Welcome to Australia! Here's a sleepy koala mom and baby at the Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary
the dingo is sleepy, probably all those babies he ate
best Australian pic ever
you could never do this in the U.S.
a wombat (or an R.O.U.S. from The Princess Bride)
feeding my first wallaby!
Jeff likes it too
can we keep this one?
or how about all of these?
Jeff can't keep up
cassowary
holding a croc
bunch of wild loorikeets, maybe they know it's feeding time?
where's the food?
"4 calling birds"
i got pooped on quite a bit
but it was SO worth it!
Jeff didn't get pooped on at all! SO not fair!
action shot
closeup
double-fisting
Brisbane skyline from bridge
water and skyline
part of a war memorial (they were EVERYWHERE!)
big tree, boabs or some relative of them?
old windmill, looks like a lighthouse now
winery shaped like wine barrel near Maleny
winery from the side
nice mountains
Australia National Zoo
galapagos turtles, well over 100 years old!
supposedly, crocs can get this big in the wild if not removed!
a wombat on a leash!
Jeff LOVED wombats!
feeding the elephant a yummy corn cob
Croc show
he's hungry
full size shot
anaconda, WAY too big too fit it all in the pic
us with a ball python named Jake (Jake the snake, get it?)
an echidna, kind of an Australian porcupine
petting and feeding roos is the best!
feeding time
tiger pen
licking his chops afterwards
koala playtime
croc hanging out, doesn't even look real, but he is!
Oz has many big fiberglass things to get tourists to stop. (clearly it works) This is "The Big Pineapple."
Down the road a bit, we saw "The Big Mango"
our Magnetic Island villa, Jeff bleached his hair blonde
beach
hike
scenery
sunset1
sunset2
toad racing
and they're off!
breakfast. No wonder we gained 10 pounds
koala in the tree during our hike
nice view at our rest spot
this is a typical "highway." Australia is known for its terrible roads
Cassowary Crossing
the great golden gumboot in Tully. We went white water rafting here for my b-day. It's the wettest place in Queensland and the top of this boot marks their record annual rainfall. YIKES!
our white water rafting group
beach-themed bed was heaven after "camping out" i.e. sleeping in our car for several days in a row
the boat on which we did our liveaboard dive trip--3 days of straight eating, sleeping, and diving at the Great Barrier Reef. 11 dives total including 2 night dives, wow!
Jeff coming out of the water. He looks good!
Rach....um, you may wanna take the mask off next time
turtle
clownfish!
coral and you can see the shadows of fish everywhere
chevron barracuda
reef shark
huge squid!
from the front
closeup of the eye
beautiful jellyfish
nice red coral
pipefish (?)
this is a "cleaning station," where the little fish eat leftover bits off of the bigger fish.
moray....awesome
more Nemo
more moray
everyone took a million pix of Nemo
chomping away at the coral
sunset on day 1
divers!
Rach
trumpetfish
parrotfish
colorful coral
giant clam
nice nose
giant clams and sea cucumber
"dory"
damselfish (?)
butterfly fish maybe?
some of the gang
on the boat
3 minke whales came right up to our boat and swam all around and under it
just under the surface
Jeff about to nap
filling out log books & looking at fish charts, probably
our divemaster, Tanya, selling souvies
our chef, Craig, a godsend!
the rescue boat for when (not if, but when) you got lost while navigating underwater with your compass. It's much harder than it sounds!
sunset on the boat
our gear
more gear
the Dive Olympics--this was gymnastics/contortionism 101
the guys held toilet paper rolls between their legs, with the HOLE facing out
the girls had long snorkel pipes between theirs AND they were blindfolded. You can use your imagination to figure out the rest. It was hysterical to watch and to participate!
Fozzie, our captain
awesome infinity pool in Cairns right by the ocean
guys swimming in it
driving along the ocean
we took a crocodile hunting boat ride
look, a croc!
and one in the water
this guy was my fave
the ferry across the river
Daintree National Park (rainforest)
Woo hoo! You could rent all kinds of awesome camper vans from Wicked Campers, but this was my fave that we saw.
hiking
cool flower
starting to drive towards the Outback when Jeff hits an already dead carcass of a kangaroo, so we get a flat tire in the middle of nowhere. Good times.
this is where the road changed from one lane each way to one lane, period! You had to get off the road if someone was coming at you. Kinda scary, but it shows you how few people drive in the Outback.
a guy was giving a presentation to middle school kids about snakes at this place where we stopped. We're very glad he let us play too!
This is Clancy, a black-headed python. They eat venomous snakes, so they are my fave type of python.
We wanted to take him home, but what would Cinco think?!
too small, but I thought it was cute. Nice ears! They had a kangaroo one too.
