If you recall, when I had my retirement luncheon with my colleagues from the office early this year, they presented me with many gifts. One of them was a photo essay of Algonquin and that was how I came across Ralph Bice. He stated in his book, Along The Trail in Algonquin that he was perhaps the person who had travelled the most of park lakes. So when he claimed that Butt Lake, now named after him as Bice Lake, is the most beautiful among all of them, I knew I had to check it out and so here is this story.

I knew when I started to read the book that Butt Lake, a.k.a. Bice Lake could only be reached through access point 3. I had to figure out how far to reach it from Toronto, whether we would be able to get to the lake on the same day. This is a standard planning, knowing when will the sun sets and when will we be able to reach the put-in, the first place we put the canoe on the water. The closest town, rather village, to access point 3 is Kearney, 250 km from TO. When we reached it around noon, the lady in the Park Office nodded when I asked if she knew the late Ralph Bice. Yes, Ralph lived in Kearney, where with a population of 800, I am sure everybody knows everybody's dogs and cats' names. I had been to access point 4, Algonquin Rain Lake, close to access point 3 and we knew therefore that after the small town, we still had to drive quite a distance. In this case, it was another 40 km to really reach the put in, through dirt road or gravel road. As it was late autumn, we could still enjoy the fall colour of the trees along the road.

It was 1 PM when we reached the put-in on Magnetawan Lake. Just when we started to paddle, we realized that this lake had already scenic views. It is connected to another lake on the south, Little Eagle Lake. We headed east toward the portage to Hambone Lake. A very short paddling to P135 portage, a piece of cake for my wife Cecilia. She needed all the exercises, she said. So reluctantly I allowed her to portage :-). Hambone Lake is also a small lake. It is connected to Daisy Lake in the south, the source of the famous Petawawa River. Once finished portaging to Hambone, we paddled again and headed eastward to another portage to Bice Lake, a P295, one more piece of cake for my wife. If you see her getting plum in the winter, now you know why. I offered her to portage the canoe to a nearby park the other day, but she told me that I was crazy. :-) So we lifted the canoe and hung it inside our garage these days.

Once we finished the portaging and were on Bice Lake, we kept looking around, Ralph Bice was right, Bice Lake is a lovely lake without weeds with sandy beaches and clear water. We had been watching the weather forecast before we departed from Toronto and were aware that there could be bad weather on the day we planned to be back. Since we couldn't afford to be windbound or stranded, we decided not to venture too far away to an island at the end of the lake. We brought just enough food to last during our camping trip, no spare and we had to be back in Toronto on the week-end. As soon as we spotted a nice and scenic campsite, we landed our canoe and made the place our home and glorious land for the next 3 nights.

Some people 'recharge their batteries' meaning rejuvenating their bodies and souls doing other things, but for us it is a camping trip to the interior. If you recall my essay entitled 'The Healing Nature' you know what it is like to get healed by nature. As usual, we got a loon on the lake who would sing lullaby for us in the evening as soon as we 'turn off' the fireplace :-). Well, there was no aurora borealis performance on this trip but we still had the opportunity to watch the planets and the stars from a pitch-dark place. Too bad it was already cold and I didn't own any wetsuit other than my natural 'wetsuit' :-). I knew I would freeze if I jumped to the water because the weather was already freezing, close to zero Celsius. Luckily I had a 100 Watt nature 'warmer' at night. We played Scrabble as usual, we read our books, we pondered and chatted. There was never a dull moment to be in the interior, to feel close and so dependent on our Maker. What is also good in campsite living, we have to go to 'basic'. It means we had to work to keep on living, prepared and cooked the food, pumped the water through the filter for drinking, looked for and cut wood for fire, etc. Our happiness came from doing the chores and sharing them together. Our joy happened when we did an outing, be it by just paddling around or fishing or hiking. We felt we were blessed on being able to do this and we were happy to be back in time for the Thanksgiving Day.


Bice Lake, October 8, 2002

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Pristine and serene lake with crystal clear water ..., pastel blue, dark blue, blue purpleish, pastel green, dark green, turquoise ..., those are the features of a lake called Killarney Lake in the province of Ontario in Canada. No wonder after all these many years camping including to the Killarney Park interior, Cecilia and I have never had a chance to get a canoe site there. It was actually beyond description and that one sentence above is injustice. Indeed, it deserves a story to be told, because it was one of the most beautiful lakes I have seen in my life. Yes, if you happen to live in Ontario, please try not to say goodbye to our planet earth until you have seen Killarney. If you like water and swimming as I do, it is a must to see.

Well, the only problem, Killarney Lake in Killarney Park, is only accessible through water, by canoe or kayak. Motor boat is not allowed on the lakes at the park (thank you dear canoe god :-)). So before you turn to 65 years old, you better start learning how to paddle a canoe if you wish to visit this paradise on earth. We did visit it this last long week-end. Labour Day in Canada, September 7, 1998. There were 9 people in our party. Cecilia and I, S, J, and P from Ottawa plus T, A, and their two little daughters, R and M, a family friend from Toronto. You should have been there with us when we first 'stepped' into Killarney water after paddling for about an hour through George Lake, a small portage, then Freeland Lake, plus a 455 meter portage. The ooos and the aaahs and the wows were said by everybody, at least in their hearts. It was magnificent! The different sediments on the bottom of the lake create different colours. If you nature lover cries on seeing that type of beauty, I can understand. Cecilia and I couldn't believe our eyes and we couldn't thank our Creator enough for granting us the time and the rare opportunity to be there. It was the right time indeed because the weather was so perfect during all those 4 days we spent in Killarney Park. Even though we are in September, it was not cold at all. In fact, with the sun almost always shining, it was so refreshing to skinny-dip :-) in the water. If you don't believe in our Creator's kindness, you probably would believe that there is a canoe god :-) who has kindly allowed us all to spent one of our most enjoyable days this year in Killarney. Why?

