the lagoon appart
for some fishing and diving boats.
11 km long, this island has the most southern coral reef in
the world (we are at 30°S), which survives thanks to the
warm current that runs along the Australian cost from the tropics.
Ashore we can hike on beautiful paths, very well maintaned and
documented, and use the many barbecues on the beaches or watch
the many birds that nest on the island.
We spend 8 wonderful days on the island and Hélène
flies to Sydney. She is not really motivated by this last passage
and the small weather window. Thomas doesn't want to wait longer
in order to get Céphée on the market before Hélène's
parents arrive and leaves alone.
On the 2nd of december Hélène sees Céphée's
colors in front of the famous opera house. Welcome to Sydney!
Here we are again in a big city with its good and bad sides.
After so much time in nature we are stunned by this over-consummtion,
this pollution, particularly in this pre-Christmas period. We
fall back on earth from our heaven… The coming arrival
of Hélène's parents motivate us for preparing
Christmas and on top of that the paperwork for selling the boat
takes a lot of time so we are rapidly taken by the city. We
found a mooring in a very good marina, not far from the city
center.
We spend one day with friends from Hamburg, Elise and Laurent,
who have been living in Sydney since 2 years and are now returning
to France. We almost missed them!
On the 21st, Jean and Annie, Hélène's parents,
arrive from France to stay 2 weeks with us. We haven't seen
them in a year… Together we visit what we know of the safe
city of Sydney (Safety seems to be the number one preoccupation
here…) and we discover the art museum, the Australian museum,…
We also do a lot of shopping because we need to fill the bottom
of our christmas tree with presents!
On the 24th, on board Céphée, good wine bottles
goes with duck liverand we think of those who, on the other
side of the world are barely awake.
Merry Christams! The 25th is a nice sunny day: good day to go
to the beach! People picnic in the parks, play beach-volley
with a santa hat,… we would never think of being in december!
On the 26th it is the start of the Sydney to Hobart race, an
international known ragatta. The boats are huge!
The week after that, we leave the city to visit the Blue Mountains
and the Hunter Valley in a rental car. In the Blue Mountains,
we discover a bit more of Australia's nature. Multi-colored
parots, a Lace Monitor (1,5 m long lizard!), kangourous, Koalas,
Wombats, Kukabura (a laughing bird), bats, … and eucalyptus
trees, ficus, fungus…
In the Hunter Valley, we discover the Australian wine industry.
The wines are good but we still prefer French wines! Anyway,
here the methods are very different from our traditional "chateaux".
The wineries are very modern and look more like a highway toll
station than a "chateau"!
Back to Sydney, we move Céphée towards the middle
of the harbor in order to have a good view for the famous firework
of new year. At sunset, we are drinking champagne before continuing
with a delicious diner and finally and impressing firework.
The last days with the parents, we stay in Sydney, visit the
aquarium, Manly beach and the botanical gardens. Stromg winds
pick up in the harbor (50 knots), where we loose our oars and
an other pair of thongs! It is already time for us to say goodbze
to the parents, next meeting in France? Everything depends on
the sale of Céphée now, and it is difficult for
us to plan until then. Anyway we will be around Australia or
New Zealand.
On the 7th of January,
we can not believe our eyes when we see John, an ex-collegue
from Hamburg, at the marina! Originally Australian, he came
here to spend time with friends and familly for the vacation.
What a great surprise !
We organise our
life in Sydney, we give two conferences on our trip in the Alliance
Francaise of Sydney and Brisbane. They are both the opportunity
to meet interesting people and to make them dream a little.
While going up North, we stop at Matt's place, a friend of the
marina who is building a house in a small town on the East coast
and we try to help him out the best we can.
Céphée
is on many magasines and advertisements and we hope he will
be sold by end of March. This is the deadline at which we will
have to bring him back to France.
The life at the
marina continues peacefully... maybe a little too much for us,
or is it the sea life that we miss, or manybe France. Anyway,
we do not really feel at home in this great city, where everything
is business and consumption. But the trip to New Zealand (14th
of Feb - 5th of March) is close and should pump us back up!
A
local recipes:
Pavlova
This
dessert was invented as a tribute to the Russian ballerina Anna
Pavlova, who toured New Zealand and Australia in 1926. Pavlova
is made of meringue and cream and is usually topped with kiwifruit.
3
egg white, 3 tablespoons of water (cold), 1 cup of caster sugar,
1 teaspoon of vinegar, 1 teaspoon of vanilla essence, 3 teaspoons
of cornflour
1.
beat egg whites until they are stiff
2.
Add cold water to the eggs, beat again
3.
Add caster sugar gradually while still beating
4.
Add vinegar, vanilla, cornflour, again while still beating
5.
Put greased paper on a greased tray and bake at 150 °C for
45 minutes
6.
Cool in the oven
