Boomerang Dave's Boomerang Journal

It's now December 29, and 3:30 in the morning as our alarm announces it is time to get up! Whose idea was this anyway? We are scheduled for a sunrise trip to Uluru and must be ready for the bus by 4:30. We travel out to Uluru in the dark and are taken to a spot not far from the base, to watch the sunrise. On a clear day, the sun will strike Uluru in a way that it seems to change color as you watch. We had some clouds, although not many, which limited that effect, but as a bonus, we really did see a nice sunrise. Our location for this stop was maybe a bit closer than I would have liked. Even with our cameras set to wide angle, we could not get the full rock in the photo. We did the best we could and the experience of standing in the desert, watch the sun shining on it was something we will not easily forget. A little bonus was some biscuits and tea before departing for our next stop.

Driving around to the east, the driver then stops and we all gather outside the bus. He then informs us that we are now to proceed on the path around to the left of Uluru and he will pick us up, about 2/3rds around the rock or as he put it: "a leisurely 6km walk". I don't know about anyone else, but a 6km hike, in the desert, at 6am, is not what I would consider to be leisurely. I was surprised to find that we made the walk without any problems. The walk was amazing and I took photos as much as I could. There were some areas which were marked to not take photos, due to aboriginal customs, and we respected these when we knew. Unfortunately, sometimes it was hard to tell where these areas extended to. The walk also gave us an idea of how huge Uluru really is. I would take a photo; then walk for 15 minutes and the place I photographed was still in sight. It was still there 30 minutes later and we were wondering if we were getting anywhere. There were some interesting places were erosion had left strange formations. There were also caves with aboriginal art, although these were being worn off from the many visitors who feet they must touch it.

On the far side of Uluru we reach the place where those who want to climb Uluru, can do so. Although you are permitted to climb, the aborigines ask that you do not. In addition, it can be closed for wind, rain, heat or a death in the aborigine community. Today it is closed because of high winds and heat. The wind is really evident as my hat is blown of my head, several times during the hike. Also when viewing from the dark side of Uluru (sun behind it); we could see the dirt being blown off Uluru, causing sunrays of light though the crevasses. Back on the bus for one final stop; the Uluru-Kata Tjuta Cultural Center. At the center we learned more about the aborigine people there and had a chance to purchase handmade crafts at their store. I was looking to purchase, but thought the prices were very high. After this stop, it's back to the hotel and a nap before the next trip.

Today's adventures will be continued in next post.

Photo: Barb in a cave at Uluru

It's now the 28th and a real exciting part of the trip. We head to the airport and board our flight to the Red Centre, Ayer's Rock, Ayer's Rock is known as Uluru, and is one of the most recognizable geographic places in Australia. On our flight in, we see how the lush farmland and mountains change into this vast red landscape. Barb is in the window seat and sees Uluru first, and takes a photo. Then it comes into view for me. What a sight, this huge rock sticking up out of the ground. The Barb spots the Olgas, or KataTjuta about 30 miles from Uluru. We are certainly excited to finally see these in person. We land and disembark from the plane, out into the hot, dry desert air. After getting our bags, we board a bus to the hotel. Arriving in the morning, we find our room is not ready and we have time to waste. We hop the shuttle into town. Town at Yulara is not much. There are 4 or 5 hotels, a campground, a petrol station, homes where the "locals" live and a tiny shopping center. The shopping center has some nice souvenirs, and the prices are not as extreme as expected. We confirm all our tours for the stay, then get some stuff for breakfast the next day, along with our lunch. We found individual packets of Vegemite, that we bought to torture our friends and relatives with. We eat at the shopping center before taking the dune path back to the hotel.

Some of the dunes have the brush cleared at the top, providing good views of both Uluru and KataTjuta. Barb and I were wilting in the heat and decided not to go over the dune. Arriving back at the hotel, we get our room and change into swim suits for a cooling off dip before heading out on our first tour/adventure.

We hop on a bus later that day for the Sounds of Silence Dinner. We are transported out into the desert and we walk up to a sand dune were we watch the sun setting on Uluru and Kata Tjuta while sipping Australian sparkling wine and sampling canapes made from things as strange as kangaroo. From there we walk down over the back of the dune and onto a clearing, where tables are set up, complete with linen tablecloths and napkins, glassware and silverware. Are we really in the desert? We are then treated to a wonderful meal. This was a real chance to taste so fine examples of Australia delicacies such as crocodile, kangaroo and barramundi. Everything we tried was excellent, and there were remarkable Aussie wines to go with it. After dinner, we were presented with a tour of the night sky in the southern hemisphere. Unfortunately we were battling some clouds and the full moon, thus preventing us from seeing everything we might have. We arrive back at our room at 11:30 and fall into bed.