I told you that it was not easy to book or reserve a campsite at Killarney Lake. Even though the lake is quite big, about 7 km paddling across or couple hours, it has only 11 designated campsites. I started to call Killarney reservation number more than a week ago. After trying to dial 30-40 times, punching 26 digits every time for long distance charge to phone calling card, I couldn't get through and I gave up! I told my boss, I needed to go or take a one day vacation (my company was kind enough to 'give away' Friday as holiday :-)) earlier and if he still expected me to work for him, he better granted it. Now, he had no other choice you see because he also wanted to take Thursday off to be with his family before the kids started school :-). Going one day earlier, Cecilia and I were hoping and wishing that we could get a spot in Killarney Lake, filling a vacant spot left by cancellation. So, after driving non-stop for 5 hours from Toronto, including lunch in the car with Cecilia feeding me :-), we reached the park office early afternoon on Thursday. When I asked the lady at the counter if there was any interior canoe route site available, she said, "We are very busy I am afraid, but you could go to Johnnie Lake." According to S that was not too thrilled when she had to camp in there, Johnnie Lake is not spectacular at all. However, after starting to read the information on her computer display, she said, "Hmmm, you could have Killarney Lake for the first night but move to Kakakise Lake then George Lake on the other nights." I started to smile already in my heart. When she said, "Oh, it looks like there was a cancellation. You could stay at O.S.A. Lake on the 2nd and 3rd night," I knew my guardian angel was doing something with the computer data base :-). O.S.A lake is adjacent to Killarney Lake and therefore is as beautiful. Now, tell me that there is no canoe god, but wait till I tell you more before you said so. :-)

Every time after I came back to Toronto from a visit to my birth place, Jakarta, Indonesia, and had to be in traffic jam, I smiled and felt very happy. Weird? Every thing is relative you see. Our traffic jam in Toronto, is nothing compared to the real traffic jam in Jakarta, a city with a million cars and motorcycles and other types of vehicles. But yesterday, driving along Highway 69 from Killarney, it was the worst. The town called Parry Sound has only two exits, about 2 kilometres apart. It took us 45 minutes 'stop and go' to traverse that part of the road. However, we kept on saying to one another, the trip to Killarney, was well worth the lost of time in traffic. We only lost a couple hours at the most while we enjoyed 100 hours of fun and 'wow' experiences.

It was Friday early morning when the '3 musketeers' :-) from Ottawa joined the 6 Torontonians. I was glad when I woke up and saw two canoes on top of a car belonging to P. Breakfast was done separately between the 2 cities people as we were not sure whether the Ottawans could make it considering they have to drive 7 hours to reach Killarney. Cecilia and I finished our rice dumpling, called 'bacang' in Indonesian. She intentionally made it for the Thursday meals as it is very easy to eat 'bacang' while driving :-).

After final packing, the canoe seating arrangement was made, 3 persons in each canoe. It was good to have a mother that was as small and light as her daughters :-). I know J's canoe can take some load and also I rented a canoe that can easily take 500 pounds of load and still be in optimum weight. It's a Swift Kipawa, a beauty to paddle and cruise on. P will disagree :-). He has a wood canvas canoe even though he didn't bring it along because with almost 80 pounds, you surely wouldn't find any enjoyment along the portage trail. He said that wooden canoe is a delight to paddle and I won't believe him even though he has 30 years of canoeing experience since he was still wearing pampers :-), until I paddle a wooden canoe myself.

Cut it out jusni, let's start moving :-). Yes, we started paddling the 'not-so-bad-meaning-quite-pretty' George Lake around 11 AM. First portaging was easy, a very short 80 metres. Off we cruised along Freeland Lake where the water was not so 'free' or a bit clogged with lots of water lilies. The next portaging was not too bad either, 455 metres and with only 49 pound Kevlar of the Kipawa, I could have done ten times of it :-). I didn't say how many stops would I need though. Seriously, the slope was almost even because short portaging doesn't mean easy if you have to climb a 'mountain'. Then ... the 'wows' started as soon as we began to paddle on the Killarney Lake, which was the next lake on the route. The water was much clearer than the tap water at my mother's home in Jakarta :-). As some of you know, the mountains or more precisely, hills around Killarney are dominated by white quartzite, pure silica. T called it marble. So you can imagine the scenery. If you look up, you're surrounded by white marble hills and when you look down to the water, you see nothing but spectacular nuances of colours being displayed. No wonder again that this park is visited oftenly by people from down south, Bill Clinton's lovers, oops, folks :-).

Since lunch time was already past due, as soon as we spotted a nice campsite, we stopped and I shall never forget the site number, 20. I will tell you later what happened or what did we see there. Lunch was served by T and A, a usual Canadian type of lunch, but 'delish' :-) (thanks to S who introduced this new word for our Scrabble game in the future :-)). After settling down at the campsite, we decided to go paddling again toward the open Killarney Lake and ventured around one of the longest portage in Killarney Park, a 3160 metres only :-). We played by the water of a small creek in there, with unique rock formation and small waterfalls. Since Cecilia and I had to prepare dinner, this time an Indonesian style or rice had to be cooked, we left earlier. While waiting for the rice to cook, I managed to do a skinny-dipping bath and Cecilia joined afterwards, only with her swimsuit still intact :-). Well, you can tell that the dinner was nice knowing that the two cooks were very clean and not smelly at all. Everybody loved the 'rendang' with side-dish of 'acar' made by goddess of the hilwans family (that's why I call her boss once in a while :-)). We didn't spend too much time on this first night by the campfire since we were all tired from a long day paddling.