Discovery Channel
volcanic rocks
Undara Lava Tubes
another one. they actually have weddings here
we love weird signs, as I've said before
road trains are 3 or more tractor trailers strung together and only pulled by one truck. You have to get WAY off the road when they come whizzing by or they will KNOCK you off the road! The longest we saw was 53 meters (not feet, METERS!)
sunset in the Outback was gorgeous!
wow
DELETE
tried to show a road train, but they are too long to capture in one shot
McDonald's (known as "Mackers" to the Aussies") is SO much better in Oz. They have McCafe, which is kind of like a coffee shop part of the restaurant. Can you imagine seeing these things on display at a Mickey D's in the U.S.? It was awesome!
no question that we're in the Outback now. Average population is around 1 person per 8 square miles out here. Cattle and kangaroos and not much else.
when I say nothing, I mean nothing
Roo crossing
bathroom sign
another beautiful sunset
I'll stop with the signs now
We made it to Darwin in the far north
right on the water
Ibis
strolling around
explored old WW II storage tunnels. Darwin got bombed many times. Most people don't realize how involved Australia was in WWII. They were in it before we were, that's for sure!
Hibiscus, I think
Jackaroo Jeff
dinner. That's right, steak, seafood, and crocodile
Jeff eating crocodile for the first time. Gross
green tree frog on our doorstep. He doesn't even look real. He didn't move at all when I took the pic
resident cat
fish feeding at Aquascene. These guys are not in captivity. They come in every morning to get fed and then go back out to the open ocean.
there were several different kinds, all big!
they went nuts!
an eel-tailed catfish. I have never seen such a thing in my life, freaky!
bye bye Darwin. BTW, Nicole Kidman & Hugh Jackman were filming a movie here (directed by Baz Luhrmann) called Australia. We didn't see them here, but we ran into Nicole and Keith Urban in Sydney a few weeks later! when we were having breakfast seated just across from them!!!
just south of Darwin
brave birds
"white" saltwater croc. you'll see him in the next slide
Snowy!
they fed him a whole chicken
feeding the American alligator
baby salties. Sadly, they will be killed when they're 2 years old to make wallets, belts, food, etc.
meanest croc they have. even the trainers are a bit skittish around this one
they sit with their mouths open to cool down
this is the croc from the movie Crocodile Dundee. He wasn't hurt in the making of the film, even though Paul Hogan supposedly kills him.
lounging around. There were hundreds of them everywhere.
baby saltie, so green!
wouldn't want to meet one in the wild, that's for sure
termite mound!
huge!
a lot of Aboriginal people sitll live traditional lifestyles in and near here
old rock art
hiking to see the rock art
Aborginial people dwelled in these cliffs and caves 20,000 years ago and their rock art remains!
sunset here was beautiful
cool rocks too
the floodplain
Jeff eating kangaroo for the first time. I don't know how he can do that when he was just hand feeding them last week, but who am I to judge. I did NOT, however, try it.
Animal Safaris was an Aboriginal-guided tour of the land
our guide, Patsy's, truck. She lives on a water buffalo farm now
water buffalo in action
searching for water lillies to eat
our assistant guide, Rachel. water lillies kind of taste like celery. it's more of a snack than a meal.
more water buffalo
Jeff digging for yams
Rachel digging for yams. It's hard work!
Patsy is a pro, so we had yams as part of our dinner
we also ate green ants. it's blurry because it's too close, but you can see the little green forms on the leaves. Yeah, we ate them, LIVE. They taste very lemony and Patsy says they are good for headaches and hangovers.
stripping bark for the stone oven we will make
time to cook dinner
we ask Patsy to show us how to start a fire with sticks. It is REALLY hard. It smoked quite a bit, but we weren't able to get it started. It takes a long time.
throwing a spear with an Aboriginal spear thrower
let it fly!
helping with dinner
dinner is done
what a feast! Barramundi (fish), buffalo (that Patsy killed that morning, ugh), yams, fresh made Bushman's bread and billy tea. YUM!
sunset
Patsy's painting. It's a style of Aboriginal art called "x-ray art" because it shows the insides (bones and such) of the animals. This is a fish and a crocodile.
hiked to a lookout at Katherine Gorge
the gorge itself
Daly Waters was one of the more interesting roadhouses where we stopped in the Outback
people kept adding things to the sign like "shitta" and "urination station" haha
i.e. "Men's toilets"
the courtyard
it was just a crazy place
Stuart's tree. He was a great explorer of the Outback and I had read all about him and this tree where he supposedly carved an "S" for "Stuart." When we saw the sign for it, I was so excited and made Jeff turn off. It was quite lame, so Jeff took a pic just to make fun of me.
cattle crossing the "highway"
Devil's Marbles, driving south towards Alice Springs
more Devil's Marbles
the sign says it all
how could we NOT stop here?
nice touch
since Oz is so huge and so sparsely populated in the Outback, some kids do their schooling through the "School of the Air." The very first school like this was here, in Alice Springs.
this is the old studio. It used to be just a radio broadcast & the kids had a microphone in their house & they'd listen to the teacher over the radio
now all of the kids have school-provided computers and they do interactive web-based learning, still pretty cool!
we visited a random reptile house in Alice Springs
thorny devils are so cool looking! Plus they eat thousands of ants per day. Nice!
