Traveling with Ray Owens

Day 7 January 20, 2025

Today we got a bit of a later start. That did not mean we slept later, just that we went down to breakfast later.

Today’s adventure included a trip to Daintree rainforest. Daintree is the world’s oldest rainforest. It is somewhere in the neighborhood of 180 million years of age. The forest was present before Pangea (https://www.britannica.com/place/Pangea )separated into the continents we know today.

The old rainforest is unlike most rainforests you probably think about. The Amazon rainforest is one of the youngest forests. The diversity in the Amazon (monkeys, birds, snakes, insects ) came to be in the forest because they existed before the forest grew and they just moved in. Here in the Daintree rainforest they are more diverse with plants than animals.

The soils here are really bad in most places. Consequently the trees struggle to grow and thrive. On the other hand the lichen, moss and vines thrive by growing everywhere on everything.

The indigenous people were only “given” citizenship in 1948 but only allowed to vote in 1962. In 1968 a teenager indigenous person came up with the idea of starting an indigenous owned and operated tourism business. The tour operators for today are all indigenous people.

The bus took us to the boat. Learned about the Salty AKA saltwater crocodiles. In the summer the crocodiles tend to remain in the water to control their body temperature. We did see one lying about under a fallen tree branch.

The Mossman Gorge is an area that old folks can walk into the rainforest on a raised walkway.

We went to eat in town at the Tin Shed. A not for profit club that serves food and drinks and has slot machines. Very nice people. I ordered the fisherman’s plater which had bugs on it. Now don’t get too creeped out. These bugs were supposed to be there.

Bugs are a type of crustacean seafood in Australia that are similar to lobsters. They are also known as Balmain bugs or Moreton Bay bugs.

Tomorrow we pay for today’s late start as we have to be in the lobby at 5:45 am. We have a chartered flight from Cairns to Ulura, which is located pretty much in the middle of Australia. It will be hot (106 degrees) and dry.

We have been promised a stunning sunset experience and stars. There will be stars at night deep in the heart of Australia.

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Last night I managed to stay awake until about 10:00. Evidently 7.5 hours of sleep is all I need. My bladder and I were awake at 5:30.

I really do love traveling. People watching and talking with them is one of my favorite parts. We stopped at the front desk to secure a late check out and there was a security guard standing close by. I said good morning to her. I asked her how she was doing and she said she was cold. She was wearing a leather security guard jacket. It was about 45 degrees. I said I live in Kansas City where on Saturday the high will be 25 with a small chance of snow. She said “That’s why I live in Los Angeles! Last night I slept with 5 blankets on?” I asked how she managed to roll over during the night. Her response was “I don’t think I did.”

At breakfast there was an oriental family with two grade school boys. The family was bilingual. The youngest boy was deeply engaged with his phone. His mother had to call his name several times before he gained his attention. Cute kids.

The second family that came in to sit for breakfast near us was a father, mother, a young teenager boy and 4 daughters all below about 18ish. Four of the females were wearing head covering. What appeared to be the oldest daughter was not and had long teenager hair. I speculate that the mom and dad had the discussion with her and asked that she honor the head covering tradition until she reached age X and then she could make her own decision.

The rest of the morning was spent packing and repacking our suitcases. Our first flight to Australia is on Qantas and no issues with weight. Our second flight is shorter and on Jet Star. They are a discount airline and have tight weight limits for the checked bags and the carryon bags. We had to plan carefully to be able to swap something’s from one bag to another when we arrive in Australia. I think we will make it.

We have to check out of our room at 2:00 PM. Our flight boards at 9:45. So we will have 6.5 hours in the airport. We will have access to a lounge so that should ease our burden.

We are scheduled to leave LAX at 10:30 PM on Thursday January 16. We are scheduled to arrive at 9:30 AM on January 18. I do believe that somewhere over the Pacific Ocean someone will be stealing a day from us.

We checked out of our hotel at 2:00 PM and very quickly the shuttle picked us up and delivered us to terminal B where we had to wait for about twenty minutes before the Qantas folks opened their check in counters.

This was when we had a rather bizarre and unnecessary dance with the employee checking our luggage. We had no problem with Penny’s carry on. She had a bag that was around 5.5 kilograms and a personal bag that they did not weigh but it was about 1.5 kilograms. I on the other hand had my Rick Steves backpack and computer and jacket inside my one carry on bag and it weighed 14.4 kilograms. Sorry, I was told, it could only weigh 10 kilograms. So I took my jacket out and put it on. My backpack came out as my personal item (purse) along with a bag of electronics that Penny had put in my bag to lighten her bag which we now put back in her bag. Weighed the bag again without those items inside, 10 kilograms. I was good to go.

After we left the counter and got through security I put everything back as it was before the dance.

The unnecessary part of the requirement was that the weight entering the plane was identical regardless of where it was in our possession.

We are currently sitting in the Qantas Business class lounge at 4:45, we are supposed to board at 9:45, and leave at 10:30. I am staying awake and am confident I will be able to sleep while the thieves who are going to steal our Friday do the dastardly deed.