If you know me in person or you're close to, you would probably know that there is an internal 'alarm clock' in my body that would wake me up around 6 AM every morning, 7 days a week :-). However, after getting several 'warnings' from my dear friend S :-), if we went camping together I would stay inside my tent even though I was fully awake. I know that I am 'rough' once I wake up and would make lots of noise that could disturb someone who likes to sleep till 9 AM :-). But, on last Saturday morning, I got a special 'wake up call'. A loon serenaded me at exactly 6 AM as if telling me that I should wake up as usual cause it was our turn again to prepare for breakfast. It was planned that Cecilia and I would do back-to-back dinner then breakfast because we would make 'bubur ayam' or Indonesian chicken-rice-porridge. We would take advantage if there was rice left over from the dinner. Alas, there was no such thing, the rice and 'rendang' all went to the bellies :-). Cecilia's 'bubur ayam' is famous among the Indonesian in Toronto. So, to keep this 'brand image' she already prepared meticulously all the spices and ingredients necessary for the 'bubur'. She bought 'cakwee' or Chinese bread-stick that without it, one shouldn't call what's served as 'bubur' :-). She also brought 'tongcai' (preserved cabbage bits), green onion and fried onion or 'bawang goreng' in Indonesian. Of course the shredded chicken and the spiced chicken broth were not forgotten either.

So we started early to cook the rice first and then processed it to become rice porridge. While we were starting to boil the water, we looked toward J who slept outside his tent on a rock. He was waving and gesturing us to come. It must be serious scenery as we noticed J was still wearing his underwear :-). So I turned off the stove and we proceeded toward J and S who also slept outside. We couldn't believe our eyes when we looked about 100 metres to the distance J was pointing. A black bear was roving near the shore, a stone throw from our campsite, a spit from our 'john' or 'wooden throne' :-). P and us almost made Toronto Star's headline, "Experience canoeist from Ottawa and young couple from Toronto were eaten alive by bear". :-) Yes, our tents were the closest to the box.

Other than seeing bears in the zoo or once by the road in British Columbia I have never seen bear in the wilderness, nor has anyone in our party. With excitement we kept on watching him/her (sorry can't check the gender for sure) until he/she saw us and took turn watching us :-). We said hello, but only in our hearts as we didn't want to cause miscommunication you see, speaking in a language he/she didn't understand. We weren't looking for trouble. Finally, after enough checking that none of us was suitable for his/her breakfast, the bear left. That was how I will always remember our campsite number 20 in Killarney Park, the very first site after 17 years camping in Ontario, where I saw a bear.

I was not sure whether excitement from seeing a bear or the delicious 'bubur' caused people to be so hungry. half of a very big pot was empty in no time and people had 2-3 times serving. "Delish ...," said S who admitted to have 3 servings and then put the remaining on a container for her lunch :-). As it was already warm and nice, we decided to go swimming by the beach close to where the bear was. We were a bit surprised when we looked at the spot of where the bear was standing, to see a 'white bear with yellow short' :-). Yes, it was P who went to that far end to burn energy from the 'bubur' so he wouldn't gain weight in this trip because of all the wonderful meals.

That Saturday was indeed a special day. Loon woke me up, a bear came by our campsite and shortly after breakfast, a beaver was swimming along the lake by the shore. I have seen many beaver dams and heard their splashes at night or in the wee morning but I have never seen one swimming in the wilderness. Yes, the week-end at Killarney was indeed a big favour from our Creator, not only for me, but I believe for every one of us. Not only were we able to get a campsite at Killarney Lake, we were going to go to O.S.A. Lake and found another beautiful site, on a small but nice island (about 15-20 minutes to paddle around).

O.S.A. Lake is perhaps the only lake in Canada that has initial as its name. It stands for Ontario Society of Artists. So the second most beautiful lake among the lakes at Killarney Park was named after this society where the famous Ontario Group of Seven painters belong to. It is deserving for them to be remembered since they worked with the government to have lands set aside that form the beginnings of Killarney Park.

We left our campsite at Killarney Lake almost closed to lunch time as people voted to have lunch at O.S.A. Lake with the idea to hopefully being able to get an island campsite. When we reached the first one, it was already occupied but the second one was not. It turned out to be very pretty, with two "rocky mountains". R and M christened the first one to 'Peepee Mountain'. They had to rush there prior to seeing the box :-).

As we paddled prior to getting the island, we realized that S was right. Indeed this lake was as beautiful as Killarney, only a bit shorter or smaller and therefore the colour variations were not that many as in Killarney Lake. There were several rocky beaches on the island, all of them were swimmers' paradise. I brought along couple books and the game of Scrabble as usual. Only very rarely, would I be more interested to do other things than reading book or playing Scrabble with Cecilia. That was swimming in clear, green, turquoise, blue water :-). If you love jumping and diving (I don't like doing this because my valve system is not that good :-)), you may not want to go home from Killarney. It was proven when on the last day, at the last hour, S, J, and P went out to a diving rock platform and enjoyed their earthly paradise by jumping for about an hour. Since I was getting restless because it was important for me to leave early to return the rented canoe, Cecilia and I went to join them, only to watch them coming back as we neared. I already stored my swimming trunk somewhere and because the sun was too hot, I took all my clothes when we were not too far from the shore and jumped to the water from the canoe, leaving Cecilia paddling by herself. If you haven't realized, that was called skinny-jumping as opposed to skinny-dipping :-).

I told you many times in my previous stories, when we went camping to the interior, we ate gourmet meals at dinner time. Most of the time, people would cook from scratch. On the first night at O.S.A. Lake, J cooked a gourmet spaghetti a la J :-). The last time I had gourmet spaghetti was in a restaurant named Frenchie on NASA Road near NASA headquarter in Houston. So, you can imagine how much money we saved this way, we didn't have to go to the USA where our Canadian dollars would not be appreciated :-), we didn't have to fly since Air Canada was and still is on strike :-). The interior camping fee that we paid was basically spent for the pine and birch trees that we burned all evenings. Thus, the swimming and diving were free. :-) Dinner at the last night was a very special Hungarian goulash, cooked by S with 6 helpers :-). Yes, it's kind of natural to have helpers when you cook, but S really has a style. For those helpers already too hungry, she had prepared a special treat, houmous or Middle-East chickpea pate with small pita, as appetizer. Being a bit allergic to chilly or anything that is spicy hot, I ate the goulash with difficulty even though it was delish :-). Yes, the pepperoni used in it was a hot one. It was so good that A decided to save it a bit for home :-). The best compliment to a camper's cooking skill!

