Nasty Weather

New York City has been unseasonably cold all day, beset with heavy rain and high winds: nasty weather! At Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center this morning, my medical oncologist, Dr. Leonard Saltz, told me that my cancer is growing: "Everything is a bit larger" than it was a couple of months ago. The liver's growth is "just starting to interfere with bile output." 

Dr. Saltz said that I have a "closing window" to try to arrest the growth and shrink the tumors. He strongly recommended that I undergo the chemotherapy called "FOLFOX," even though he had hoped to be able to avoid treating me with it, as a not-infrequent side effect of the Oxalipatin in FOLFOX is neuropathy. Oxalpilatin is much more likely to cause neuropathy in those who have Reynaud's Syndrome, like me. Such neuropathy can cause permanent loss of the use of the fingers, even loss of the ability to walk. There are many other side effects and potential side effects as well. For example, most people who are treated with FOLFOX experience a change in the way food tastes, so that it no longer tastes good. Usually, but not always, this alteration in the sense of taste eventually goes away after halting the cycles of FOLFOX. 

Dr. Saltz said that he hopes that I will once again be off chemotherapy, for positive reasons, at some point. But he emphasized that he will be continually reevaluating my treatment, and that oncology is the art of "Plan B." Meanwhile, in at least the near term, he said that he thinks that I will have periods in each two-week cycle of chemotherapy during which I can get exercise and otherwise enjoy life. 

This afternoon, over a period of a little over two hours, I received my first dose of FOLFOX. The risk/reward ratio of trying FOLFOX seems rational to me. I don't think that I have simply fallen into the trap-- so far, at least-- of desperately flailing about, mindlessly permitting poisons to be pumped into me that offer no real hope of delaying the inevitable.

No Worries

Competitiveness between New Zealanders and Australians goes beyond sports rivalries: There is a certain mutual chippiness. The Kiwis are sensitive to being the junior country, in terms of land mass, population, and economic development. The Aussies are sensitive to slights about convict-era antecedents.

One thing people Down Under have in common is the use of the expression, "No worries." "No worries" is a response employed by people of all ages and social classes under the roughly the same circumstances that prompt the use of the response, "No problem," by many young people in the United States.

New Zealand

Such natural beauty, in such variety; so few people-- laid-back, straightforward, and friendly; so few roads, with so few cars; such isolation; such removal from the geopolitical madness of the rest of the world; such environmental consciousness; so little pollution; such peace.

The Painter's Palette

From Queenstown, we skirted the Southern Alps as we flew in a turboprop north to Wellington, at the southern tip of the northern island of New Zealand. We changed to a small plane for our flight to our destination in the center of the northern island, Taupo.

For our main activity today, we hired a helicopter to pick us up at the justly storied Huka Lodge and take us sightseeing for three hours. Taupo and environs is predominately lush and green. Our primary destination was White's Island, in the Pacific Ocean; a highly active volcanic island twenty-five miles offshore. White's Island is a classical depiction of Hell, a perfect example of nature imitating art: Volcanic slopes focus the heat of the sun; the bowels of the earth defecate black sludge and sulfuric fumes through bubbling cauldrons; a puce-green sulfuric lake backs up on a slope; the earth's crust sporadically bursts open wounds, spewing ash and stones (we were equipped with government-mandated hardhats and gas masks); the moonscape terrain is coated with fresh, bright, mineral paints-- multicolored vomit heaved from the guts of the earth.

On our way to White's Island, we flew above a tectonic plate fault line that registers about a thousand earthquakes per year. The separating plates are marked by geothermal pools, the coloration of each of which depends on its mix of minerals; one series of such juxtaposed pools is called "The Painter's Palette." We landed above the clouds on an inactive volcano, Tarawera, that last erupted in 1886, with significant loss of life. The local Maori traditionally buried their chiefs on Tarawera and blamed the European settlers for causing the eruption by setting foot on the mountaintop and upsetting the gods. Nowadays, the helicopter pilots pay a fee to the Maori for landing on Tarawera, which seems to placate the gods.

On our return from White's Island, we landed on a deserted beach and did justice to a sumptuous picnic lunch from the Huka Lodge. This afternoon and tomorrow, we will go on hikes. Monday the 22nd, we will have a driver take us to three of the leading stud farms in New Zealand-- Waikato, Rich Hill, and Cambridge-- on our way to Auckland, a last dinner in New Zealand, and the airport, for an 11 p.m. departure. We will fly to Los Angeles, thence to New York, with scheduled arrival at 6:00 a.m. on Tuesday the 23rd.

Roses and Bungee Jumping

Because our flight to Christchurch arrived after midnight, as scheduled, we spent a quiet first day in New Zealand's "Garden City." Our good luck with the weather held. It had been cold and rainy the day before we arrived, and it was warm and sunny during our two days in Christchurch and environs. We elected to walk to the small city's permanent sights rather than visit the Ellerslie flower show, which was being held for the first time in Christchurch. In Hagley Park, purportedly the third largest city park in the world, we meandered among the magnificent trees. And within Hagley Park, we spent much of our time in the rose gardens. On our second and final day in Christchurch, we hired a driver to take us to a whaling village, Akaroa, founded by French settlers in 1840. After lunch at a French restaurant, we took a small tour boat through the towering canyons of the sound to its Pacific Ocean headlands, accompanied part of the way by rare Hector's dolphins, the smallest dolphins in the world.

