Postcard from the Edge: Independence Day in Victoria

It may not be the nineteenth century, when a steamship journey from London to Melbourne via Cape Town would have set you back three months.  Sure, with modern air travel you can actually arrive in the U.S. before you take off from Sydney.  But when its' the dead of Winter and you're looking off the edge of the oldest, flattest, second driest (after Anarctica) Continent on Earth, and when you're looking south into the storm lashed Bass Strait, you could only be on the edge of the World.  Because what else could the edge of the world look like, but cold, dark, foreboding?
 
And then, suppose it's your home country's biggest holiday, that is, its birthday, conicidentally celebrated at the height of the warm summer season.  You can't help but dream of familiar shores, family faces, gentle weather.  If you ever want a fantastic 4th of July celebration, don't plan to be in southwest Victoria.  You'd be lucky to find a Yank anywhere in the State, and if you did, it wouldn't be a clever Yank, because what on earth would he be doing here?
 
As Winter closes its icy grip on the Southern Seas, I find it's time to move on, North and West.  I've spent three months here in Torquay, the spiritual (Bells Beach) and corporate (Rip Curl, Billabong) home of Australian surfing.  I've managed to stow away a few peanuts after doing temporary cafe work, to meet a couple of solid Aussie buddies I hope to always know, and to call the Great Ocean Road home for a brief flash in my life.  It's been an interesting chapter.
 
I came to know Melbourne, which is uncontestably the best city in Australia (that is, better than Sydney).  Style, grace, architecture, attitude, intelligence, diversity, food, sport, culture-I could write a ludicrous testament to the city's virtues without exaggerating.  It's a spectacular city that rewards the patient (or time rich) tourist.
 
My final goodbye came three nights ago, when I sat with 50,000 Australians and 50,000 Kiwis in Australia's biggest venue, the MCG (Melbourne Cricket Ground).  The occasion was the Bledisloe Cup, an annual three game rugby contest between the Wallabies and the most feared sports team on Earth, the New Zealand All Blacks.  The game opened with the Hakka, a Maori war dance performed by the All Blacks to intimidate competitors.  It was primal and electrifying.  The literal translation of Hakka is "controlled frenzy."  Goodbye Melbourne!
 
Whither now?  As a good American, I can only say: West!  West to warmth, to the unknown, to the Indian Ocean.  First to Adelaide, the second princess of Australian cities, and then, to West Australia, a place unfathomably large and empty.  Only 3,000 kilometers to go. . .
 
Single-handedly conquering the tyranny of distance, in a Ford Falcon Panel Van.