While still talking about food, you would think that breakfast will be boring, right? Bread or sandwich or cereal or stuff like that. Not so on the Sunday morning when T had his turn to prepare for breakfast. Having nothing to do after waking up at 6 AM and finished lowering down all the food bag from the rope, I helped T. Yes, every night we had to haul our food up the tree and hung them on a rope, far from our tents. It was my noble duty to lower them in the morning and carried to the campsite. After polling people the day before, whether we wanted soup noodle or fried noodle, almost unanimously people voted for a more delicious fried noodle. Initially T was a bit lost because we did not have enough ingredients to fried the noodle. We didn't bring egg or was finished earlier, there was no Indonesian soy sauce, a very important spice. Finally, we didn't lose our creativity. We cooked it with 'gossip' :-). Yes, we gossiped about people that lately have hurt the cook so much :-), not knowing that there were 3 women listening as they understood Indonesian. So, it was not surprising at all when people found that the 'gossipy fried noodle' was delicious as well.

After the 'gossipy fried noodle' breakfast on Sunday, we went to another lake on the west side or at the end of O.S.A. Lake, Muriel Lake. It was so-so or nothing spectacular. We met a guy and a gal at the start of our portaging who came from Threenarrows Lake, the biggest lake at Killarney Park. He helped J carry the canoe I rented from the water to the land and I could watch the expression in his face. It was a kind of disbelief :-). He said, "I just did a 2K portaging, they called the pig (indeed, it was the steepest portage in Killarney). I wish I had a canoe as light as that." His canoe was a whitewater Swift Dumoine with tough Royalex material but weigh 72 pounds. Indeed, it was a delight to portage the Swift Kipawa, 49 pounds even though it has a length of 16'6".

Lunch preparation at our lunch place by Muriel Lake was disastrous as we couldn't find an even ground. Cecilia and I had to cook by the very shore on top of a big slab of rock. The menu was a simple rice noodle with meatball and Romaine lettuce, 'bihun bakso' a la Cecilia :-). Of course the 'three musketeers' :-) from Ottawa went through their diving rituals while we cooked lunch. S graciously distributed her products of dehydrated mangos and peaches, homemade, for dessert. The mangos were finished within a minute or two because they were so delish :-). We paddled back home not too long afterwards because a special program was awaiting.

Yes, I had been telling Cecilia since way back that we need to practice life-saving or swamping the canoe in case our canoe turned over or we went overboard. We need to get a feeling how easy or how difficult to get back to a canoe from the water. The opportunity came when the two angels, S and P volunteered to give a crash course on canoe life-saving technique. The first demonstration was when P intentionally turned his canoe and he went under. S then showed how to do canoe-over-canoe rescue from hers. I followed her way and at least I could now say, I did it :-). My only hope, I would never need to do it again :-). The other demonstration was when P jumped from the water to the canoe. This was easy for me but Cecilia got bruises :-). The most difficult, so that even our teachers couldn't do, was if both paddlers went to the water with the canoe swamped or rolled over. We were only told, we had to go under the canoe, lift it from the water above our head, roll it to empty the water, expect miracle to happen and we will get an empty canoe waiting for us on the water to jump over :-). Please pray this would never happen to us, especially when the water is chillingly cold.

It was full moon on that Sunday, so Cecilia and I discussed or contemplated that we should sleep under the moon and stars on the rock by the shore, to watch the sunrise. Even though we brought only one sleeping bag or were not prepared, we bit the bullets and did it. Having passed some kind of training when I was still climbing mountains in Indonesia and often had to sleep without tent, in no time I felt asleep. P said there was a windstorm in the morning and I felt it a bit. Cecilia, 'the teflon lady' followed me too to 'dreamland' thereafter. We woke up later on when the sky in the east already shed some light. It was an experience, not easily forgotten to watch the sunrise, all by yourself, beside the most important person in your life :-). Yes, we were in full harmony with one another and with nature :-). It took us an hour to wait for the sun to creep but as soon as it was there, within three minutes we got a round sun.

As I mentioned earlier, we had all kind of experiences during this camping trip to Killarney interior. Full moon and sunshine all the time, bear and beaver came by us. But it was nothing :-). Because the canoe rental place would have been closed at 6 PM, we left the gang shortly after lunch at the end of Killarney Lake by the 455 metres portage trail. So Cecilia and I still had to paddle two lakes with one short portage in between. The weather looked menacing, big cumulus cloud hung over us. By the time we started paddling on Freeland Lake, the wind was unbelievable. We had to paddle both on one side of the canoe because steering the normal way didn't make any difference. It took us 45 minutes to cross that small lake. I couldn't forget the recovery of paddle taught by T, one of my teachers from Ottawa. She said, "In windy condition, you return your paddle horizontal to the water." I had mastered that technique and it was so useful. It made a difference. We were so surprised that at the end of Freeland Lake, the rain and the showers turned to hail :-). Indeed, it was a special gift to experience all kind of weather in this trip. By the time we paddled on the last lake, George Lake, the wind had created quite a big wave, at least one foot if not higher. We paddled with confidence though because we knew that our canoe was designed to handle this kind of wave. In fact it was a good test of our paddling and Cecilia's steering ability. She made one small mistake however. After confirming the route upon checking the map, she threw it back to me. Off it went flying to the water and we had to spend extra energy to come back and fetch the map from the water, in such a nice weather :-). Another test of husband and wife togetherness I guess and we passed with flying, oops paddling colour. :-) We landed on the shore of George Lake around 3 PM and were it not for the traffic jam, we would have reached the canoe rental place you see. We ended up to be there by 7:30 PM but like a miracle, the store was still open, specially waiting for us. This story better be ended here because I could continue for another hour. Some of you already knew what happened and please keep it as a secret :-). There will be other times to tell, in summary we were smiling all the way home. No wonder Canada was just selected again by United Nation, for a record-setting fifth year in a row, to be the best country in the world, thanks to its nature lovers people like you all my dear friends :-). Please pat your back if you haven't done it lately. Cecilia and I will rub our back that was still a bit sore after 4 days paddling in Killarney, a must place to see, a paradise on earth. Take care, God Bless, thank you to be with us and to share all our wonderful

