The Land of Oz

Standing on a tiny beach, situated on a tiny island off the coast of Oz, I saw a two meter shark suddenly appear in 30 centimeters of water only a meter away from me. A handful of children had been playing in the crystal blue water only moments before. Thankfully, the children had all departed just before the gaping jaws broke the surface and thrashed around, hunting for something unseen in the shallow waters. I jumped a little and hesitated before yelling “shark!” to the other bathers on the beach. The shark left as fast as it had appeared off around the edge of the little sandy cove we had chosen to spend our afternoon in. It was the first shark we had seen, and on our last day adventuring through the wilds of Queensland, Australia.

While driving a campervan up the coast from Brisbane to Daintree, we wondered why nobody was ever in the water. We assumed it was because of sharks, right up until we saw signs warning of dangerous, life-threatening jelly fish. Then it made total sense; people weren’t in the ocean because of sharks AND jelly fish. So, we didn’t go in either. In the cities there were often beachside swimming pools with sand bottoms where people would swim: yes, even more evidence of the dangers lurking out in the actual ocean. Then, as we got even further north, we learned that the most dangerous animal around, an animal that, statistically, kills two people in Australia every year, was the saltwater crocodile. Now we knew why nobody was swimming—it was the sharks, the jellyfish, AND the saltwater crocs. I think that after a report of a sea snake slithering around the leg of a fellow traveler, we even threw sea snakes into the mix of oceanic monsters ready to gobble up tender tourists.

Speaking of monstrous situations, before we left on our adventures in Oz, we almost had our trip canceled for us because of the airspace over Israel being closed during the 12 Day War with Iran. Fortunately, it wasn’t the 18 Day War with Iran… As well, we almost canceled the trip ourselves from burgeoning antisemitism reaching into the government in Australia. Even when we arrived down under we were concerned about letting people know where we were actually from, and where we’d lived for the past 20 years raising our family. We knew they’d all been subjected to the network news hammering them with lopsided and biased reporting about Israel. We just knew that if and when we told anyone where home was, we would be demonized as monsters for unspeakable crimes we personally committed against an innocent people who were fighting against an oppressor and colonizer, as the news most often implies. What would we say when we were asked? Everyone did assume that we were American, but hiding the real truth… oy.

After seeing the sights in Brisbane and visiting Frasier Island, also known as N’gari in the First Nation language, where we saw our first wild koala, we collected our van and journeyed north along the coast. We visited as many sites as we could along the way, hoping to see and experience as much as we could. We like to immerse ourselves into a trip and to try and understand the culture and people we come into contact with. This is often fellow travelers, but locals as well. Camping made this quite easy, as it was high season in Australia. The locals were leaving the south in droves to find warmer weather. In Australia, summer is winter and winter is summer, which can make communication quite difficult at times. It’s like driving on the left side of the road when you’re used to the right. Things are usually unexpected, but natural all the same, something like deer that hop, bears that snuggle, and mammals that lay eggs. The Land of Oz is a special place indeed.

Once we arrived at our campsite further north, we decided to use up a free day to visit a couple of beach sites along the coast. We arrived at Dingo Beach, expecting to see dingoes like we had on Frasier Island, but saw eagles and crabs instead. The tide was out, and I mean WAY out, and we wandered as far as we could out onto the wet sand. It felt like walking on water. We were almost totally alone, except for a few locals we saw walking along the high tide line. We could tell they were locals because they wore boots and pants, unlike us tourists in our shorts and sandals hopping out to explore the undersea magic. And magic there was! There were strange looking hermits synchronized like swimmers skating across the wet earth, tiny balls of sand organized into art installations by crafty crabs, and even some tiny bubbling snail-like things barely moving, buried in the sand, as the wind whipped over us all, carrying eagles, egrets, kookaburras, and gulls…

Two days later we finally understood why the locals had been wearing boots. Mozzies and midges were something we’d heard of, but now found it necessary to add to our list of reasons not to go to the beach, much less into the water. We were itching from head to foot, which we now know is the worst thing you can do. The mosquitos and sandflies had had both breakfast and lunch on our tab, and we were still paying the bill a week later.

Covered with tiny itchy bumps, we left our campervan at the campground and boarded a sailing vessel for a few days of snorkeling and whale watching in the Whitsundays. Since we’d be sleeping on board, we put on scopolamine patches for sea sickness so we’d be ready for 3 days of high seas. On board we met fellow travelers from both Canada and from Lichtenstein (you know, the 6^th smallest country in the world separating Austria and Switzerland). I’ve never met anyone from Lichtenstein before and immediately began conversing with them. Yup… I couldn’t help myself; and, because of side effects I experience from scopolamine, I got quite talkative and began sharing openly about where we were from. I was nervous at first, since the immediate response was a long pause, but by the end of the sailing trip we all became quite good friends. The flames of concern about antisemitism and false judgment had been fanned by the media; the news, we came to understand, while anchored in real events, was basically make-believe.

From that point on we shared with almost everyone on the trip that we were from Israel. Australians were very compassionate towards us, and really seemed to feel the pain we have been enduring for the last couple of years. There was also curiosity about life in Israel. While not as small as Lichtenstein, Israel is one of the smallest countries in the world, but is thought to be huge from the amount of attention it gets around the world. Everyone we spoke to knew of it, and knew of our plight to live in our ancient homeland.

After spending over a month traveling the coastline in Northern Queensland, we started to understand what life down under must be like. The country is so far from everything else that it might as well be called the Land of Oz, fantastical in so many ways, yet something like the United States as well. It has an ancient people, the First Nation tribes, just like the US. It also has roots that extend from the English Empire, where colonies were set up to plunder the resources and convert the original inhabitants. It is interesting, however, to note that the English also included the Land of Israel within their empire, having carved lines all throughout the Middle East. At least with the Balfour Declaration they did try to give back the land to the nation that had been there first, which had been stolen 2,000 years prior. Come to think of it, while not indigenous like the tribes in Australia, Israel could be considered a First Nation. Israel is not as old as the aborigines, who have roots going back 8,000 years, but the Jews have been in the Land of Israel for at least 3,500 years, so...

We found that traveling down under to the Land of Oz was a long way to go, but it was really worth the trip. Watching humpback whales swim alongside our boat, being pleasantly surprised by an echidna coming out of the underbrush and crossing the trail in front of us, feeding carrots to rock wallabies living next to a helipad, and seeing glowing spores light up the trunk of a tree in the dark of night were only a few of the wonders we witnessed in Oz. Some of the real wonders were the people I met along the way as well, from the self-proclaimed “aborigine girl” who helped us find a grocery store, to the farmer who gave us a ride around his farm, right up to the edge of the rainforest, and to the woman who sold us pillow covers with aboriginal prints that began to quietly weep when we spoke of how important it was to reach out to her Jewish friend suffering from afar as she watched the pain Israel has been going through. Oh, and the real reason people weren’t going in the water was that it was just too dang cold! At least that’s what someone said along the way… I am just really pleased with our adventure, and in the end all we had to contend with were a few mozzies and midges while exploring a very small and special part of the Land of Oz — later, mates!  

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