Confused identity

Australia can be a confusing place. A few weekends ago I made the great migration from the bright lights and big city of Sydney to the outback of Western Australia. I write to you from Perth, (second only to Honolulu as the most isolated city in the world) and former stomping grounds of Chris G-Man Gorini, which I foresee as my home base for approximately the next three months. I say it’s confusing because on my Qantas Airlines flight 575 from Sydney to Perth, NO ONE asked to see my ID. Not a single soul. When my co-worker and I arrived we checked ourselves in at the automated machine by entering our reservation code. Out popped our boarding passes and we proceeded to the desk to check-in our luggage. Normally that’s where they hit you up for identification…..

….except when traveling domestically in Australia.

It was most certainly a lack of oversight instead of policy that they didn’t ask for ID. Between our personal stuff and work related gear (printer, magazines, etc) we clearly got to the counter with a lot of excess baggage and frenetically asked the agent lots of questions hoping to find a loophole to not get charged the insane excess baggage prices. So amidst the flurry of questions he probably forget to ask for our ID. But at security, it was certainly standard procedure to not check IDs or boarding passes. There was a line of 8 people taking off their shoes, emptying their pockets, and no one was asked for identification.

Perhaps I am so programmed to post-9/11 air travel that anything short of 3 ID checks and full pat downs seems irresponsible. Last December when I flew from Paris to Philadelphia they checked for ID during the boarding process itself; after they ripped my boarding pass but before stepping on to the plane there was a guard who asked for my ID, opened my hand carry to inspect it, and patted me down. I’m not saying that should happen all the time. Just that we have come to expect full fledged ID checks when traveling by air and the absence of seems an oddity. Decoupling ID checks from the populist and in Australia’s case, unlikely, terrorist argument, to me it just seems sloppy to not verify someone’s identification when boarding a plane.

What a coincidence, you do not need to present an ID when entering a government building in Australia either. I have been in several government office buildings, both federal and state, for work over the past few weeks. In Canberra we had a meeting with the Secretary for Resources and Energy (the Secretary here is not the equivalent of a cabinet Secretary in the US like the Secretary of State, Secretary of Transportation etc….that equivalent in Australia would be called a Minister) and last we met with the Premier of Western Australia (equivalent of a governor). ID check? Nope. Just scribble your name on a sign-in sheet and have seat on the couch please, the Premier will see you in just a few moments.

So you don’t need an ID to board a plane or enter a government building in Australia. But go figure, you do need to present 2 forms of ID AND proof of an Australian bank account to buy a portable modem and sign up for a month-to-month plan at Vodafone. Then what about going out to bars and clubs? Well, that depends. I’ve been to some places where they let me in with my State of New Jersey Department of Motor Vehicles issued drivers license. I’ve been elsewhere where they demand a passport in order to let me in because “drivers licenses can be faked” (like I’m gonna carry my passport around to the bars) and another club where they ask for a passport AND scan your fingerprints upon entrance. All in all it’s a confusing mix of inconsistencies but not checking for IDs for air travel will make me scratch my head for a long time.

Ninjas rescue Sydney student from muggers

(Reuters) - Ninjas are not known for having a soft side, but a group of warriors came to the rescue of a student in Sydney who was being viciously assaulted by muggers.

Oddly Enough

Ninjas scared off three men who were attacking a 27-year-old German medical exchange student in an alleyway outside their warrior school, the Sydney Morning Herald newspaper reported on Wednesday.

One of the teachers saw the attack and instructed the students, who were decked out in their black garb, to go out and confront the muggers.

"You should have seen their faces when they saw us in ninja gear coming towards them," the school's sensei, or master, Kaylan Soto, told the newspaper.

Another ninja, Steve Ashley, said: "It was probably the worst place in Sydney where they could have taken him."

(Writing Miral Fahmy, editing by Sugita Katyal)

Adventure Man would NOT be proud

A few months ago I threw up a post titled “Adventure Man would be proud.” It was about my rappelling adventure down mountains in Colombia and how my outdoorsy friend Eric Adventure Man Day would have been proud of me. Well this post is the COMPLETE ANTITHESIS of that. This is the no-holds bar, check my pride at the door and make fun of me all you want, total admission of stupidity, utter humiliation story of how weak and feeble I am at the hands of Mother Nature. For those who remember my crazy adventure of anything and everything going wrong traveling from Moscow to Bogota, this is almost the same thing except mixed with the great outdoors.

I’ll cut to the chase and then elaborate. I got completely lost in the woods hiking by myself yesterday and the national park had to send a rescue team out to find me.

Several weekends ago was a 3 day weekend in commemoration of ANZAC (Australia New Zealand Army Corps) Day. It is their Memorial and Veterans Day in one. On that Sunday night I scoped out a hiking club on the internet that was planning a hiking trip to a nearby national park on the next day. So I decided to go. I got up bright eyed and bushy tailed on Monday morning to catch the train to the park. I was so consumed with my book on the train that I missed the station where I had to transfer lines. So by the time I finally got to the park the group had already left (I arrived 30 minutes after the stated meet up time). But, I had gotten up early and traveled all the way there so I figured, heck, might as well go for a nice hike on a lovely day. I was surrounded by families with kids at the beginning of the trail so clearly it was nothing strenuous….

