Excerpts from postcards sent in June 1988, Dean's World Tour I:
 

Sydney, Australia, 08 June 1988 -- G'dye, mite!   Seven days, 28 rides brought me from Adelaide to Melbourne, to Canberra, to Sydney, to Brisbane and back to Sydney, about 2200 miles.  My longest wait was 45 minutes, so generally, the hitching was good to excellent, and I always managed to be in a car when the rains came pouring down.  Contrary to popular conception, it is usually the nicest people, rather than ax murderers, who pick up hitchhikers.  As luck wo7uld have it, I hitched through Australia without a hitch (pun intended).

I spent several days in Brisbane with Tim and Jenny, whom I met last year in Athens.  Among other things, we went to World Expo 88 together.  From the sublime to the ridiculous, there is plenty to see and do.  A three day U.S. $45 ticket did not permit enough time to cover it all.  To dazzle the imagination, they used everything from good old fashioned "smoke and mirrors" to lazers, robots and holograms in ways that I had not seen before.  For example, one very human looking robot greets you at the gate by saying "Welcome to Expo 88" in 35 languages!  Another robot plays guitar!  The whole place had resemblence to Disneyland not only in its atmosphere but also in the length of queues in which one must stand for everything.  I would have guessed that Brisbane, because it is so far from most of the rest of the world, might not be able to put on a financially sucessful World's Fair (since most such expositions lose money); but the crowds have been very good, and it is likely to turn a sizeable profit before it is torn down in November.

One thing I've discovered about Australia is that the people aren't nearly as religious as Americans are, generally speaking.  Church patronage had fallen so much over the years that it is now not unusual to see many church buildings converted into restaurants or dinner theaters!  So long as they don't convert them into brothels, nobody seems to mind.

I like the fact that I don't have to give a tip at restaurants in Australia.  It is one of but a few countries where tipping is not the practice.  Australians have a hard time with the reactions they get when they visit Europe or America and don't give any tips to waiters.

Today, I will check in on some friends in Sydney whom I met in China, then coincidentally again in Nepal, India and Thailand ... five times in fact.

Good on ya, mates,
Captain Kangaroo

Sydney, Australia, 13 June 1988 --  I met a Bulgarian man camped out in a downtown Sydney park who was in the seventh day of a hunger strike to draw attention to the plight of his wife and children still being held against their will in Bulgaria.  After being tortured, he escaped into Yugoslavia in 1986, and he says Gorbachev's call for glasnost is not all that it seems.  He was torured for listening to Voice of America broadcasts and for saying that he likeed Ronald Reagan.  I might have quipped that I'd toruture him saying that as well, but I didn't think he'd appreciate the humor.  Instead, I looked up the local address and telephone number of Amnesty International for him, and called three local television stations to see if they thought covering the story of this guy might be newsworthy.  A couple of them said they would check it out while another said that Sydney gets three or four East European hunger strikers a year ... in effect, not newsworthy.  Besides, they wouldn't want to promote such behavior by others.

Like most modern Western nations, Australia seems less prudish than America.  Nude beaches are one obvious example.  No locks on bathroom doors in private homes are a subtler example (and it is true of dozens of homes I've visited).  Willie, the personified penus, sold as a stuffed toy in Hallmark card shops, is yet another.

I'm surely going to miss this continent.  No surprises.  If it wasn't for my roots and culture in America, I would choose Australia as a more liveable place; but I'm American to the core.

Noumea, New Caladonia, 15 June 1988 -- Bon Jour!  Another of the world's trouble spots is the South Pacific island of New Caladonia.  As is often the case, however, media attention of places where there is some violent conflict going on makes the place only seem that much more peaceful once you arrive.  Except for the large French security force at the airport, the capital city of Noumea seems as colm and relaxed as can be.  The native Kanacks are still in an armed struggle with the French on other parts of the island.  The French aren't likely to give up their colony and grant independence too readily since, among other things, the island is the world's third largest producer of nickle.  The island has fewer than 100,000 people, about 60% of which is native, with the rest being French or mixed French-Melanesians.  Again, as I've so often noticed while traveling, mixed races often result in the most beautiful looking people.

Noumea is a small town, but typically French ... "with a pink hotel, a boutique and a swinging hot spot" (as Joni Mitchell sings in her song "Big Yellow Taxi").  The beaches are nice, but as I have only two days here, I'll have not time to get out to the little villages to meet the locals and see the "real" New Caladonia.

Tommorow, I leave the tropics again to wintertime in New Zealand ... from palm trees and sunshine to freezing drizzle.  Still, even in winter, in spite of the weather, New Zealand has per square mile more naturally scenic beauty than just about any other country on Earth ... a bit different from Australia, which is noted only for the Great Barrier Reef and a big rock in the middle of the country and miles upon miles of nothing, which they refer to as "outback".

It cost me $4 at the bank here just to exchange $20 into the local currency.

Queenstown, New Zealand, 22 June 1988 -- G'day!  'Owarya?  Unfortunately, there's not enough snow to go skiing here yet.  I know some people who paid $800 to book a week of skiing at the lodge here and are more than dissappointed that they cannot get their money back for lack of snow.

There was plenty of snow today, however, at Mt. Cook (12,347 feet), the highest point in this part of the world, where I spent the first day of winter, the shortest day of the year, June 22nd.  I was fortunate to be close enough and yet a safe distance from a huge thundering avalanche.  There was never any danger anywhere I treaded, but it must have been very intimidating for others bound for more hazardous parts of the mountain.