The range of activities in Queenstown, where we are spending four nights, is a bit more spirited than in Christchurch and attracts a somewhat younger crowd: bungee jumping, kayaking, jet boating, jet skiing, whitewater rafting, extreme rafting, whitewater sledging, river boarding, river surfing, fixed-wing flying, helicopter flying, skiing, heli-skiing, heli-biking, sky swinging, canyon swinging, mountain biking, vertigo mountain biking, gliding, paragliding, tandem paragliding, hang gliding, tandem hang gliding, stunt flying, ballooning, skydiving and tandem skydiving, gondola riding, luge, indoor ice skating, lawn bowling, clay-target shooting, horse trekking, back-country saddle expeditions, fishing, tennis, golf, frisbee golf, minature golf, sheep shearing, visits to wineries, and pub crawling. The local Saint Patrick's Day celebrations here make New York's seem sedate. Bungee jumping started here; the original site is still in operation and observes each anniversary of the first jump by offering free jumps to nudes. Most of the free jumpers are said to be young females.

I talked Susan out of the tandem skydiving from 15,000 feet. We contented ourselves with such day trips as visiting wineries in Central Otago, noted for their pinot noirs; and taking a helicopter, on a perfect day without a cloud in the sky, over the mountains and glaciers of the Southern Alps to Milford Sound, where we took a boat trip through that fjord. Our run of good luck with the weather finally broke, and a trip by jet boat into deep forest rivers (including sites featured in Lord of the Rings movies) was cancelled. We used that day to hike instead, including stumbling on an exquisite rose garden at the top of Queenstown's public park on a small peninsula in Lake Wakatipu, the lovely, large lake on which this tourist town of some 13,000 residents is situated.

It is fall here in Australasia, with the same advantages that a traveler enjoys in the fall in the Northern Hemisphere. The weather is benign, and the holiday crowds are gone. The vistas in Queenstown and its broadly defined region are wonderful. The sunlight is unfiltered by pollution: Pure light illuminates the terrain's glaciers, mountains, hills, valleys, forests, rain forests, and vineyards and makes the pristine rivers and lakes, and the salty sounds, fjords, and sea sparkle. When it is cloudy, the slopes change colors as the shadows play across their surfaces. If we had done nothing else, our helicopter flight to and from Milford Sound and our boat trip through the profoundity of its fjord would have made our stay in New Zealand more than worthwhile.

Sydney and The Hunter

At the airport in Melbourne on the morning of March 7, I heard an announcement that flight such-and-such to Sydney had been cancelled, as the plane had been hit by lightning on the way to Melbourne. I thought, "Well, we couldn't expect to be lucky all the time with the weather." It turned out that the affected plane was the one scheduled after ours, and we departed for Sydney only about an half hour late. We arrived at our hotel on Sydney Harbor's Circular Quay in time to watch from our balcony as Queen Mary 2 maneuvered around the Opera House.

The weather remained clear and seasonably warm during our stay in Sydney. Brief holiday stays are always vulnerable to weather; but we were especially dependent on conditions for March 9, when we had booked a helicopter for the day to take us north to Hunter Valley ("The Hunter") to visit the four most important stud farms in Australia, Widden, Darley, Coolmore, and Arrowfield. As luck would have it, March 9 was a picture-perfect day for flying; so we got full enjoyment of our hour-long flights to and from The Hunter over the wilderness of the rugged, dark green, national park. Thanks to the good offices of the highly respected bloodstock agent Vin Cox, and the helpfulness of his assistant, Garry Cuddy (who accompanied us, as Vin was in Japan), we were extremely well received at these world-class farms, each of which operates on a staggering scale. It seemed to me that the Australian thoroughbreds are sounder looking than their American and European counterparts, with bigger bone and much more solid feet. The box stall of the leading sire in Australia, Redoute's Choice, is the size of a small, indoor-riding ring; a highlight of the day for Susan was pulling Redoute's Choice's tongue.

In Sydney, our room at the Park Hyatt had the picture-postcard view overlooking the Opera and the harbor. Our stay was greatly enhanced by a friend from New York, Lee Edwards, a recently retired professor of art history who lived the first 19 years of her life in Sydney and now spends her Northern Hemisphere winters there. As I have long been interested in Aboriginal art, seeing it in museums and galleries with Lee was a prized opportunity. She had great seats at the opera, where we saw a fine production of "La Traviata" in the surprisingly intimate, 1,500-seat auditorium. She also took us not only to the public parks, beaches, and restaurants for which Sydney is noted, but also to her golf club, the Royal Sydney, and to her yacht club, the Royal Prince Edward (which was founded by her grandfather). On our own, Susan and I went shopping and did such tourist things as take a ferry to visit the zoo to see the exotic fauna. For the first time since I was diagnosed with cancer a year ago, I purchased a discretionary article of clothing, an Akubra hat.

