A Series of Firsts

Last weekend, some of the long-term volunteers took advantage of the long weekend due to Monday’s celebration of the Queen’s birthday. On Sunday, we headed south to Jervis Bay, about two hours south of Sydney. The trip was a series of firsts for me: my first time to drive in Australia, to see humpback whales in the wild, and to eat a lamington.

Since fifteen of us made the trip, we needed two 8-passenger vans, one of which I happily drove. Part of the enjoyment came from the type of vans—two Mercedes Vitos with diesel engines. A Mercedes diesel—can anything be any better?! I was lovin’ it. It caused me to be nostalgic for my tank-like ’85 Turbodiesel Mercedes (probably my favourite of the cars I owned) that purred like a loud kitten. To be adequately prepared for the trip and to better appreciate the fine German engineering, I read the owners manual on Saturday. I was pleased to learn that Mercedes had remained pleasantly consistent with respect to the interior workings. There was even a dashboard full of nice large buttons, of which I tried to take advantage. I guess it takes an engineer to appreciate those sorts of things!

Driving on the highway was fairly simple. As long as I did not have to make many turns across traffic, I was fine. Australia is full of roundabouts, which can be quite fun but not really if you are in a large vehicle like a van. What I find most impressive about driving in Australia is the courtesy of the other drivers. There were a few instances when I found myself in the wrong lane. Upon discovering my mistake, I simply signalled, and cars would stop to allow me to merge in front of them. Never did I receive a honk. In fact, very rarely have I heard any honking in the city.

Another first was seeing humpback whales in the wild. We went out on a boat, which caught up to three whales. They were making their way to the warmer waters of Queensland for the winter. We also found some bottlenose dolphins, which seemed to impress folks more than the whales.

The final first of the trip to Jervis Bay was eating a lamington during afternoon tea after whale watching. Anzac biscuits, which we Americans would call oatmeal coconut cookies, and lamingtons are two very typical Australian desserts. Lamingtons are small white sponge cakes covered in chocolate and white shredded coconut. Sometimes they have an internal layer of jelly, but mine did not. They are as tasty as they sound!

Australian word of the day: trackie dacks = sweatpants.