Be careful what you put on your bucket list. You might end up visiting a place that feels a lot like staying at home—fifty or sixty years ago. You might find yourself in Australia. For those of you who love nostalgia, “Happy Days” and familiar forms of fun, this giant island continent is the place for you. So channel your inner Fonzie, and off we go.

Our adventures in Australia begin in Melbourne, a southern harbor city with a passion for coffee, Asian Fusion food and a raging bar scene. As you rub elbows with the thousands of twenty-something hipsters who pack the upscale waterfront bars, déjà vu could set in and you might start thinking that you’re in Seattle or San Francisco before all those pesky troubles of the world started drawing your attention away from your next pick up line. Wayne and I, who had plenty of good times in San Francisco back in the day, arrived in Melbourne in February—mid-summer—and just as damp and chilly as summertime in the city where Tony Bennet left his heart. We zipped our fleece jackets up over our aloha shirts and set out to see the sights.

​We later lunched at Chin Chin, a trendy Asian Fusion restaurant on the radar of the young urban professional set. The place was so packed we ended up with seats squashed into the waiters’ serving station. One glance around confirmed that we were the only diners over thirty, but we did enjoy the well-seasoned and well-prepared Thai-ish food from the ambitious menu of appetizers, curries, rice and noodle dishes, salads and desserts. Duck, wagyu beef, prawns, and fresh tuna appeared in various preparations, with basil, chili, coconut and lemongrass as the go-to seasonings. Wayne dryly observed that if the proprietors of Chin Chin knew what that phrase meant in colloquial Japanese, they might have chosen a different name for their restaurant.

While in Melbourne we also enjoyed lunch at Maha, a lovely contemporary Middle Eastern restaurant located in a basement off a side street, (21 Bond Street.) We chose the six course lunch, which they were happy to prepare as a vegetarian meal for me. Wayne preferred the meat version, which included calamari with saffron and tomato, pomegranate braised beef cheeks, and a duck preparation with pomegranate, cumin roasted carrots, and Persian aged rice with barberries and almonds. I was delighted by the local olives, baba ghanoush (cooked, mashed and flavored eggplant), and smoked hummus. Dessert was a fanciful baklava “cigar” with spiced syrup and honey ice cream. Maha also offers a “Bar Special” lunch that features a pomegranate glazed pork burger, with pickled red cabbage, and coriander peanut butter hummus, served with an Almaza Pilsner beer.

Before leaving Melbourne, we visited Gewurzhaus Herb and Spice Merchants (gewurzhaus.com.au) at the massive Queen Victoria Market. At seventeen acres, the Queen Victoria, established in 1878, is the largest open air market in the Southern Hemisphere. After viewing row after row of meats, fish, shellfish and vegetables of every kind, we came upon the Gewurzhaus, a friendly place that sells chocolates and cooking equipment as well as a huge assortment of spices, many imported, but ground and prepared in Melbourne. We purchased little jars of White Truffle Salt and Black Truffle Salt to take home as gifts, and some luscious chocolate bars for ourselves. The Milk Chocolate with Black Truffle Salt has a deep, earthy flavor, and other enticing combinations are available, such as Merlot Salt Dark Chocolate and Chipotle Chili Dark Chocolate.

We flew from chilly Melbourne to sweltering Uluru, (previously named Ayer’s Rock,) passing through a time warp into pre-historic Australia. Pre-historic is a European concept, as the indigenous people who held this huge monolithic stone sacred, had chronological memories that went back millennia to the “Dreamtime,” a period of early human civilization before recorded history. Human beings settled around Uluru about 10,000 years ago, and the Pitjantjatjara tribe, with members still living in the area, believes that Uluru was formed by ancestral beings during the Dreamtime.