Photo: Barb and Dave enjoy Australia sparkling wine as the suns sets at Uluru

If you are visiting and reading, I would appreciate you adding comments. It gives me feedback on the blog and lets me know if anyone appreciates all this writing.
 
Dave

It's now Monday the 27th and as we find out, still a holiday. Because Australia celebrates both Christmas and Boxing Day, and those both occurred on the weekend, the holidays extended through Tuesday. It was starting to drive us nuts. Don't need a bank at this time of year! Barb and I decide to head a few blocks away into the Haymarket area, to Paddy's Market. (http://www.paddysmarkets.com.au/PaddysMarket.html) The lower level of this place is like a combination farmers market and flea market, although the farmers market is not very active today. It is a great place to get Aussie souvenirs for less. I start checking out the Aboriginal design t-shirts but Barb finds an opal dealer. His opals were beautiful, large and fortunately, reasonably priced. Barb did purchase from him. I ended up getting some really nice t-shirts, bull roarers and boomerangs at the best prices I had seen so far. Most of the boomerangs available were probably poor returners but there were hundreds of them. If you couldn't find a boomerang here, you never would. I am really pleased with the aboriginal design shirts, and tried to make sure that the ones I bought we licensed that the aborigines got paid for part of the sale.

From there we headed to the shops at Darling Harbor. There was a really great store, the Gavala Aboriginal Art & Cultural Centre, (http://www.gavala.com.au/) which was loaded with Aboriginal paintings, didges, boomerangs and almost anything else you could think of. I was eyeing up a really nice natural elbow boomerang that was $55. Now I regret not buying it, since I saw similar ones elsewhere for $80. This one had nice figure in the wood grain. I just wasn't too sure if t would really return, and they frowned on me wanting to take it outside for a test.
After a bite to eat, we hitched a ride on a water taxi, and toured the Sydney tourist sights from the water. It is a special sight to go under the famous harbor bridge and see the Sydney Opera House. It was worth the time and money spent.

On our return we saw a sign for a didge concert at the Northern Territory Aboriginal Center and headed on over. This was a free 30 minute concert and visual display. (www.outbackcentre.com.au) While the performer played, various images of Australia were displayed behind him. The musician was very good and used one had to mimic the animals he was imitating in the didge. This gave us sound, images and hand motions all at once. We got to speak some with him after the performance and discovered he was 50% Aborigine, 25% Scottish and 25% Italian. He said the Italian part allowed him to do the hand motions while playing. He is planning a trip to the US next year, and may need some contacts here. After the concert, Barb and I looked around the store and I tested some didges available in their didgeridoo "forest". I have never seen so many in one place!

Finally it was back to the hotel to get ready for our trip to the outback.

Photo: Sydney Opera House and Harbor Bridge

December 26th is Boxing Day in Australia. This is a day to box up the Christmas presents you don't like, and return them for new ones. We discover that we are hit with a double whammy; it is a holiday and Sunday. This affected some of our plans as many places were closed. I go out early and find an internet cafe near the hotel. Barb and I then head there and not only check our home email, but get a calling card to phone home. It may be 9-10am where we are, but it is still Christmas Day in America. The family liked to here from us so far away. After the phone calls we go back to the hotel and make arrangements to meet with Tim Lendrum, to toss some boomerangs.

Tim arranged for us to meet at the Sydney Sports Complex in Narrabeen. Unfortunately we had some trouble with the map not matching the road and did some scrambling around to find our way there. We arrive and Tim is on the field tossing booms. First thing we notice it we have a pretty stiff breeze going. I gave Tim a couple booms and he gave me a Dave Martin "Sydney Bridge" boomerang. We do a couple of throws while Barb takes photos, the she heads off for a walk in this beautiful park, while Tim and I toss boomerangs. Tim gets out a tri-blade, which was drilled with lots of holes; then taped over to close them. Seems the "hole" idea didn't work as planned, but taped again the boomerang was fantastic in the wind. I was really enjoying tossing this boom. It was almost like throwing an MTA both in angle and release. Tim had several variations of the boomerang, including a doubler set. The outside doubler could have almost been used as an MTA. After returning home, I'll have to get Tim to make one for me. (Note: I now own a set of these doublers, made for me by Tim)  When Barb returned from her walk, we went to the cars to get some throwsticks, and the huge natural elbow boomerang I had just received from Morris a few days earlier. The natural elbow rang looked like a throwstick, but performed like a returning boomerang. At 26 inches wide, I am reluctant to try and catch it. Tim also gave me some first time instruction on throwing long distance boomerangs.

From the field we headed to Tim's Aunt's house for some refreshments and then Tim pointed us to the beach. Barb and I ended up spending the rest of the afternoon on the beach at Curl Curl. Water temperature was about 68F, too cold for my tastes. After another interesting drive, we return to the hotel and finally get that supper of cooked prawns!

