Australia Travel Log, Part 3

By Jenine Stanley

As you may remember, I last left you all with baby Kangaroos, Koalas and the Leakingikidna. I was the last one to leave those babies to go in and eat. Now, I have to go back and visit a wildlife station…

The rest of the night's entertainment included Aboriginal dancing and a local band. The Aboriginal dancers were, uh, scantily dressed. We all felt sorry for them because it was maybe 50 or 60 degrees in the building. Luckily, they were dancing pretty fast! I got an imaginary spear through my arm in one dance as our conference hosts made sure Rosemary and I got a table right down, practically in the middle of the dance floor. She got a good view, and was generous with the audio description. <grin>

The local band was part contemporary country folk and part traditional miner and weaver-type music. They got people up and square dancing. The main group from our conference called it a night at just after 9:00 p.m., but we stayed to close the place. I was glad we did. The leader of the band has won awards for his poetry recitations and he dedicated one to our little group of five stalwart partyers. It was about a flasher and we were on the floor laughing, and most of us were still sober! As you can tell, the evening was not exactly rated P.G. I'll tell you, it was fine with me.

I sat down with my plate and realized that the hard part of the trip was over! I could party and enjoy myself! Yes! After that, I had a blast! Well, back to the conference for a few final details.

I did get my photo taken with Glenda Jackson as well as photos of Toby and I inside the London Taxi. We went on a field trip to see a newly renovated suburb with tactile paving and talking buses. This was very interesting but there was no Braille signage in the elevators of the city building where we had our reception. I said, in all sincerity, that I'd be happy to come back and work with them on installation of such signage in the hotels and public buildings where it was conspicuously absent.

Tuesday night a group of us went out for a nice dinner. We thought we'd have the only access problem of our stay when the hostess of the restaurant asked if we might not prefer going in a door right near our table, rather than going through the restaurant. We shrugged and obliged, not knowing what else to do since the rest of our party hadn't yet arrived. At this new door, she then asked, "Will the dog be coming in too?" I was stunned. Rosemary piped up and said, "Well, he's been in every other restaurant in Australia with us, why not?"

Turns out the young woman had never seen a real, live guide dog before. She scampered off and came back saying that, of course, the dog could come in. This put me in a bit of a spot though. What grounds would I have had if she'd refused us, if the manager had refused us? We were to have dinner with a well-known disability advocate in Australia and I know that he would have raised holy hell about it, but he wasn't there yet. What to do?

I wasn't completely comfortable with Rosemary going any further. I quietly told her to put on her puppy raiser hat for this one, as I didn't know where we stood. She got it, but was amazed as well. Things all turned out fine. The staff all came over to see Toby and we found out why we'd been asked to come in our own door. Tables in the restaurant were so close together that we never would have fit through without bumping people.

This was fine. It just goes to show that maybe relaxation and evaluation is needed sometimes. Not always, mind you, as our cabby almost refused to take us to the restaurant, but there are times when discretion is the better part of having a decent evening out. <grin>

Wednesday, September 23

I went on a tour of the Association for the Blind and Guide Dogs of Western Australia. This is a large rehab center complex. All things "blind" can be found there, from Daily Living Skills and computer training to Braille and Talking Book production and guide-dog follow-up services. Western Australians still go to Melbourne for their dogs, but they have an instructor in Perth for follow-up help.

I met Brawny, the little yellow Lab demo-dog, a retired guide, who has the run of part of the building. She's a little "fire plug" of a dog, almost white, and very independent. She didn't think much of Toby and the feeling was mutual. They kind of looked at each other and when Toby was at a "down", beside my chair, Brawny took great delight in walking around and around the room, wagging her tail as if to say that she owned this place and don't anyone forget it.