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I know some of you were anxious to read about Melbourne's latest fashion in the winter. I am sure you had seen a prototype of it in Toronto or in the cities you live. It's the belly-button ring sneaking through a small opening at the front side. But that is old fashion. The teens in Melbourne wore their pants so low, much under the hips so that you could see not only their bellies but the 'dividing line' of their bums. You know what I mean. In order to make it more interesting for the Canadian tourists to watch, they put tattoos on the bums. So the belly-button, nose, eye-lash, even tongue ring worn by the TO girls are all old fashion. Imagine what the scenes would be in summer time :-).

I already knew much about Melbourne since I was in high school. The Australian Broadcasting Commission or Radio Australia had a powerful transmitter with special broadcast beamed to Indonesia (in Indonesian language). It is a radio funded by the Aussie's government to promote the country and most important for me, it had a good English lesson program. That was how I became familiar with their accents. :-) Melbourne is the second largest city in Australia and my sources told me 3 million people live there. The transportation system is pretty good, mostly with trams and trains covering the metropolitan area. They have three zones for the train, Cecilia and I had the opportunity to go as far as Zone 2 only. The one way (2 hours fare) was $ 4.50. If you are just travelling in the city proper or Zone 1, you could buy a daily ticket for $ 5.10, it's $ 2.60 for 2 hours. What I like about other cities transportation system, you could buy a ticket from the driver or there is a ticket vending machine inside the tram. In TO this is impossible, you better have exact change. I have seen several times, unhappy people dropping their dollar bills into the fare collector box in our TTC (Toronto Transit Commission) buses.

Who among you had ever been invited to a 25th wedding anniversary half-a-world apart at 7 PM on a certain day and came exactly on time as the clock stroke the hour? I told you our journey went through several special gates and going to our friend's wedding anniversary party was one of them. Erni and Ben Sugija, a very old friend of mine since my high school days, invited us. He probably didn't believe it either when I said Cecilia and I would take the train to Springvale and walked to the restaurant that he said was just across the station. At exactly 7 PM, we stood at the front door of The Great Wall Chinese Restaurant where Ben and Erni celebrated their silver anniversary that evening. I met a few of my old friends from Indonesia who moved to Melbourne and had burned their bridges. We saved $ 9 for the return fare when F.L. a friend from my Catholic Student Union (PMKRI) days drove us home after the party was over.

Melbourne was a city of surprise, Cecilia had her own pleasant one too and I wouldn't share it with you less you be jealous. I had one more surprise, that was meeting a girl friend I had not seen for about 25 years. What amazed me, when I was a university student, I went to her home almost every day. I tutored her and her three brothers-sister. Yet, when she appeared at Ben's party and was one of the 'party animals' I didn't recognize her at all. On second thought, perhaps the way she dressed must have caused it. She wore a sexy strapless outfit and I may have not paid attention to her face that much. My fault :-), mea culpa, mea maxima culpa. Only on the next day when I asked Ben, who his party 'star performer' was, did I learn she was the girl friend I knew. Ben then called her and we arranged a meeting, Indonesian style or over dinner at a nice Thai restaurant in the suburb of Melbourne. She was already married of course and had two girls. When I looked at her, indeed she was the girl I previously knew. I must be getting old :-) but Cecilia had a different theory, she wore lots of clothes that night.

Because of one or two reasons, we canceled our plan to visit and stayed at Phillip Island nature park near Melbourne. The main attraction was to watch live penguins in their nature habitat instead of in the zoo. Well, there will be other opportunity to watch penguins, perhaps in our trip to Antartica one day :-). We used our last days to meet friends and renew acquaintances with our relatives in Melbourne. Prior to our departure to the Melbourne airport, we were able to meet Siauw Tiong Djin, founder of CARI, Committee Against Racism in Indonesia. My NGO (Non- Governmental Organisation) in Toronto, CCEVI, invited him last May to come over to Toronto to attend our annual May Memorial event to never forget that May 1998 tragedy in Jakarta and pray for the victims. He had superlative praise for you guys and gals. He had travelled internationally and he said that our Toronto group is beyond comparison, something like that :-). I was happy to hear from him that all the events we planned went very well, thanks to the hard work of everybody. We went through our last 'special gate' when Tiong Djin escorted us to the Qantas lounge after we checked-in. My fellow travellers who used to go on business would know what that kind of lounge provides. If you have a first-class or a business-class ticket, the airline will put you there so you have a very comfy waiting time. Other than all-you-can-eat food and drink, there are ample readings for the bookworms. If your flight is still several hours away, you can take a shower or a nap in the lounge. Now you know why those who are in power would try as hard as they could to keep their 'platinum card' privileges. They might become THP, The Hurting People, once their power is taken away from them. I know none of you my friends are like that :-).