Photo: Dave and Tim at the Sydney Sports Complex in Narrabeen.

Wednesday was an odd day in my boomerang world. I took the day off to try and catch up on some things including making some boomerangs. I got started a bit later than I expected, but was pleased to find I had some blanks cut out and ready to shape. I also expected some boomerangs in the mail, so was excited to get to try them later in the day.

After shaping a bunch of boomerangs, I decided to take them to the field to test. I also needed to make a few stops and get supplies, plus mail boomerangs to a customer. I headed to the field and found it in use by the high school girl's field hockey team. Much as I would have loved to stay, I think they would not have approved of me sharing the field. I figured it was nearly lunch, so I did my errands and hit the field on the way back. Everything I took tested fine, and it was just before football practice, so one of the players asked me to teach him to throw. This was the second time this has happened in a week. I worked with him until practice started then headed home.

Arriving home, I discover the mailman had stopped and delivered a package but not the one I was expecting on a re-delivery. I drove around the neighborhood until I found him and no, he didn't have the one I wanted. I called the post office who insisted it was out for delivery. Several calls later they still hadn't located it and at 8pm, its whereabouts were still in question. I decided to hit the shop and paint booms to cheer me up.

I was supposed to meet with Rob Stewart at 5 o'clock, to test the booms which did arrive. Rob got delayed and we never started until closer to 6. New to test were some underhand boomerangs from David Fantone. Rob and I are new to underhand boomerangs and proceeded to make one bad throw after another. After a while, I wasn't sure if I was throwing boomerangs or plowing a field. That boomerang spent more time in the dirt than in the air. We switched for the style throw David uses to one recommended by Kendall Davis. We both started having more success, although we are far from having mastered the technique. The boomerangs David sent are nicely crafted and beautifully painted.

While on the field, a pretty young lady rode here bicycle onto the field, stopped just out of range of the boomerangs and asked if she could try. Let's see, Rob and I would refuse a nice young lady? Not a chance! We didn't exactly trip over each other helping, but we did make sure she had the attention required. Rob had a Stones Throw traditional boomerang which she was doing quite well with. I took a few photos and have posted one here. She was quite thrilled to throw a boomerang and seemed genuinely interested in learning about them. Since Rob and I were not really prepared for a regular throwing session, I went back to my truck for more boomerangs. We had here throwing some triblades and lighter weight boomerangs and she was doing real well. She wasn't getting perfect returns, but once I showed her a few trick on grip and angle to hold the boomerang, she was then getting pretty close. Rob found out her name is Raven (doesn't it figure) and she stayed around throwing until we had to leave. She thanked up both and shook our hands before leaving. I made sure to give her a small triblade to practice with, and wouldn't be surprised to see her out on the field throwing sometime. In fact, Rob and I are looking forward to it.

To sum things up, there were boomerangs that arrived and others that are lost. There were good throws and bad throws. But, I guess it is better to have a bad day on the boomerang field, than spend the day at work.

Photo: Raven throwing a Stones Throw traditional boomerang

The weekend was a flurry of activity all centered around the kitchen. We got working early around the house so to take advantage of the cooler temperatures. After loading the truck with the recycling we headed out. First stop was unscheduled, and was to buy produce from a guy selling off the back of his truck. Lovely tomatoes very cheap. Then off to Elias's Market for the stuff we knew we would not find at the farm stands. Once the recycling was dumped, it was off to Kutztown to our favorite Mennonite farmers to get corn, beans and a basket of plum tomatoes. We finised up at Renninger's Market to round out or shopping day.
 
It was early afternoon when we got home and we decided to try making caponata. The recipe calls for 8 eggplants so that should have clued us in to what we were in store for. After cooking eggplant, chopping cup after cup of celery, onion and pepper, along with other ingredients we finally had the caponata cooking. Seeing how much there was, we opted for canning a few pints.

Barb got 7 pints out and we cleaned them up, and got the canner full and hot. Finally the caponata was ready to pack. After about 4 jars, Barb realizes there is a lot more than we thought. She keeps packing jars and I get more jars ready. We have another large pot that will accomodate 5 more jars. She finished the first 7 and I got them in the canner and processing. She kept the caponata hot while the next batch of jars got hot. With those ready we filled the next batch of 5 jars and still had two pints left to put in the fridge. That's 14 pints of caponata. What were we thinking? The process was much longer than we anticipated, about 4.5 hours total. I made us a nice supper and we crashed for the evening.