I met Herman, one of the blind volunteers, and his guide dog, Rex. Rex is a large male Yellow Lab who is also almost white, with the odd distinction of one thumb-sized black dot on top of his head. No one knows why this is. The staff thought, seriously, that Herman had spilled ink on the dog when he first brought it in. Just before they set upon scrubbing poor Rex's skin off, the instructor confirmed what Herman had told them. It was just a weird coat marking. Oops. Rex had the classic broad flat head with a bit of a point, longish muzzle, deep chest and narrower hindquarters.

He was five years old and really was interested in Toby. Toby actually did a play bow, in harness. I'm beginning to worry about him and these almost-white male dogs. First, Sultan, the Labra-doodle, and now Rex. Maybe he's got a thing for royalty?

The day I visited the center, the guide dogs were going in for eye exams so I didn't get to meet Stewart, the guide-dog instructor. They pick up the dogs and take them in for yearly exams for PRA. The Western Australia Guide Dogs also have a telemarketing arm and sell some different products, but most are the same as the New South Whales group. I did get some different key rings and Christmas cards.

Thursday saw me taking one last conference-related trip and doing some shopping. We hit a mall where I bought some opal earrings, not exactly super high quality, but then again, I can't afford really good opals. <grin> I filled the family Christmas list and was off to the airport at around 10:30 that evening for a 1:10 a.m. flight back to Sydney.

Once again, the Berswood staff was excellent. They escorted me wherever I needed to go as I waited, without the benefit of my own hotel room, to go to the airport. By this time, I was exhausted and felt the beginning of some kind of throat/lung irritation.

As we arrived at the airport in Perth, we discovered that there was a national football game of huge importance going on. Several of the local junior high and high school equivalent teams were off to Melbourne, via Sydney, to see the game. Imagine you're at the airport at oh, say midnight, and 20 or 30 teenage football players come in. It was wild and I actually thought it was funny. Amazingly, when the flight attendants and airport staff told the kids to settle down, they did. I wouldn't have believed it had I not been there.

Now, to show you how politically incorrect, in a charming way, Australians can be, as I waited to board the plane with my airport escort, a man came out and let us know the dog pad had been laid down. "By God, look at the hair on that one! Do me a favor and mind that dog's hair," he said, almost in a gruff tone. "We clean these planes and those dogs make one hell of a mess."

I must have looked shocked. Inside, I was laughing because somehow, I knew he meant this as a joke. My airport person, who coincidentally had a rather thick Scottish accent, said to the man, "Uh, she's from America," in a warning tone. "Oh, sorry, mum," the guy muttered. "Only teasing, that." Then he disappeared. I was now laughing out loud. All I could think was that if that happened in the States, the guy wouldn't have been kidding and I would have been writing an angry letter to the airline.

Arriving at Sydney at around 7:00 a.m. I was met by Glenn again. It was cold, in the high 50's, and raining. We walked around the airport, had coffee and I bought more stuff! By the way, if you go to Australia, Glenn can find some incredible family gifts, that, uh, aren't exactly on the list of tourist bureau ditties. <grin>

My flight back to L.A. left right on time and, giving Toby ice every two hours this trip, we landed without a hitch. The throat/lung problem got worse on the plane and it felt horrible to breathe by the time I got off in L.A. Reality smacked me in the face as well once on the ground and dealing with personnel.

A flight attendant walked me down through customs. This was helpful but she was one of those people who are overly concerned about the dog. She secured an "airport-person" for me to take the dog out, but as we entered into these negotiations, it went quickly from the sublime to the ridiculous. One customs guy asked if the dog would go in the ladies room in the corner and they'd just call Maintenance to clean it up. At that point I was feeling horrible, barely able to breathe the welcome fully oxygenated air. I think, but don't recall exactly, that I said a loud, "He--No!" to this request.