Well, it is time to finish the last series of my journey across four continents, America to Europe then Asia and Australia. Even though I was told that the grass in our backyard is knee-high, I would repeat this kind of trip and perhaps sell the house and go for a year like the Australians :-). Thank you once again for all your wonderful prayers and best wishes. Without them, this story would not have been possible. Till we meet again, adios, auf wiedersehen, good bye


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There are about 300 caves in Waitomo, according to our guide. We only visited two of them because they are the public ones, the rest are in private land. The first cave we went to was Aranui Cave, a limestone type with lots of stalactites and stalagmites. It was not a spectacular cave and the only reason we took the time because we bought a 'combo deal'. Two caves for $ 40 per person instead of $ 24 per cave per person. After all the trouble of driving 3 hours, half-an-hour just going through downtown of Hamilton, New Zealand, a city on the way to Waitomo, why did we want to be 'cheap'? :-). After all, Mother Nature's creation is much better than Leonardo Da Vinci's, isn't it? He might take a few years to paint one faded painting, the Aranui Cave was formed after thousand of years. The main tourist attraction was the Glowworm Cave. They say that the worm is unique to New Zealand. It is the larval stage of a two-winged insect that emits a light to attract its food. This cave was discovered by a Maori chief and his English buddy in 1887 when they went canoeing by the river near the cave. Too bad that I only discovered moose droppings when I went canoeing, else I would be as famous as those guys. "Was it worth the time?," you asked. Slightly better than when Cecilia and I saw The Last Supper in Milan because we had to walk for quite a distance before we boarded a giant aluminium canoe to go close to where the glowworm had an exhibition on the cave's ceiling. In Milan's Cenacolo Vinciano, you just walk a few metres to get to the ex-dining room with Da Vinci's painting. When the canoe started to move around the bend, everything was dark, so that the light from the worm could be seen more spectacularly. The canoe only went for a few metres, back and forth along a fixed railing that the guide used. Not bad for a day trip.

"What do you think of the North Island?," our host AB who was born in Wellington asked us upon our return. "We saw more cows than people but the roads were pretty good," I said. Yes, though after Hamilton the road became narrow, it was well paved. They could build more passing lanes and rest areas but these days I could stand longer drive without the need to water the grass (read: my hobby to pee on the road side and at beaver dam on canoe trips). Actually we saw more students than cows at Waitomo Glowworm Cave. They were Japanese high school students, 5 buses all together in their school uniform. I was told by my guide that indeed it was one of their school outings while in New Zealand. They pay NZ$ 25K for a one year 'farm stay' program and I am not joking. They stay in the farm including learning how to produce moo juice or how to milk a cow. Aren't the Japs amazing? Even Tuti and Amir in my Indonesian grammar book only watched their grandpa's cow being milked when they visited granny's farm. No wonder we all buy Japanese things these days and in the future perhaps 'moo juice' from Japan :-).

As I mentioned earlier, because of the weather, after we went to Waitomo we didn't venture to go outside Auckland anymore. We spent the rest of the days with our Indonesian friends, especially the newcomers to Auckland. Even though it was relatively easy for them to get New Zealand's permanent resident visa, finding job is a different story. In my opinion, this problem is compounded by the fact that in Indonesia, they already had good jobs and then, because New Zealand is close to Indonesia, they didn't 'burn their bridges'. This is a term I used to convince my fellow immigrants, only if they could forget to go back to their homeland (the nice things they were able to do or have there), will they feel good in their new countries, no matter where they settle. It has been proven from time to time. Whenever I met people that still have 'bridges', they always had complaints about their new place to live. They forgot that Utopia is only in the book and there's no paradise on earth except at Killarney Lake or Algonquin Park in the fall season :-). Australia and New Zealand's first settlers would never think of going back home if they couldn't find jobs. That's the difference between the immigrants a hundred years ago and in AD 2002.

Thanks to all the prayers and blessings from you all, the gale force wind in the evening prior to our departure from Auckland subsided and we were able to leave. But ... the plane had a special route. Instead of going direct to Melbourne as scheduled, it had to fly to Wellington first at the south end of the North Island to pick stranded passengers from the previous night. I considered that a nice side trip because we had the opportunity to catch more geography or scenery of New Zealand even though from above. The more south you go, the more rugged is the country. Our flight to Melbourne then arrived 2 hours later than scheduled. We were happy when we met L, Cecilia's niece who picked us at the airport and learned that she was wise enough to call Qantas prior to going to the airport. The weather in Melbourne was awesome and it stayed that way through-out our stay. I will tell you more about the city and our Melbourne experiences in the next episode. Till then my friends, bye for now. Read More......

Do you live in Vancouver, the car-wash city of Canada? You have a competition then and if you don't have a twin or sister city yet, tell your mayor to pick Auckland. Perhaps the 'special gate' that we took from the Sydney airport to go to Auckland was a wrong one. The sun never shined and the rain poured almost continously while we were there. To top that, toward the final day of our stay, we had gale force wind in Auckland and some other parts of New Zealand. However, the miserable weather in that city was compensated by the warm-hearted people we met, especially our host and hostess, AB and JB. I told you already how A the hubby had to sleep on the floor on an air-mattress that he blew himself, so that Cecilia and I could enjoy their bed. J gave me enough instruction on how to get to her home at Kepa Rd from the airport. As soon as we exited the terminal building and saw a bus called 'Air Bus' we knew that it was created to serve us :-). The fare to the city was NZ$ 13 per person, a bit pricey if you compare with Auckland's standard of living. For $ 6-7 you could eat a meal for two times. Yes, the food portion in Auckland is very generous, actually the same in Sydney and Melbourne. It is designed for hungry Indonesian students, so that for $ 13 allowance from mama or papa they can eat for a whole day.

Although the 'Air Bus' was an express airport to city bus (vice versa), it took about half an hour to reach the downtown area. We passed 'glass houses' suburb (J told me later) like One Tree Hill and Epsom. The property price in Epsom was sky-rocketed recently because it is located near Auckland's top university, AUT, Auckland University of Technology. The Kiwis (a name used by New Zealanders to call themselves) must know that some of the students' parents can buy houses like you and I buy camping tent. Yes, to those of you who don't know me yet, I own 5 tents. I would gladly share them with you though, at no charge. People bought houses there for either their children or to rent to the foreign students.