Jeff holding a skink
Rach holding a blue-tongued lizard
two-headed skink, I think. It's tail and head look very simliar to confuse predators
we do love our pythons, this time an Olive python and a Burmese python
we decided to ride camels, seeing as how we were in the desert
dog is jealous of Rachel giving camel all the attention
baby!
camel love
Jeff feeding one
and we're up!
riding off into the sunset
camels look cool when they sit down
dinner at a saloon. Bugger Orf!
my favorite part of Alice Springs, the baby kangaroo rescue mission. When mother kangaroos get hit by cars and die, the babies can survive, sometimes for days, in the pouch. They won't leave on their own, so they have to be rescued or they will die.....
baby red kangaroos, 6 & 7 months old. These guys get up to 6 feet tall! Two of the moms got killed by cars. One of the moms was killed by Aboriginal people for food.
Abby (the roo) and the guy who runs the place
me holding Abby. I never wanted to leave. I decided right then and there that if I never have children, I will be perfectly happy having a baby kangaroo instead.
Jeff and his baby boy
one big happy family!
We were so in love
Emma feeding Ella, the youngest
on to Uluru, the "big red rock" in the centre of the country.
tada
the crazy thing about this rock is that 1) it rises so high above the ground in the middle of nowhere and 2) it looks so different at different times of the day and from different angles.
different angle --see all of the contours?
now check out the color change at sunset
on to the next state!
I was on a mission to try to rescue baby kangaroos now, so I pulled every dead kangaroo carcass off the road I could find. Jeff called me the "South Australian Sanitation Department"
I never found a baby, but you should move the carcasses off the road because when dingo puppies or birds (like these wedge-tailed eagles) come to eat the animal, they sometimes become roadkill themselves.
so barren
until we came to the opal mining town of Coober Pedy
Coober Pedy is the hottest place in Australia. AVERAGE temp is 110. It is so hot that about 50% of people choose to live underground.
Australia produces 70% of the world's opals, and 95% of all Australian opals come from Coober Pedy
touring the mine
miner Jeff
miner Rachel
no thanks
people LIVED here. Dug out the home by hand & that's how the mine was actually discovered
the bedroom
the bathroom
can you imagine if this was your bathroom? And people were still living right here, underground, up until 1990!
Jeff and me eating lunch in our underground restaurant
"fossicking" for opals
I found some!
Jeff was not as lucky, but had fun anyway
keeping track of Jeff's blonde hair and ever-growing beard
another funny sign
wild emus
salt lake--I guess we're getting out of the desert
moved on to the Clare Valley & Barossa Valley for wine tasting. It's about time!
Sevenhill winery, where monks make some good stuff!
cat's got the right idea. We are in the south now and, seeing as how it's winter in Australia, it's COLD!
nice wine tasting lady
the winery itself
and vineyards, of course
old stone shrine built with no mortar
surely you've heard of Jacob's Creek wine?!
here it is
nice view
our tasting was great
the visitor's center--they're quite the big time winery, obviously
the creek itself is not so impressive
onward to Adelaide. This is Queen Victoria Square
my guy, Stuart (the explorer), again
Central Market was the greatest! All kinds of fresh fruit, veggies, meats, breads, and everything in between. I would go there everyday if I lived in Adelaide.
hi Jeff!
Aboriginal lecturer at the local Aboriginal culture center. He's playing what's commonly known as the didgeridoo, although it's actually called a "yutike" (no idea how to spell it) Aboriginal flag is the red, black, and yellow one
Aboriginal dot art. The white things are witchety grubs, considered a delicacy to some Aboriginal tribes
more art
even more art
botanical gardens
Australian birds are MUCH fancier than ours! Where we have pigeons, they have these. They also have cockatoos, parrots, ibises, emus, cassowaries, kookaburras and loorikeets just hanging out in the wild.
more botanical gardens
downtown mall, Adelaide
it was weird to see winter-themed stuff in July
city from a distance
waterfront at night with cool lit-up fountain
dowtown for breakfast, sporting the new AFL kangaroos scarf. I know nothing about the team, but it was cold so I needed a scarf, plus I can pass it off as a Colts scarf this football season. :-)
Sunday market
the sign says it all. We saw tons of fairy penguins, but it was at night so the pix didn't show up at all. :-(
that one poor horse pulls that whole big bus full of people over to the other side of the river.
