Being children for the day

We visited the Power House Museum, with special exhibit about Wallace and Gromit!  These are our adventures:  

Dad takes his hand at being camera man

Wallace looks for some cheese

Gromit hard at work

"Cheese Diana, CHEESE!"

Next we found a playground.  We didn't notice the sign that said for ages 6 to 14.  Well, those kids need supervision.  

the fantastical side of sydney

Sydney is a lot of things, there are many sights, not all of them normal.  Sydney...

where the dead have better ocean views than the living

an octopus flies in the sky 

dinosaurs roam the streets

and princesses break through walls. 

An evil face grins as the...

...Dark Lord rises over the city.  

Urban Birds

One of our days in Sydney the boys (Dad and Ryan) split from the girls (me and Mom) to pursue our different interests.  Guess where the boys went?  A maritime museum to look at boats and what not.  The girls?  We took a walk through city gardens and looked at flowers and birds and weddings.  We like to follow gender stereotypes.  I didn't get too many pictures of the weddings, I was a little too shy for that.  Though if you are going to have a wedding in a public place, in probably the most tourist visited spot in Australia, you can't be too sensitive about spectators.  I have less qualms about invading these habituated birds' privacy.

This one was into eating this equally amazing  flower.

"Aren't I pretty?"

"And so friendly!"

Maybe a little too friendly silver crested cockatoo!  

Dad's Blog Promotion

I've been a little light on my posts as of late, which is a good sign.  My adventures are becoming more remote and adventurous.  We still have internet access pretty much every night, but mostly only at night, and during those times my dad is using the computer for his blog.  Dad's blog is much more complete and follows our trip more closely, so if you are interested you should check it out at kdtripdownunder.blogspot.com.   He is also a good and amusing writer, and our taste in photo captions are often very similar.

I've got a little more time tonight because we stopped before the sun set completely, and it's the Parents' turn to cook dinner, so at least before dinner, the computer is mine, all mine!  (Cue maniacal, kookaburra laughter.)

A common sight, from dining room to Outback

Sydney

On top of our hostel, looking out over to the Opera House

  

Botanical Gardens

 

Street artist, drew quite a crowd

 

Mom and Dad dancing to street music at the Rocks

Dad especially was fascinated by the cruise ship.

Kangaroos!

I got to see my first wild kangaroos close up.  If you notice, the kangaroo on the right has a joey in her pouch, that jumped in head first, has it's feet sticking out of her pouch.  She has with her joey from last to her right that hangs out with her, her joey from earlier this year, with it's feet hanging out of her pouch, and a brand new tiny joey suckling deep inside her pouch.   Whew, what a mama!

See the legs sticking out of her?

The Twelfth of the Twelfth of the Twelfth

We had a very traditional twelfth of the twelfth of the twelfth: 

We fed chooks

fixed Land Cruisers

posed by water "falls" (more like trickle)

served up home grown lamb

along with home grown zuchinni and "pumpkin" (butternut squash) , 

and cheered to the special occasion with new found international friends.. 

Waterfall Way

We cut inland from the coast on Waterfall Way, stopping to see the waterfalls along the way.  The scenery changed rapidly, from surfable beaches, to British countryside, to rain forest to semi-arid table lands. And of course, waterfalls.  

Nocturnal Nuisances

My first night in the Australian bush was not the best sleep of my life.  First off, there were three German guys who were skyping with friends back home, and apparently one of them doesn't realize that you don't have to speak so loud that your friend can hear you all the way around the globe.  The internet does that for you. 

I was also a little unsettled as it was my first night outside in an exotic country.  I pretty much know the animals that live in Australia, at least the ones that can kill you, and consciously I realized that the rustling I heard in the trees was nothing that would come out and attack me.  Not even recognizing the trees however makes the subconscious uneasy about a new setting.  Not only was there rustling in the trees, there was a rustling right around my tent, and I suspected, under my vestibule.  Not really one to shy away from such things, I got out my head lamp to have a look.  Right outside my door was a small marsupial looking animal hopping around.  Now less concerned about my person being chewed by this creature, though slightly more concerned for the tent's body, I fell into a slightly less fretful sleep.  I was awoken by more scratching, this seeming to come from right next to me.  When I investigated with my headlamp I found that this animal was indeed much closer to me, it was scurrying around under my tent and I watched the little lump in my tent floor much like a cartoon mole hole.  The rest of the night was on and off sleep, dreams, disorientation and rooster calls.  Well, good thing the majority of the next day was spent in the car with my Mom's shoulder to lean on for naps.  