Thanks to my experiences in hearing different English accents I was able to communicate to the bus driver and asked him the bus number to get to Kepa Road from the downtown area. Auckland downtown or the city is not too big. The harbour was as beautiful as Sydney especially if the sun could smile at us. They boast they had more yachts per population than anybody else in the world, so they call Auckland a city of sails. We did see people sailing when we were in Sydney but not a single soul sailed in Auckland. "Winter," you said. Actually their winter is a joke, it was around 20C degree through-out our stay. I will share with you more about this 'funny winter' when we were in Melbourne and saw the latest teens' fashion (baring their bums).

You haven't known or learned about New Zealand until you stay at the Kiwis' homes. Actually this is a truth statement for visiting any country in the world. The best place to stay to know more about the place you visit is a 'home stay'. We spent the next 3 days chatting with our host and hostess as well as our other friends in various aspects of life. The only difference they have with us Canadians is in their English, which might become a strange language for most of you. What you call milk, in Auckland it's 'moo juice', from the sound of the producer. They are lucky that chicken doesn't have milk or else they have to say 'cock-a-doodle-doo juice'. Another unusual thing if you have never met or talked to an Australian or New Zealander is in how they address you. When they call you 'mate', they just like you and have no intention to make love or mate you. Also, don't be easily discouraged when they greet you in the morning and tell you that it is a good day to die :-). Enough kidding other people's English you said and I have to agree. The Canadians English is the purest in the world :-). They even speak with an accent in Britain.

By the time we were in Auckland, we have been to many places and used all kind of transportation but one. We have never rented a car since we left for Europe. Some of my friends told me that I am crazy enough to drive in Jakarta. It's even crazier to rent a car in Europe. I knew from the very first time we landed in Auckland, Cecilia was already 'sold' by the $ 25 a day car rental advertisement. Who would not? It promised unlimited mileage, insurance included. When I started to call a few, I realized that it was for the smallest and slowest car plus you have to rent it for several days to get that rate. However, since this journey is part of our 27th wedding anniversary celebration, I wouldn't want to jeopardize our 28th wedding anny plan. We found a car renting company that had a not-so-old Corolla (with 200K odometer reading) and reasonable insurance deductible for $ 65/day unlimited mileage. The rate would drop to $ 45/day had we rented it for 2 days. Most important, there was no additional charge for my wifey to drive that car too. We really had fun driving it back and forth to the Waitomo glowworm caves in the country side, 215 km south of Auckland. I will share with you our caving experience in the North Island of New Zealand in the next episode. Till then, goodbye mate.



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Sydney was the first city we visited in this fourth continent I ever set my foot, Australia. I had been wanting to come to Australia since way back when I was still working for IBM in Indonesia but my training or assignment was always to Asia and once to Canada (that made me wanting to move to). Because of the meagre pension I got from IBM (don't tell my ex-boss, he already knew) I chosed the last day of the low-fare season which fell on June 14th. That was the main reason why I flew to Sydney on my birthday :-). The combined airfare from TO to Jakarta return and Jakarta to Australia-New Zealand return was cheaper than if I bought 'around the world' fare. Besides that, we would have to come back through the U.S.A. As I said earlier, coming back through the U.S. is always my last choice. The U.S. custom officers are terrible, especially if they know we come from Indonesia. All in all, we spent about Cdn $ 6000 for our air tickets. Yes, three new canoes but what the heck.

Prior to our departure to Sydney, we already knew that both Australia and New Zealand have strict custom regulations. I didn't know therefore that going through the 'green line', non-declare exit route, almost cost me my Australian dollar allowances. We didn't bring prohibited items like meats and dairy products so with full confidence I checked 'no no no' in the custom declaration. Lo and behold, all our packs and luggage were x-rayed. The officer asked us to open them all and found two items that deserved questions. "What is this?" "Oh, that is a spice for cooking sir," I replied. They were 'bumbu masak' that made Indonesian dishes par excellent :-). "This is still food but it's OK," said the officer. I took my breath again. "What is this?" "Those are candies," was my sheepish answer. "It's chocolate but it's OK too." For the second time, I was able to breath and after that, I knew how to spell relief when the officer let us go without digging any further. We later learned from the Indonesians we met in both countries, DECLARE something that would make the officer happy and your 'martabak' plus all your other delicacies would be blessed to go to your friends or relatives' tummy.

We were very happy when we exited the door to see familiar faces, Winarta and Giokkie who we last met in Toronto about 20 years ago. Believing and enjoying our canoe camping stories, they ignored the fact that we almost didn't sleep at all in the airplane. It was fully loaded, thanks to the last day of the cheapest fare and there are 3 hours time difference between Jakarta and Sydney so that we arrived at 4 AM our body clock time. We went sight-seeing through-out the city, taking all kind of public transportation, from train to boat to monorail. My life long dream to see Sydney Harbour Bridge and Opera House came true. The ports are beautiful, more than Toronto and Vancouver, forget Halifax :-).

Sydney is about the same size as TO, around 4 million people live in an area that I believe is not much different from TO. The public transportation is quite OK though a bit expensive. A fare called 'day tripper', unlimited travel around Sydney for a day cost Aust.$ 13. Our Canadian dollar worths about 10% more than Australian. Sydney was 'discovered' by James Cook when he landed at Botany Bay in 1770. So it is about the same age as Toronto, much younger than my birthplace Jakarta which was built in 1527. Blame my Indonesian history teacher if the year is wrong :-).