…and it wasn’t for the first 45 minutes. The first major stopping point on the family friendly trail was a very pretty reflecting pool lake at the end of creek in a semi-deep ravine. It was a very pretty spot especially under a late morning sun so I decided to chill out there and have an early lunch. After lunch I followed signs for a new trail towards a waterfall. The trail was up a steep mountain so it was at this point that the families and their little kids turned around and went home. There was another guy hiking solo with a map heading up the mountain so I followed him up leaving enough distance between the two of us so as to not intrude on him. The mountain got steep and the bush got thicker, but there was still a discernable trail that I was following. The guy ahead of me was pretty fast so I ended up losing track of him.

Then around 12:45pm I reached an open space on some rocks atop a mini hill where I lost the trail going forward. The rocks I was standing on were sort of a clearing; an island of empty space surrounded high grass. I couldn’t tell where the trail continued going forward. I advanced in several directions but nothing seemed like a pre-marked trail. As disappointed as I was to not reach the waterfall I figured it most prudent to just head back the way I came from. Only problem was, I couldn’t find the trail from where I came from! I had lost the trail going forward and going back. Confused, I wandered around heading back down the mountain in the general direction of where I believed I came from, hoping to pick up the trail, but nothing. The bush was just getting thicker. Confusion for about ½ hour was followed by anger for the next hour. I was cutting my way through thick bush cursing at myself for being so stupid and consumed by paranoia in the back of my head of what animals there might be. Australia after all does have x, y, and z types of lethal and venomous snakes, spiders, and what have you. Being lost in the bush in Australia is one of the last places I would ever want to be. But yet there I was so I was very pissed at myself.

Then around 2:30pm a sense of worry settled in. I realized that I had been lost for about 2 hours and I only had a little more than 2 hours to find my way back before the sun goes down. Remember that it’s autumn here so the days end early. I didn’t really want to think about that option so I kept on moving. By now I was at the bottom of a mountain in a ravine, walking along a creek. I figured that the creek had to feed into the lake where I had lunch so if I followed it I would find my way back.

Nothing.

3:00pm and I was really freaking out. I am in the middle of the woods so I had no cell phone signal. Even if I did have a signal I only had one bar of battery left. I was lost in the Australian woods, alone, in a race against the sun with no phone coverage and one bar of battery. I held out for as long before screaming“help!” I wanted to avoid it at all costs. To me, mentally it would have signaled that I was truly screwed and it only would have added to my paranoia. But I wasn’t finding my way and screaming out for human life was another option that I had not exhausted. It’s pretty eery to scream at the top of your lungs “help!! Can anyone hear me?!!?” and hear NOTHING except the echo of your panic and the birds. I was in very pretty surroundings. Whenever possible I sought high ground to see if any of the land looked familiar. I was met by pretty stunning views of the later afternoon sun on the mountains. Unfortunately, I wasn’t exactly in picture taking mode so I missed out on a lot of good photo opps.

As I got to higher ground I thought I had a better chance of picking up a cell phone signal. So I dialed 911 and was able to get a faint trace of an operator who connected me to a local dispatch and I explained my situation. The call dropped several times and I had to move to 3 or 4 different spots to make the call again and again. It was a huge relief to hear a human voice and know that help was being sent, but my worry shifted to having enough battery to make the call last! The dispatch told me that a “rescue team” was being sent out for me and to stay put. The cops would set off sirens in about 20 minutes and would call to see if I heard anything. 30 minutes later no sirens, no call. Growing impatient I called back 911. This time it was more productive. The signal stayed strong enough and the battery lasted for the next 20-25 minutes while I was on the phone with the operator. I was actually speaking to the operator who was typing to a dispatch who was radioing to the cops on the ground looking for me. So anything I said went through that channel to reach the cops, and then back the same route for the cops to communicate to me. It worked well though. I stayed on the phone and was speaking to the operating describing the position of the sun, the direction of the planes flying overhead, and periodically screaming out for my voice to be picked up.

Help finally arrived when I heard my name being shouted out followed by the louder footsteps of the cop and park ranger who eventually made their way to me. They arrived at 4:15pm, about 45 minutes before the sun went down. Oh man, what a relief. They asked if I was OK and I admitted that the only thing hurt about me was my ego. They told me that it’s not uncommon for someone to get lost and I was lucky to have not run into any of the aggressive drop-bears that live in those woods. Turned out that they totally punked me because if you type in “Drop bear” in Wikipedia you’ll see what I’m talking about.

Lessons to be learned: when hiking in the woods always carry a map, always carry a roll of toilet paper, make sure your cell phone battery is fully charged, and do not be afraid to throw up a blog post about how stupid you are for getting lost.