Then, they handed me off to an airport person who would not, for the life of him, speak to me. He was an African-American gentleman with some kind of security job or some such thing. The more I tried to talk to him and explain where I knew the relief area to be, the less he grunted back. Yep, I was back in the USA, alright…

The final straw was when he grabbed the harness from my right side to get Toby to turn right. I told him that was a good way to get bitten and got almost a full sentence out of him. Toby did take a much-needed "whiz" on the sidewalk, though. <sigh>

Once back inside, I was handed off, no doubt gratefully, to a real person who did enjoy communication. She was very sweet and ran across the street to get me bottled water because it was so much cheaper there than at the airport stores. And, she got an employee discount. That earned her a big tip and restored my faith that not all of us are rude, or whatever I was feeling after dealing with the customs guys and my escort.

No upgrade out of L.A. to Chicago. Bummer. But we did get an empty seat beside us. I had what is definitely the worst airline breakfast imaginable on that flight. French Toast that came directly from France, in the cargo hold, uncovered. Blaaach!!

Waiting until everyone left the plane in Chicago, where an older woman, who needed a wheelchair, and I joked that we were prepared for anything now. She'd come from Sydney, too, and had been less than a model passenger on both flights, but now we were in that weird "airport camaraderie."

I stepped off the plane to screams from the airport employee who was to escort me. "I'm afraid of dogs! I'm not taking them!" she yelled at her supervisor. He must have given her the worst look on Earth because she was quiet immediately, despite Toby giving a big dog shake right near her. He ordered her to take the wheelchair and he and I left. We had a great time going to take Toby out for a nice long relief-time and hitting the pizza stand before going to my gate. He apologized for the other woman's conduct.

He too was African-American and said he hated it when "my people get all 'outside themselves' over dogs. These are the best dogs in the world. I love to help blind people with guide-dogs." He then told me of a dog just two days ago who'd walked with him just like Toby, following right along while he and the handler had a good talk about the Cubs. OK, my faith was getting stronger, but boy, did I miss Australia!

A gate change found me getting into another one of those nice airport moments when you meet another passenger who offers to walk with you to the gate and you strike up a nice conversation. Others from our flight joined us and we had a nice little group by the time we got to the gate. One guy filled me in on the Ohio State game that I missed. The final flight back to Columbus was jam-packed. It was hot in steerage. <grin> There wasn't an empty seat on that plane, but I lucked out with two extremely fun row-mates.

It was good to see Kent waiting for me outside that jet-way. I had really missed him and knew that he would have loved this trip. I told him we are going back, soon! <grin>

Just a few final observations. I saw some incredibly useful audible traffic signals in Sydney. Some even had vibrating arrows on them for deaf blind people or to use in high wind or rainy conditions. These signals let out a steady, one beep per second (or so) noise when the light is not in your favor. This allows you to find the pole, push the button and line up. (Editor's note: These are called "Locator Tones") The poles seemed to be placed close enough that you never got out of alignment. The beeps change to about five per second (or so) when you get the light. These things were great! They were everywhere in Sydney, but in only a few places in Perth.

Tactile paving or detectable warnings were also everywhere. Most times, they were used efficiently, but we did see a few examples of overkill in Perth. What I didn't see, though, was Braille and raised print signs. None in either hotel, though the room numbers in Sydney were somewhat tactile. As the Australians get their version of the ADA up and running and get it working well, I hope signage will come along. I never realize how much I miss it until I'm without it.

I loved the pace of life, the sense of humor and the attitude of most people I met during my trip. If you ever get the chance to go to Australia, brave the paperwork and go! You'll love it. Keep an open mind and have fun!

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Note: This travel log was originally sent to members of the Buddy-l e-mail list for guide dog handlers. We truly want to thank Jenine for "loaning" us her writings and observations, and letting us share in her ground breaking travel adventures with Toby, her guide and companion.

Jeninems@infinet.com
Consultants on Access to Transportation
President, Guide Dog Users Inc. (GDUI)
http://www.infinet.com/~jeninems.

For more info about GDUI, call them at 1-888-858-1008 for a free guide dog disk, or send e-mail to: jcsheehan@smart.net.