​Americans treasure the Grand Canyon, and Australians rightly treasure its opposite twin, Uluru, which juts up above the eroded sandstone surrounding it rather than downward through water erosion like the Grand Canyon. When we arrived, the surrounding hot, flat region was bone dry, and there were so many flies buzzing around that we had to wear nets over our faces to prevent the flies from entering our mouths or flying up our noses. Still, the place was hauntingly beautiful, and the red sandstone does shift colors at dawn and dusk. We explored the ancient cave paintings created by the Pitjantjatjara people using natural pigments in red, yellow, orange, gray, black and white. Many of the symbolic designs are circular in nature, and this motif, along with the colors used at Uluru, are still popular with native Australian artists today.

​As we were admiring Uluru’s rock art, lightning strikes started in the surrounding dry flatlands. Then thunder began to boom. Suddenly a downpour hit Uluru, and torrential rain rushed down the mountain, filling the dry water holes, creating puddles all around the monolith and flooding the area while soaking all of us to the skin. As we lookup up at the sheets of water pouring out of the sky, we were astounded to witness spontaneous waterfalls rushing down all over the surface of Uluru. No harm came to us or to any of Uluru’s visitors that day, and we felt privileged to have experienced what we learned later was the heaviest rainfall on Uluru in thirty years.

Near Cairns we spent an evening at the Tjapukai Aboriginal Culture Center, a bit of a touristy place, but owned by the local Tjapukai tribe and a source of fascinating information about one of the world’s most ancient cultures. In a spirit of good fun, our young hosts and hostesses taught us about indigenous dance, folklore, medicine, cultural values, music and food. A young woman gave a very lucid lecture on the leeching processes used to develop ancient medicines and foods, and a young man gave us a demonstration on the various uses of the boomerang. I was pleased to learn that the boomerang, when used on other human beings, was not intended as a lethal weapon. A competent boomerang thrower could hit a trouble maker in the shoulder with a shot that would disable him for about three months, giving him time to think about adjusting his behavior in the future.

​We were mesmerized by the digeridoo music played by another young man as we were served a well prepared and tasty meal of local indigenous foods. Some of our meal was baked in a Bayngga Oven, an underground fire pit similar to a Hawaiian Imu. A hardwood fire is lined with Tea Tree bark to which ginger and lemon myrtle leaves are added for flavor. Then hot volcanic stones are placed on top. Meat, yams, fish and eggs, wrapped in leaves are cooked in the oven and served on plates made from candle nut leaves and eaten with the fingers. Kangaroo meat was available for those who wished to try it, as were mussels and prawns and lemongrass-scented tuna. Desserts included a bounty of fresh fruits as well as Davidson plum cheesecake and Lemon Myrtle tarts.

Our whirlwind tour of Australia concluded in Sydney, where we roasted in the blistering heat, even as we explored the famous ship-inspired Opera House and visited the charming one-hundred-year old Toranga Zoo. There we observed Tasmanian devils, echidnas, a platypus, koalas, and lizards and visited the zoo kitchen where all of the animals’ food was prepared. Then we were off to the beach where human Australians like to spend as much time as possible.

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Undaunted after a sweaty cruise of the harbor, we took a “foodie tour” of some of the local favorites. First we visited P. R. Raineri’s Delicatessen, a happy, family-owned Italian place run by Peter and his wife Sarina for over thirty-five years. We were offered generous samplings of cheeses, antipasto, olives and olive oils. The staff, many of whom seemed to be related, couldn’t have been more welcoming, and Peter’s offers an excellent selection of best quality Italian foods. Then we were off to the Sydney Fish Market where we indulged in Fish and Chips amid a mind-boggling array of every sort of edible sea creature, including lobster-like crustaceans called “bugs” in Australia.
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​We made another stop at a rather quirky place, Harry’s Café de Wheels, a venerable old food truck selling English style savory pies topped with mashed potatoes, mashed peas and brown gravy. Not a light lunch, but Harry’s offered a refreshing whiff of nostalgia and a gentle reminder that food can be fun.