We had a great day. We went to bed last night at about 8:30 because Penny and Ray are old and Ray got up yesterday morning at 5:00 thinking about getting the book that Candace Shaw recommended I read “Project Hail Mary”. I laid in bed for a while and then got up and downloaded the book.

That is the reason we went to bed at 8:30 and that was the reason we woke up today at 5:00 AM which is plenty of sleep for even folks as old as we are.

Breakfast and coffee were consumed and at 9:00 we called an Uber to take us to Universal Studios.

We had purchased a VIP tour for Universal Studios. This was to be up to 13 people with a guide to take us to the rides via the express lanes, it included a “gourmet” lunch and a back scene tour of the sound stages and sets. Our time was to be at 11:15. We arrived about 10:00 and checked in at the proper place.

Our first bit of serendipity happened at this point.

The nice lady who helped us confirmed that our tour was for 11:15. Penny said “yes, unless we could start earlier”. The nice lady checked and said we could join the 10:15 tour with Donald (I confirmed that it was not Mr Duck and was told that was a different theme park.)

Soon Donald found us in the VIP lounge and told us we were waiting for four other VIPs, who had not yet arrived. We would wait until 10:20 and then begin.

Serendipity #2 then occurred. The missing VIPs were still missing at 10:20 and thus Penny and I set out on our private tour escorted expertly by the extraordinary Donald. He was very helpful in telling us about the various rides and how they might trigger my motion sickness.

Serendipity #3 was the fact that we virtually had the entire park to ourselves. Donald told us that the attendance was one of the smallest he had seen. We did use the express lines but they were kind of silly. There was never more than a dozen or so people in the lines.

You would be proud of Penny and me. We rode most all of the rides. Our first one was a roller coaster that had no sudden drops and no loops. It did have tight curves. The selling point was the entire ride only lasted 28 seconds. I figured I could endure anything that long especially seeing the 6 year olds in line were taking it on.

We rode Mario Kart where we wore 3D glasses and were inside the game and shooting the bad guys.

We rode Jurassic World where the dinosaurs tried to get in our car with us.

Revenge of the Mummy was fun as I had just a few days ago watched the movie. Penny skipped that ride.

The Secret Life of Pets was just too darn cute for words.

Despicable Me turned us into Minions.

All of this happened before lunch which was a buffet that was very good, especially the gelato served by the delightful Jenny that had introduced herself to my lovely bride Penny.

After lunch we were joined by Dennis our VIP shuttle driver who drove Penny and me through the back lots and sound studios. We were the only guests on the tour bus. We were taken into the sound stage where the TV show “St. Denis Medical” is filmed (although I am quite sure no film is involved in the production). I have not seen the show but will watch it now.

The sets were pretty amazing and accurate with real hospital beds and monitors. One of the things that was not accurate was the amount of space between the nurse’s station and the beds. They were very wide due to the need of getting the lights, cameras and directing folks in that space.

Many of the buildings and streets were cool as we drove through the backlot. It turns out that the courthouse that was used in “Back to the Future” was used in “To Kill a Mockingbird” and in the first episode of “The Twilight Zone”.

We also got to walk through the prop department where anyone can rent props for movies or just a party. Some props looked like new furniture or old like old used furniture because it was. There were also furniture and vases and such from the 1920s.

We got an uber to take us back to our hotel and it turned out to be a yellow cab. The drive back took longer than the morning drive due to the traffic. We avoided the freeways due to rush hour traffic and came through downtown Los Angeles where we drove on Vine St and crossed Hollywood Boulevard. Perhaps a myth but it is said that Lana Turner was discovered in Schwab’s drugstore located at that intersection.

It was a delightful day.

Day 1 of our trip. We made it to Los Angeles without any issues. My first observation is that the metropolitan area of LA is huge. From our airplane, we saw no sign of the fires still burning in areas of LA nor the destruction that we know is there. We flew in over San Bernardino and landed flying west. The freeways I saw from the plane were packed with vehicles coming and going.

The other thing I noticed flying from Kansas City to Los Angeles is that there is a whole lot of miles and miles of nothing much to see out the window of the airplane. The mountains and canyons we flew over did not look as high nor as deep as I know they are from driving through many of the places.

It has been a good day.

Today (January 14, 2025) begins our really big bucket list trip. We are heading to Australia and New Zealand. As an added bonus we will make a stop in New Caledonia a real island where McHale’s navy used to go occasionally from the fictional island of “Taratupa” where they carried out their high jinks in the early 1960’s sitcom. I always wondered where the old Caledonia was? Turns out based on a google search, it is the Roman name given to Northern Scotland.

Back in the summer when we were making our travel plans we booked a flight with Qantas airlines when they were celebrating their anniversary and we got a great deal, from Los Angeles to Melbourne. Being wise travelers we decided to book our flight from Kansas City to Los Angeles two days earlier because of the iffiness of the winter weather in Kansas City. We did not consider the possibility of the devastating wildfires in Southern California. It is such a tragedy. We are checking the conditions of the LAX airport. So far they have been operating normally. We are staying at a hotel at the airport.

We will let you know how things are when we arrive.

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