Possibly the worst part of my first free camping Australia style came the next morning.  I have already described the toilets, well, the flies were replaced in the morning by much more repulsive creatures, I am not sure what they were, but appeared to be some sort of slug or leech that had crawled out of the toilet.  And here I was thinking that I had to put on a brave face for the flies!  

Our next night of free camping was much better, we stopped at a rest area that was also a local sports park.  

We had a delicious King Prawn meal

And the only infestation was cicadas, but we are familiar and actually quite  fond of these little guys.  Plus,  most of them were empty shells.  

  

Emus and Kookaburra and Kangaroos Oh My!

While I have no pictures for December 10th, I did have lots of fun animal sightings.  We drove from Brisbane down the coast for my first free camping in Australia experience.  It was also the first long drive in the crammed in the front seat of the Land Cruiser.  My parents have the vehicle set up as a bed in the back in case there is no place to set up tents, so currently there is not back seat for person number three (me).  But that's alright, the front seat is a bench seat and as long as the person in the middle is ok with making sure their knees don't get in the way of the stick shift, it's not an uncomfortable ride.  We stopped at a Target (yep they are here, though not nearly as big) before we left town to get a few last  minute essentials like my sleeping pad then left the Brisbane behind.

I saw all sorts of animals, not native Australian animals, but things like pigs, sheep, horses.  Then it got a bit more interesting with the herd of some sort of little deer in a pasture, still not native and certainly not expected.  I saw a big kookaburra sitting in, you guessed it, a big old gum tree.  It wasn't until later on that I saw my first kangaroos out in a field.  They were impressive to my parents who hadn't seen very many of the bigger species, and obviously impressive to me because I had never seen a kangaroo in the wild.  Shortly after that I caught sight of an emu poking it's head around in the grass.

Our first campsite was pretty nice on first appearance.  In Australia you are allowed to set up camp at any rest area unless it is posted otherwise, which is not often the case.  This rest area had nice picnic tables, a tap, nice grassy lawn and bathrooms.  It was the later that ended up being not so nice. They were self composting toilets, which is a cool idea, but not so cool when you open the lid and the seat and whole toilet is covered in flies.  At first I was just going to use the woods out back, but I resolved myself to just bear it.

We had a delicious dinner of left over lamb spaghetti then lay down for a long, eventful summers nap...

Old Houses

As my mom finished up cleaning and packing, my dad napping and blogging, I took a little walk to get outside and see more sights.  I retraced my steps from the day before, looking for some old houses that we had seen.  The reason that I needed to check out these houses was due to the huge signs in front that declared "Luxury Apartments Coming Soon!" Even though I am new to the country and the city, and had never laid eyes on these houses before, I felt a huge regret that these Queenslander houses were going to soon be demolished in favor of huge high rise "luxury" apartments that would probably soon be out of fashion and overshadowed by a more chic, taller neighbor.  

After asking our friends about the local views on trespassing, I set off to take a closer look at the houses that had open gates and easy access.  I was a little too timid to actually go in the house, or even take any good pictures, but these houses had an incredible amount of scope.  So far this part of Australia has reminded me a lot of the American South, the houses on stilts*, the tropical vegetation. I could imagine the past of this house, an old couple sitting on the back porch lazily swatting away flies as their grandchildren swim in the little pool.  Complete fabrication, but the past residents of the house must have enjoyed their days there.  Oh well, there is no way that I can prevent these houses or many more around the world from being torn down to squeeze more people into these beautiful places.  I will just admire the places that I still exist.  

*In Queensland, Australia the houses are on stilts, not for the potential flooding, but to keep the houses up so the termites won't destroy them.  The stilts are generally made of wood with a metal coverings.  

A World Apart

Our second full day in Brisbane was spent in walking around the city, marveling at the sights and sounds.  I was struck by how foreign and yet how similar this place is to the United States.  I was also struck by how big the world is, that there can be such different plants and animals, then after picking up some free Wifi with my I-pod and scanning Facebook, how small the internet can make the world.  Here are some pictures of the crazy plants and animals in Brisbane.  

Perfect jungle gym tree, this draped tree was right in the middle of a park playground.

It is so weird to see ibis' in the city, as common as pigeons. 

These guys hang out all along the river front.

The pelicans here are REALLY weird...