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​Gelato Messina, our final stop, was more than good fun. It was manna from heaven on a hot summer day when only ice cream will do. Australia’s favorite gelato shop, with four locations in Sydney, offers a stunning array of gelato and sorbet, from the familiar to the innovative. Some of the choices we found especially intriguing were: poached figs in marsala, Italian nougat, milk chocolate with chocolate peanut fudge, salted caramel and white chocolate (the top seller,) dulce de leche and apple pie, and pear and rhubarb. Oh, which to choose?Throughout our travels in Australia, we stopped to visit nature preserves where we had priceless opportunities to interact with this isolated continent’s unique animals. Our final animal experience was at Featherdale Wildlife Park, north of Sydney. Not exactly a zoo, at this park the animals are relatively free to wander as they wish, and the visitors can feed them, pet them and observe them face to face. Here we enjoyed petting the koalas, feeding the kangaroos, wallabies and wombats, admired a rather aloof and regal dingo and marveled at an array of lovely birds, including penguins, cockatoos and owls. We believe that our lives are profoundly enriched by the very presence of these rare animals who share our world.

We cannot leave Australia behind without enjoying Afternoon Tea in this former British colony, now the Commonwealth of Australia. Two of our favorite Afternoon Tea experiences were in Sydney. The first was the Palace Tea Room in the Queen Victoria Building, one of the most beautiful shopping centers in the world. Designed by Scottish architect George McRae and built between 1893 and 1898, this massive, cathedral-like Romanesque Revival structure occupies an entire city block in downtown Sydney. Adorned with columns, arches and a gorgeous central stained glass dome, this unforgettable place has been restored to its original purpose—shopping. Exhausted by wandering from one shop to another, we needed refreshment.

The Palace awaited. This sweet little shop offers a classic British- style Afternoon Tea with seating either inside the Tea Room or out on the galleria. We chose inside seating at a lovely marble table (white tablecloths seem to have disappeared from Australian tea parties.) There was a good tea selection available—Wayne chose Licorice-Ginger, and I had Paris Vanilla Spice, both quite good, and even better because they were served in pretty individual teapots in the Wedgwood Cuckoo pattern, a colorful design of flowers and birds. Two-tiered servers of the same pattern also presented our excellent freshly baked scones with mixed berry jam and just-made sandwiches, which included egg salad, spicy crab salad, and savory “cookie” sandwiches. The generous array of sweets included mocha macarons, chocolate mousse petits fours, very special home-made lime marshmallows, tiny banana cream tarts, and mini vanilla cupcakes with cream cheese icing.

Our second truly memorable Afternoon Tea experience took place at the Cortile Lobby Lounge at the Sydney Intercontinental Hotel on our final day in Australia. This tea was served as a buffet with domed chafing dishes for the warm savory items. There were good fresh sandwiches with not the slightest hint of refrigeration, and waffles as well as scones. The scones were different from any I had ever eaten, not pastry-like but quite delicious. They were baked in the shape of muffins and had the texture of a slightly sweet, dense, cake-like bread. These interesting scones were served with a very thick vanilla bean whipped cream, strawberry jam and Nutella. Lemon slices were available for the tea, which was served in plain white china teapots. We drank very good Green Sencha and Black Darjeeling tea. White cloth napkins accompanied the table setting, but again no tablecloths. A colorful selection of macarons highlighted the sweets table, including black currant with candied violet filling and raspberry with raspberry vanilla filling. Candies and biscotti added to the festive ambience of this generous tea buffet. Even though our adventures in Australia were over, this Afternoon Tea in Sydney did what every Afternoon Tea aims to do. It made us feel, at least for a brief time, that all is right with the world.

For those of you not quite ready to let go of that pleasant feeling of wellbeing our time in Australia has evoked, turn to Afternoon Tea for Our Elders in the Special Occasions section of myteaplanner.com. This menu celebrates the classic tea experience and features one of our all-time favorite desserts: Sticky Date Pudding with Caramel Sauce. Another trusted recipe from Gourmet magazine, this 1997 offering from Australia’s island state, Tasmania, produces a rich golden cake, studded with chopped dates and smothered with warm, buttery, home-made caramel topping. In either hemisphere, this tea time favorite will keep us smiling for a very long time.