From LA our plane flew due west then south and followed the setting sun for 15 sleepless hours. The never-ending afternoon morphed into morning as we landed in Melbourne, Australia. We are en route to my cousin’s wedding in Yarra Valley, Australia’ s version of Napa Valley.
Auntie N met us at the airport and guided the bleary-eyed bunch to the rental car deck. “See you at the wedding on Sunday,” said my Auntie, waving good-bye. “Call me if you get lost. Here’s my mobile number.”
I scribbled Auntie N’s number on my rumpled boarding pass, slipped it into my purse and promptly forgot about it.
After sorting out the mechanics of backing a car with the steering column on the right hand side, my hubby eased our rented Camry on to the “wrong” side of the road and we sped off in the warm Australian sunshine. Yarra Valley was less than an hour away, according to the Google Maps that I last checked in LA, where my smart phone was still smart. It’s dead as doornail now.
“Do you have the address of the lodge?” hubby asked. “Can you type it into the navigator?”
My bloodshot eyes scanned the dashboard and my heart sank. The Neverlost navigator that I thought I had reserved was nowhere to be found. I swore I checked that option when I booked the car. But I don’t remember.
“I’ll figure it out as we go,” said hubby. “Yarra Valley is west of Melbourne, right?” Hubby didn’t seem bothered by the lack of a navigational system in the car.
I had to think, directionally challenged that I am.
“We’re now in the southern hemisphere, we’re driving on the wrong side of the road, water swirls counterclockwise down the drain, but east is still on the right hand side and west is still on the left hand side, right?”
“Did you at least print out a map?”
I fumbled through my tote bag and pulled out a folder with directions to each venue. At the back was a printed map with teeny tiny letters that neither hubby nor I could decipher after being awake for the last day and a half.
Running on Empty
There’s another little problem. A few years ago I nearly died from encephalitis from Lyme disease and my spatial memory is all but kaput. That means no sense of direction and no sense of the passage of time (but now I have endless patience!) But worse of all (for a girl who once had near photographic memory), an impaired ability to remember new things. On a good day I can recall about half of what happened that day. On a bad day it’s as if that day never existed.
I became hopelessly lost when my local Target was renovated. It’s hard to find your way when you can’t remember where you’ve just been, and you’re not even aware that you are lost because every turn of the corner is like starting anew. So you wander round and round perusing all the neat new stuff to buy that stay new no matter how many times you’ve seen them. Not so bad really, except when I repeat the same stories over and over, driving hubby nuts.
Now I take pictures to remember and I write reminder notes that I then misplace and forget. And I try to enjoy my ignorant bliss. The only moment I live in is now and that’s a strangely joyful place to be.
Back to Melbourne. With only instincts to guide him, hubby wrangled the car through the maze of one-way streets in downtown Melbourne and then on to the freeway.
“How far is it?” he asked.
“According to this sign, only 20 kilos to our exit,” I replied.
“How long will it take?” he asked.
“I have no idea.”
“How many miles in a kilometer?”
“I don’t know. And I don’t remember.” I turned to ask little K but she was passed out in the backseat, still gripping her iPad and oblivious to the world.
“How long have we been driving?”
“I don’t know. I can’t tell. And I forgot to remember what time we left.”
On and on our repartee went until we arrived at the lodge almost on time, so I was told.
Got me goin’ in circles
The next morning we decided to take a hike through the nature preserve behind our lodge. Our first full day in Australia! We excitedly scrambled down the red dirt path behind the lodge, past a little wooden wedding pergola covered in fragrant damask roses, toward a big white sign at the trailhead.
The sign read, in part, in bright red letters:
Welcome to the Yarra Valley River Nature Preserve. WARNING! Beware of poisonous snakes and insects. Enter at your own risk. Remain on trails at all times.
I stopped comprehending after the word “snakes”. When you’re born in the land of cobras and vipers the fear of snakes is pounded into your head like the fear of the devil’s wrath burning in hell. I’m wearing flip-flops and a tee-shirt and we are heading into the bush teeming with poisonous snakes.
Sensing my hesitation, hubby gently squeezed my shoulders. “Just stay on the trail and don’t touch anything.”
A few seconds later I had already forgotten about the snakes and was happily bouncing down the trail. We soon came to a fork in the road. There were two choices: the Circular Trail toward the mountain or the River Trail that meandered down a deep gorge beside the river. We chose the Circular Trail, thinking that it’d be shorter and less snaky.
There was a sign in front of the Circular Trail that read, in part:
CIRCULAR TRAIL. Difficulty level: moderate. Occasional steep terrain. Length: thirty to forty minutes.
“Can you handle the trail in your flip-flops?” hubby asked.
“Of course I can!” I replied, delighted at my ability to recall that I had just worn these very same flip-flops two months ago in Oahu, strolling aimlessly all the way from Waikiki Beach to the top of Diamondhead. And back. But that’s another story.
Back to Yarra Valley. It did seem a bit odd that the Circular Trail had a “this way in” arrow but no “this way out” arrow or exit trail anywhere nearby. I meant to ask hubby how can something be called circular if it doesn’t begin and end at the same place, but I forgot.
We proceeded down the so-called Circular Trail and into the bush, which was not bushy at all. Just dry brush, canopies of weeping eucalyptus shielding the daylight, burnt rotting wood from the last brush fire and decaying leaves, all smelling strangely of moldy Vick’s vapor rub.