Sunday was church and brunch with church members. We finally got home and ready to roll avout 1:30 pm. First matter of business was the abundance of peaches. We got some from a neighbor, and decided jam was in order. These were white peaches and the combination of the pink outside blush, and the red area around the pits made the jam a lovely pink lemonade color. We finished the peach jam and remembered that there was a basket of tomatoes to process. We first made tomato juice to pack the tomatoes in. Plum tomatoes have less water and the juice makes packing easier. We got a canner full of quarts in and while those processed, managed to clean and pack a bunch of tomatoes for the freezer. The only tomatoes left were the not quite ripe ones. 

By then, both our butts were dragging and we set to work at making supper. Our local supermarket had a clambake for two special (lobsters, clams, corn, mussels, potatoes) that we got ready for supper. We were finally ready to eat at 8:30 pm. It was another long day. The bread machine was going and we took a fresh loaf of bread out at nearly 11 pm. I commemnt to Barb that I couldn't wait to go to work Monday to rest up.

It's Christmas and we await our ride to lunch. It is rather strange not doing anything with family for Christmas and we didn't even buy presents for each other. Jill arrives at the hotel around 10, and takes us off to her flat where we pick up Carol, and more food. Then we are off to lunch. We finally figure out whose house we were at, but it took work. The owner introduced himself as a neighbor, just to confuse matters. BTW, his name is Paul Newman! (no, not the Paul Newman) Paul introduces us to his parents, neighbors and coworkers and makes sure we have something to drink. Barb gets drafted for her knife skills, and is put to work slicing up the Thai style gravlax that Jill made. I am in the living room talking with everyone. Since I am the newbie, the conversation is directed my way and eventually the subject of boomerangs comes up. I now find myself sitting in Australia, explaining boomerangs and competitions to the locals, again! It was a major disappointment when they discovered I left my boomerang bag at the hotel, and was not giving lessons. Gee, had I known, I could have gladly brought some along.

Finally I got called into the kitchen to carve the roast "chooks" or chickens. Jill stuffed them with couscous and they were great. Everyone brought something to the party including Barb and I. We had brought some Alaska smoked salmon with us and made a spread with it and cream cheese. Others brought food and wine. It was a great party.
We moved it across the street to a neighbor's house for special drinks and chocolates, then back to Paul's for more food and conversation. Paul found out I was a Hitchhikers Guide fan and brought out a script for the original BBS TV series.

Paul was sure to have gifts for everyone and Barb and I received our very own jar of Vegemite! Paul explained the people attending were from several countries (Oz, Germany, New Zealand and the US) and from several ways of life. He then announced that we were at our very first Australian International Gay Lesbian Straight Jewish Christian Christmas party. We may never, ever top that one. We really had a great time with everyone that day; and never returned to the hotel until 10:30 that night! Our plans to have prawns for supper were moved to the next day.
Photo: Our home for Christmas, the Medina

It's now Christmas Eve and we need to get to Sydney another 500-600Km away. After breakfast at the hotel we hit the road. Soon we make a stop at the Bega Cheese Factory. Check them out at: http://www.begacheese.com.au/  We have already tried some of their cheese and getting to the factory was nice. Also bought some nice coasters made from unusual native Australia woods, a real find for me. We continue to plug our way up M1 but just have to detour off this main road to see some of the beach areas. We finally make a stop in the Bateman's Bay area at a lovely beach and get out for a walk on the beach. About mid afternoon, and after passing many signs advertising fresh oysters and prawns, we pull in to a seafood store and actually buy stuff for supper. We end up with two dozen oysters and 1 kilo of steamed prawns, as we  figured to have supper both that evening and Christmas from our booty. In the store we meet our first "real" aborigine. He is raving about the prawns at this store, but we have trouble with his thick accent. He was an interesting character to say the least.

It's getting late in the afternoon as we approach Sydney and we decide a stop at a grocery store is in order, especially if we plan to have anything to eat with the seafood. Knowing it is Christmas eve, and not knowing what we will find open later one, we pull into a shopping center which has a supermarket and a huge seafood store. Well, this is a real feast for my eyes. Here I am looking at many fish I have never tried, plus prawns piled mountains high. Other goodies such are both Balmain and Moreton Bay bugs were available. Never heard of a Moreton Bay Bug? No it's not a bug, but a crustacean in the spiny lobster family. They are quite delicious. more info about them is here: http://www.frdc.com.au/species.php?f=200&v=f
Maybe it was good we already got our seafood, or I would have been tempted to buy oceans more! We stock up on normal supplies and drive into the city to find our hotel. We are finally at the hotel around 7pm, but it doesn't seem much like Christmas Eve. We find that our reservations are not quite what we requested and end up doing an upgrade at the cost of $25 more per night. We touch base with Jill, a member of an Aussie Food Yahoo group who is arranging Christmas lunch for us, then make our supper, watch some Christmas programs on TV and hit the sack.

Photo: The Bega Cheese Factory