The Winartas took us to Sydney Tower, slightly smaller than our Toronto CN Tower, still the tallest free standing structure in the world I believe. In there, we took Skytour, an animated 3D surround-sound virtual journey around Australia. Not bad mate :-). Yes, the continent is splendidly amazing and as beautiful as Canada :-). The floras and faunas are quite different than the rest of the world, and so are the people. My friend Dave at IBM said, "If you travel around the world (Dave is a world traveller) and find your fellow travellers, the American and Canadian would probably spend a week holiday in the place you visit. The European about a month and the Australian a year." I think Dave is right :-). Everybody I met ridiculed me for staying only 3 nights in each cities. I was glad that I could make an excuse that my wife wants to be at the World Youth Day 2002 in Toronto at the end of July :-).

In the evening, after dinner the Winartas took us to a beach, too bad it was not a lover's lane type but we were not after that though. After 27 years of marriage we look more to the stars above than to each other. :-) Yes, it had been a while I have not seen the Southern Cross constellation. It was beautiful, no wonder the Aussies put it in their national flag. I printed the sky-map of Melbourne prior to leaving Indonesia for Australia. We planned to go to a cottage at Phillip Island near Melbourne to watch the penguins and the stars but that will be in a different story. To be fair to both our friends in Sydney, on the second night we moved to stay at the Basukis. The sight- seeing and our Australian journey will continue in the next episode. Till then, bye for now.

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Hello my dear friends and families who couldn't wait to read our next part of yours truly 'around the world trip'. Australia and New Zealand's part is actually the third one after we left Canada on May 5, 2002 and spent more than 2 weeks traveling in Europe. We went to Singapore and Jakarta thereafter and stayed for another 3 weeks before we left for Sydney, Australia on June 14. I wrote my experiences while in Indonesia in my mother language, Bahasa Betawi, mixed with Indonesian and the language of the future generation called 'Bahasa Prokem' so that most of you won't understand anyway. As I still love Canada and my friends there, here is the third part of my journey with Cecilia my wife, written in English with no trace of Australian and New Zealand's accent.

I chose a unique title again as I did in my 'Europe Through The Side Door' for this story because I had been to several special 'gates' traveling to and in both countries. Who amongst you had ever had a stranger coming over prior to a trip you were going to make and gave you NZ $ 200 with no strings attached? Yes, a fan of my writings who had been following me since I moved to Canada, dropped by my Mom's house and gave me that money. To top that, Cecilia and I got a special gift of Aus. $ 1000 for sharing our experiences in life. "What about the gate?," you asked. How many of you had ever gone through immigration booth without needing to stop at that gate? That happened to us on our way from Jakarta to Sydney through the Indonesian immigration counter. Our travel agent just waved at the officer and he let us went through without even asking who we were we and what our names were. Perhaps going through this special gate could only happen in Indonesia, I wonder. In addition (remember this is post September 11, 2001) we didn't even have to show our faces to the Qantas airline check-in people. The travel agent checked us in and just handed the boarding pass. Yes, there are many special gates in Indonesia. No wonder a few of my friends and relatives said this country is a "paradise" for doing business and I am sure you know what I mean.

There were other special gates that we went through while we traveled. First in Sydney. We didn't have to learn about any public transportation there because one of our friends picked us at the airport and the other one dropped us when we left Sydney for Auckland. We stayed for 1 night at the Winartas, my friend from IBM Indonesia who I haven't met for 20 years and 2 nights at the Basukis, our friends from Paroki-Sby. Throughout this third part of our journey, we had excellent demonstration of Indonesian hospitality. Imagine this. Our host and hostess in Auckland, AB and JB, an Internet friend from my Psychology mailing list let us use their daughters' room so that A the hubby had to sleep on the floor on an air mattress. BTW, A is a native New Zealander who had become 'Indonesian', thanks to J's brainwashing :-). Yes, only Indonesians would suffer for their guests and the immigration officer would wave at friendly tourists like us :-). Only among Indonesians would you find two-bedroom apartment that can accommodate 7 people and that how we stayed in Melbourne. You won't be surprised then if I tell you, I have a friend from Indonesia who had lived in Toronto for 25 years and is an executive with a prominent company. They don't have beds in their home which is a very big house, worth close to a million dollar. They all sleep on a mattress on the floor just like what we did in Melbourne.

As it happened numerous times in Europe, we felt grateful for all the gifts we had received in our Australia and New Zealand's trip. Thanks again to your prayers or your special blessings. The weather in Australian cities we visited were excellent. Even the local people couldn't believe our luck :-). Yes, on the other hand we were showered through-out our stay in New Zealand. The sun never said hi to us, not even for a second. Then we understood why it was like that. It was meant to be so that we had the time to gather with some Indonesian immigrants in Auckland. They are having a hard time and therefore I recommended them to read my sharing 'Pengalaman Imigran Toronto' that I wrote many years ago. It was a story of Cecilia's and my life as immigrant in Canada, the best part and the not-so-good aspect. A few said, if they could they would prefer Canada but it was the most difficult. New Zealand was the easiest for them to get permanent resident visa compared to Canada and Australia. Forget the U.S.A., none of those Aucklanders would like to get their shoes x-rayed when boarding the plane :-).

I haven't told you yet. When I was in Bandung, we went to the best (meaning most delicious) restaurant for 'martabak', an Indonesian delicacy. They sell both the cake type (martabak kue) and the egg and meat type (martabak daging). The name is Martabak Canada and if you are a local people, it is at Jl. Kebon Kawung. I asked the owner (I was assuming because he seemed to be the boss) why did he name it Canada. I thought he was once a Canadian landed immigrant that was not able to stand cold weather because these days, Bandung has hot weather, thanks to the pollution. He said, "In order to be well-known," (biar terkenal). I said, "Why don't you use Martabak U.S.A.?" "I don't want to be bombed," was the answered (saya tidak mau digranat). Well, that's one of the reasons why some of my friends in Australia and New Zealand prefer to live in Canada than in the USA, if they had a choice.

Till the next episode where I will tell you our experiences in the 3 cities and their vicinities that we visited. It may not be as interesting as our experiences with 'Marylin' (that some of you liked that episode very much :-)) but I have different excitement to share. Till then, bye for now. Read More......