We soon learnt what the Aussies meant by “moderate” difficulty. The so-called Circular Trail consisted of steep grade, steeper grade and steepest grade, all uphill and winding this way and that. We trudged slowly forward, I gasping from my Lyme damaged lungs, little K marching then stopping intermittently to pick up and throw random sticks at random trees. Five paces ahead stood hubby, waiting patiently for his sagging brood to catch up, his eyes scanning the canopy overhead for poisonous snakes.
After what felt like an hour, or not, of hiking we were deep in the darkening forest and nowhere near the end of the so-called Circular Trail.
“Is this the Circular Trail or the Circuitous Trail?” I said to no one in particular.
There was a sudden rustling of leaves followed by a loud screech and cackle. A fire engine red Cockatoo buzzed over our heads and disappeared into the canopy. Then silence again. It dawned on us that the mountain was eerily quiet. When our chattering ceased there was no sound save for the pattering of fat raindrops that had begun to fall.
We quickened our pace and finally crested the mountain. Through a sliver in the canopy we caught a glimpse of the valley below with its emerald-green, undulating ribbons of grapevines snaking up and down the rolling hillside. The lodge was nowhere in sight. My toes were beginning to chafe from the flip-flops.
“Circular my ass,” I grumbled.
Fight or flight
The misnamed, so-called Circular Trail began to descend. Steeply. We walked quietly with our eyes cast down, gingerly focusing each step on the slippery gravels beneath and paying little attention to our surroundings.
Hubby suddenly halted. About twenty feet ahead of us, directly in our path, was a huge herd of kangaroos. Their beady black eyes met our startled gaze. Three females took off downhill, their little joeys wildly scurrying behind. In a few seconds the entire clan had vanished. Except for Big Papa. Big Papa crouched down in a defensive stance right smack dab in the middle of the circuitous, misnamed, so-called Circular Trail and refused to budge.
We stood frozen in place. Big Papa shot straight up on his hind legs, all eight feet of Russell Crowe-angry male, balled up his fists and snorted. I giggled. He looked silly, like the mysterious Yeti on the Discovery Channel, like how a Yeti might look if the Yeti was a big kangaroo. Like a Kanga-Yeti or a Yeti-roo.
Yeti-roo crouched down, flexed his muscles like a WWE wrestler on a ‘roid rage, then towered up, puffed out his chest and glared at my hubby, who had likewise straightened himself up ramrod tall, puffed out his chest and balled up his fists in response.
“Get me a stick,” he ordered, his voice firm, deep, sexy. I glanced back at little K huddled on the ground, hugging her knees.
“Mom, I’m scared!” she whispered.
“Baby, it’s just a male kangaroo showing off.” I replied.
“The stick?” hubby reminded. I had forgotten about the stick.
“Shouldn’t we try diplomacy first before resorting to violence? He’s just protecting his family,” I reasoned.
“I’m protecting my family!“ hubby retorted. “Stick, please?”
I can see it now. Tomorrow’s headline in the Yarra Valley Gazette: Angry American Tourist Injured in Scuffle with Kangaroo. “It was self-defense,” quoted the American. “I stood my ground.”
The two males continued their exchange: ‘roo flexed, man stared, ‘roo snorted, man glared. I found a eucalyptus branch. Hubby grabbed it from my hand and brandished it like a Louisville Slugger.
“Honey?” I asked sweetly. “Before you go all mano a mano with Yeti-roo, can I take a quick picture of him first? Won’t take but a second.”
I snatched up my Nikon, pointed the lens at Yeti-roo and quickly snapped a picture before hubby could say no. Click.
It might have been the brrrring of the shutter or the bright pop of flash, or Yeti-roo might have simply been camera-shy, but nary a second after that shutter click did Yeti-roo spun around and fled into the hills, faster than an angry Sean Penn evading TMZ.
Hubby and I turned and glanced at each other. We grabbed little K’s hand and ran down the mountain, down that circuitous, misnamed, so-called Circular Trail and high tailed it out of the bush.
Wanderers
On our last day in Yarra Valley we had intended to visit a winery just up the road, allegedly less than fifteen minutes from the lodge. The innkeeper’s directions seemed easy enough: exit, right past the local airport, past the town a few kilos. The winery is on the hill on the right.
We drove past vineyards teeming with kangaroos, a hill adorned with grazing cows, past an expanse of shaggy grass that we later learn was the landing strip of the supposed airport where we should have turned. We drove further, past one town then another and still no winery.
“Perhaps we are lost?” I suggested after what seemed, to me, like at least an hour of driving.
“We are not lost,” replied hubby, annoyed at the suggestion.
“Daddy, I’m thirsty,” came a little voice from the back. “Let’s stop at the top of that next hill.”
“Sounds good,” I agreed. “Must be really good wine. Lots of cars in that parking lot.”
Turns out the place was not a winery but the Yarra Valley Chocolate factory. Little K was ecstatic. Willie Wonka down under! We entered through cotton candy colored doors and were greeted by walls of chocolate confectionary and long glass counters filled with truffles with exotic flavors like bush spices and mallow. Not where we had originally planned to go, but where we were happy to be.
We survived just fine roaming around two weeks in Australia without a navigational system or a legible map. On the last day traffic was heavy and we arrived back at the Melbourne airport less than two hours before departure. Hubby quickly emptied the trunk of luggage.
“Don’t forget to check the glove compartment for sunglasses!” he shouted to me.
I opened the glove compartment and reached inside. There, nestled behind the rental agreement, deep in the back right hand corner and still in its cheery trademark yellow and black case, was the Neverlost navigator.
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Happy Father’s Day! With much love to hubby, loving husband and father, with whom we are never lost.