New Zealand has long been a rather progressive place.  In 1893, nearly a quarter century before America did the same thing, this was the first country to give women the right to vote.  The Polynesian native population, the Mauri, always had the vote, and there's never been any racial separation (although they are still disadvantaged by prejudice).

Far-sighted social reforms pioneered here include old-age pensions, minimum wage laws, arbitration courts and various child health services.  Is it any wonder then that New Zealand would be the first U.S. ally to thumb its nose at its big buddy and tell it where it can stick its nuclear missiles while declaring itself a nuclear free zone?  "The mouse that roared," my bus driver called it.  Thanks, but no thanks, New Zealanders say.  We'll do without your military bases.

Economically, however, the country seems to be doing very poorly.  The population has decreased in the past decade as Kiwis (New Zealanders) have fled largely to Australia in search of employment and a haven from the hyper-inflation that has made this place absolutely unaffordable for many people.  I haven't met any New Zealanders traveling.  It's actually cheaper for them to fly to Australia or even to Hawaii than to go from the North to the South Island of New Zealand!

I wish I had a recording of the Wizard of Christchurch.  He is the most worthwhile tourist attraction in Christchurch.  Extremely eloquent and witty, he stands in the town square every day in his black robe and cap, and for an hour and a half spouts some of the most interesting and amusing philosophies I've ever heard, poking fun at everything and everybody.  His hecklers add to the show as well.  I know some who are coming back to Christchurch from other travels around the island just so they can hear the Wizard do his thing again.  He's been doing it for 20 years.

Auckland, New Zealand, 26 June 1988 -- By the time you read this, I'll have called you from the U.S.A. (Southern California, that is).  I've decided to rush through this very expensive country, catch most of the highlights, and head off to somewhere more affordable.  I can live like a king in Mexico for one-third the cost of living like a pauper here.  I can also catch Hatem and Kathy in San Diego, one week before Hatem heads off on his pilgrimage to Mecca.

I mistimed the ski season by a week or so.  Snow is undoubtedly falling heavily today high in the mountains, just as it is pissing down a cold rain here at low elevations for many hours now.

This country has such a wide variety of scenic areas.  Whatever one could ask for is here -- majestic mountains, palm-lined beaches, rainforests, deserts, fjords, glaciers, geysers, volcanos -- you name it.  The other day, I touried an area that looks very much like the fjords of Norway.  The past couple days, I've been staying at hostels near Franz Josef and Fox Glaciers, two glaciers which extend from 8000 down to 800 feet above sea level and terminate, amazingly enough, in a subtropical rainforest (like having a glacier in Florida)!  Next, I'll be visiting geysers and hot springs in an area similar to Yellowstone called Rotorua (not be confused with the plumbing company called Roto Rooter -- although the rotten-egg sulpher smells of the hot springs might remind one of them).  As beautiful as this country is, I think that I would still rank it second to Norway of the places I've seen for what I would call "breathtakingness per square mile", followed probably by Nepal and Switzerland.  The U.S.A. probaby has the greatest abundance and variety of beautiful scenery overall, but you have to travel through thousands of miles of relative nothingness to take it all in.  In New Zealand, most everything is concentrated in an area not much larger than Minnesota.

The hotels and motels in this rmote part of the country are virtually empty.  Everybody riding the national bus system is a backpacker, and the busloads unload their passengers at the youth hostels.  We're all quite cozy here huddled around the fireplace.  Soon, I'll be back in the tropics of Tahiti and a few days later in the scorching hot desert of Southern California.  I can lighten my backpack of the woolen long-johns I've been carrying.

One of the first things I'm going to do when I land in the States next week is to find me a Taco Bell Burrito Supreme!  Almost everything else that's American has been obtainable in this part of the world.  It shouldn't be too much of a culture shock being back in my country after nearly 29 months.  Wherever one is in the world, one cannot completely get away from American culture for very long (in the way that one can get away, for example, from Sudanese culture).  Aspects of America can be found almost everywhere.

Happy summertime,
Peace and love,
Deano

Papaete, Tahiti, 01 July 1988 -- Paradise was nto my first impression upon arriving in Tahiti's noisy, ugly, expensive main city of Papaete.  Most people quickly head for much more pleasant nearby islands.

I'll be leaving tomorrow, however, after only two days here, and will land on American soil for the first time in nearly 29 months.  I would have spent less than two days here were it not for the two June 30ths I experienced upon crossing the Internation Date Line.

Outside of the city, I have enjoyed the lovely palm-fringed, warm-watered, black-sand beaches with their many wonderful sights such as that which you see on this card.  Polynesian women rank somewhere near the top of my list of beauty.  'Tis a shame I don't speak French ... Ou la la!!!

Prices don't make sense here.  Fresh milk is $3.50 a quart while you can buy beef steak for less than you pay in the States.  Beer in supermarkets is priced similarly as in the states, but in the average bar around here you can pay between $6 and $10 per glass!  One often pays much less if one speaks French when asking the price of something.

This is a mighty big ocean to cross.  I've already spent eight hours in the air; another seven or so are coming tomorrow.  Then, it's hello America, my 54th country to visit this trip.

Au revoir
Robinson Caruseau

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