There are many ways to explore Australia, but a spirit of adventure will take you to places and vista points unfamiliar to most who toe the tourist line, Raymond Zhou discovers.
You can see more sights with a package tour, but you'll be rewarded with a more unforgettable experience if you get more adventurous. When I visited Sydney for the first time, I did what tourists are supposed to do: I bought a ticket for A $40 ($37) and boarded a double-decker bus.
I love the hop-on, hop-off convenience and do that ritual in almost every foreign city the first time I visit.
The bus took me to Bondi Beach where gorgeous people lie in the sun. The route also goes through some of the residential areas of the fabulous, an approximate equivalent of the special tour of Beverly Hills in Los Angeles.
A cruise around Sydney Harbor is probably on every tourist's schedule, and offers lots of photo opportunities.
What I didn't expect was to climb on top of the bridge. I thought I was simply going to walk along the pedestrian path.
But no, that would be like walking on any bridge. BridgeClimb is designed in a similar spirit as a climb on the Great Wall. As an enticement you see photos of celebrities flashing smiles and you get a certificate proving your feat.
Who can resist that? Well, my traveling companion who's afraid of heights, could.
There were 10 members in my expedition team, a ragtag group from various cities in China.
We were assigned a Chinese-speaking guide, a young woman who had emigrated from Guangdong. She was petite and perky, which eased anxiety among the rest of us. If she can sprint up those stairs, through some of which you can see the dark blue water below, shouldn't we be assured the climb is fun?
Dressing up for the climb was a hassle. We were instructed to don all kinds of gear to prevent an impromptu sky dive or stuff falling from your pockets. Don't even think about bringing your own camera. Your guide will take photos for you.
What we got was a view of the surrounding area—including the iconic opera house—that was simply matchless. On other bridges, only maintenance crews are able to observe the bridge traffic and details of the structure from that angle. It's not just the height—the Sydney Tower Eye is taller—but the total exposure to the elements that adds a sense of unpredictability, albeit with safety strings attached.
Sydney is great for walking tours. Even though many modes of transportation are available, the best way to explore the city, especially for a first-timer, is probably to walk around.
In the Outback, though, walking must be carefully planned. We were advised to take three liters of water with us, but actually one bottle per person would be good enough because tour buses offer refills anytime.
The longest walk I embarked on this time was King's Canyon, which lasted three and half hours, but it was early in the morning when the sun was not yet scorching.
My first stop was Ayer's Rock, or Uluru in Aboriginal language.
It is a sandstone formation that looks like a cleanly cut tofu. It stands 348 meters high, with a circumference of 9.4 kilometers.
Legally you are still allowed to climb it, but your guide will do anything to talk you out of the idea, citing the number of deaths from falls and the mysterious deaths that occurred shortly after the climb. You see, the rock is sacred to the Anangu, the Aboriginal people of the area, who still perform certain rituals that even our guide is not supposed to know.
Anyway, the best way to marvel at this highly recognizable natural landmark of Australia is from a certain distance and at sunrise or sunset. I partook in both a dawn and a dusk tour.
The first and last rays of the sun seem to wave a magic wand over the rock, changing its colors from moment to moment as the light sifts through clouds of ever-changing density and form. There's a glow that almost seems to be from another world, something lifted from scenes of a fantasy film.
The day of my sunrise tour, just before the sun peeped from the horizon, there was a drizzle—a rare event, I was told, in this dry land. As a result of the sudden moisture, two parallel rainbows leapt from behind the rock, with a third struggling to emerge from the mist.
Sure, luck had something to do with it, but the magic of the location seemed to manifest pretty strongly.
Kata Tjuta, or Mount Olga as it was previously known before the name reverted to the Aboriginal term, is 25 km west of Uluru and seems to be a less distinguished cousin.
But by Chinese standards, it may lend itself to more fanciful interpretation as it consists of 36 domes and covers an area of 21.67 square km. There are all kinds of animal or human shapes you can conjure, depending on where you stand to view it.
There are trails that take you deep inside crevices of the domes. And, of course, the colors change with the sunlight just as with Uluru.
If you're wondering what happens if the giant rock is suddenly splintered and forms a gorge, you should take a walk into King's Canyon, a couple of hours away from the Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park.
Here some of the rock walls are still pale because the iron has not had enough time to oxidize.
On the Rim Walk, the initial climb up the 100-meter Heart Attack Hill and the middle descent into the Garden of Eden will send your heart palpitating with excitement.
At one point, there is a half-splintered rock at the edge of the gorge which brave souls may step on and jump to see if it will break apart. (The last time a big chunk broke was some 80 years ago, according to our guide.)
In my 12 days Down Under, I spotted exactly one kangaroo—on the bus to Alice Springs. It was hopping along a fence, alone.
But I twice tasted kangaroo meat. The first time it was probably overcooked, but the second time I would have mistaken it for beef. I still have qualms about eating one of Australia's cutest mascots, but locals seem to be OK with it as it has been the staple of the Aboriginals for millennia.
Speaking of Aboriginals, Australians are very proud of this heritage.
Our tour guides would use a tone of hushed reverence when mentioning it. And in downtown Alice Springs, I got up close with many of them even though we are not supposed to look them in the eye—a habit that may sound quaint to Westerners but not so to Chinese because in Chinese culture it is also a sign of aggressiveness.
The vastness of Australia's Outback, plus its glaring colors, sometimes gave me the illusion that I was on another planet—an illusion broken only by the pestering of flies.
Wearing a fly mask may seem like an approximation with wearing a veil for an aristocratic woman, but out at the Outback the real aristocrat is Mother Nature.
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