On March 12, we flew from Sydney to Christchurch, New Zealand. To summarize what I think about Australia in general, and Sydney in particular: If I were young, just starting out, with my life in front of me, I would move to Sydney.

Melbourne

Tonight is our fifth and last night in Melbourne. We are sorry to be leaving this attractive, well organized, prosperous, sophisticated, and congenial city that prides itself justifiably on its excellent food and wine. In addition to doing what tourists do when they are trying to learn a new city, we hired a driver to take us on the Great Ocean Road southwest of Melbourne until it turns inland from the coast line; at which point, we flew in a small, single-engine plane along the shore past the famous rock formations known as the Twelve Apostles (now eroded to the “Nine-and-a-Half-Apostles”).

Up to a point, we were lucky again with the weather: The rain that was forecast for each of the last four days did not materialize beyond about a half hour of showers on the fourth day. This morning, the sun was shining, and the temperature moderate: perfect weather for “Super Saturday,” the big day of racing at Flemington, the impressive racecourse on the outskirts of Melbourne. Suddenly, following the sixth of the nine races carded for the day, the skies darkened, winds tumbled lawn furniture, a diagonal wall of water cut off vision, to be replaced with hailstones bouncing off the earth, then coating the ground white while emitting a low-lying fog. Several horses broke free of their handlers and injured themselves. The lights in the racetrack flickered on and off, and the tote board in the infield went blank. The stewards cancelled the remaining races, but the crowd could not depart: the surrounding roads were flooded; the roof of a rail station had collapsed, and rail service was suspended.

The patrons took their dilemma calmly, continuing to eat and drink and chat with one another while betting on races at other tracks. A local bloodstock agent, Vin Cox, had very kindly organized a table for Susan and me in the track’s Terrace Room, a restaurant that turned out to be not only pleasant, but also quite formal by American standards: I wore the most formal clothes I had with me—a double-breasted blue blazer, charcoal-grey slacks, white shirt, conservative tie—and felt uncomfortably underdressed. With no way to go anywhere, we settled in for high tea, and I found a Group One race in Sydney on which to bet. As luck would have it, my selection, Theseo, won by a nose, at 8.5-to-one odds: which put me ahead on the day, just as our driver called to say that he had gotten through and was waiting for us at the entrance with an umbrella.

When abroad, it is difficult to know whether a phenomenon is out of the ordinary while it is unfolding: During the storm, I thought that the weather in Melbourne must be a bit volatile. According to the press, the storm was the most violent in Melbourne in nearly forty years. Similarly, in 1970, Susan and I were in a park alongside Lake Geneva when a sudden storm started capsizing sailboats: We thought that coping with such winds must be a normal hazard of sailing in the lake, until we read the next morning that eight people had drowned.

I just heard on BBC television news that more storms are expected tonight and tomorrow morning. Our flight to Sydney is scheduled to depart at 11 a.m.

The Lizard

“Are you off to the Lizard?”

The pilot introduced himself in the lounge of the Hinterlands air charter service in Cairns and gave us safety instructions. We lifted off the tarmac with heavy rain pounding the windscreen in front of the pilot and no visibility out of the windows to our sides. Twenty minutes later, we emerged into clear skies. The lapis lazuli of the sea below was punctuated by the mottled green, brown, and blue turquoises of the Great Barrier Reef.

An hour after departure, the pilot banked the plane around the largest, tallest island that we had seen on the flight, then landed it on an incongruous asphalt runway running through the tropical landscape. For the next four days, various weather forecasts came and went, but the weather remained ideal for our purposes: no rain and smooth seas.

We snorkeled, boated in small skiffs, and hiked as our mood directed. One afternoon, we were taken to a stretch of the outer reef for our snorkeling; on another, we trolled with lures for fish, landing three. One of the catches turned out to be as much of a battle as I could handle after part of the butt of the rod snapped; after which, I had to push down and pull back simultaneously with my left forearm to stabilize the rod while maintaining pressure on the fish, a giant traville. The next morning, I found bruises along my left forearm from internal hemorrhaging of muscle (I bleed more easily now that I have to inject myself each day with a blood thinner, Fragmin, as a prophylactic measure against formation of blood clots).

Our room (no. 3) was set on the highest point of the resort. Its open balcony’s view of the resort’s anchorage had just about every element other than snow-capped mountains that one could put on a wish list: elevation; a view through tropical foliage swaying in the breeze; a small island; a few boats at anchor; a crescent of white beach; a rocky promontory at the far end of the beach. Lying in a hammock, I was so tranquilized by this view and its associated sounds—rustling leaves, splashing surf, bird calls and echoes of bird calls—that ambition and restlessness left me: I would hold a book in my hand without raising it to my eyes for minutes on end.

The resort on Lizard Island accommodates up to 80 guests; during our stay, there were, including us, between four and 14. The quality of the food and wine was excellent, and the level of service, given the ratio of staff to guests, extraordinary. So we experienced one of the wonders of the world, the Great Barrier Reef, under idyllic circumstances. Lizard Island was a very good place to celebrate Susan’s birthday, on one of four of the best days of our lives.

Happy Birthday, Susan

(Picture courtesy of Dee Tichy)