Wombat crossing
Victoria!
scenery. this was mostly a driving day
Koala crossing
pretty sunset near shipwreck beach in some tiny town
I found a cat at the hotel, of course. This is "Bluey"
pelicans
driving the Great Ocean Road on the worst possible day--cold, windy, and hailing!
cool rock formations caused by erosion
couple more
nature is cool
the water really swirled through here
This one is called "London Bridge." It used to have another part connecting it to the mainland, but 10 years ago or so, that part fell into the ocean, stranding two people on the part that you see pictured here! They were rescued after a couple of hours, but how scary is THAT!
"The Arch"
first Australian rainbow!
these are the most famous of the rock formations along the road
"12 Apostles"
REALLY freakin cold and unbelievably windy
went for a hike through the rainforest on this elevated walkway. Probably more fun in the summer
still, there's the walkway
it climbs right up into the trees so you "walk amongst the birds"
trying to smile for the camera
we walked out on that part I'm pointing to. It's a cantilever, which means it's not supported from underneath, but just balanced, kind of like a huge diving board. Quite scary walking on that....
nice coastline, reminded me of Big Sur in Caliifornia
you think we're in a tourist area? hahaha
echidna crossing, are you noticing a theme here?
tracking Jeff's hair and beard again
On to Melbourne. We stayed at this restored hotel from the 1800's
and the sink was too tiny to fit your face in!
Jeff and a famous footy player, I'm sure. We love that his uniform looks like the referee's in the U.S.
1956 Olympics were held here
amphitheater and city skyline
a memorial to the war horses. I thought this was nice. It's a trough!
The Shrine of Remembrance, Melbourne's awesome WWI memorial
the room was built so that at exactly 1100 on November 11th, a single ray of light comes in and hits the word "love" on this memorial
city in the background
Rach and her Australian Army escort. Actually it's a guard at the shrine, but they wear the old uniforms, complete with an emu feather in their hat!
father and son commemorating WWI and WWII
orginial Austalian flag passed around by P.O.W.'s in WWI. How the heck did they hide that from captors?
the gardens
the eternal flame
from afar
gardens
us and Melbourne on the river
"Meet me under the clocks" is supposedly what everyone says and does here in Federeation Square
Center for the Moving Image
"20 years of Pixar" was the exhibit we went to see. All kinds of cool Nemo, Toy Story, A Bug's Life, Cars, etc. stuff
no pix were allowed inside, but they did have Sulley and Mike
beautiful Melbourne at night
view from the South bank
we did a tour of the old gaol (that's jail, in Australian) at night. It was creepy. These are the gallows where Ned Kelly was hung (he's like the Jesse James of Australia)
torture rack, creepy
Ned Kelly's death mask and a replica of his armour
death mask up close, pretty gruesome that they used to make these things. no thanks.
torture devices and the hood that all prisoners had to wear anytime they were leaving their cell for any reason
Harry Potter 5 in Imax, YAY!
there are Bush haters everywhere
Chinatown
Queen Victoria market
took this pic b/c the bird reminded me of the seagulls in "Finding Nemo" that say "Mine mine, mine m-mine, mm-mine Mine." I did that impression all over Australia.
AFL World/Hall of Fame = AWESOME place, even though we knew nothing about the Australian Rules Football teams
GOAL!
my turn and yes I got a goal too. We have the video tape to prove it.
even more footy-related games
this was a random volleyball one that actually put YOUR IMAGE in the game! It was the coolest game I've ever played
interesting mannequins
brush-tailed possums are as common in cities in Oz as squirrels (or maybe rats?) are in the U.S.
Jeff hated them, but I thought they were adorable. They are very tame b/c all the tourists feed them
case in point
Jeff's hair and beard is getting out of control
Bendigo--an old gold mining town
we are miners once again
but this guy is a real one (or else an actor portraying one inside the mine)
drilling
Jeff doing the same
panning for gold. All I found was fool's gold. :-(
we are SO immature, but we found this sign to be HILARIOUS! For those of you don't know, i.e. our parents, "dookie" means "poo." I don't know about you, but I wouldn't want to go to "Poo College"
we made it to the A.C.T.
Harry Potter 7 came out in Australia several hours before the U.S. due to the time difference, so I was excited to buy it ASAP. Apparently, so were these people.
I joined in the fun!
Parliament, just built in 1989 (I think)
view from Parliament
1 of 4 copies of the Magna Carta from the year 1200 something.
Senate meets here.
I loved that their seats were pink!
huge fountain shoots 400+ feet in the air 24 hours a day as a memorial.
view from top of Parliament
House of Representatives meet here
more of the view and check out that Aboriginal mosaic on the ground
Australian coat of arms--a kangaroo and an emu, chosen because neither can walk backwards, quite symbolic of the country's desire to move forward (and leave their convict past behind them)
it was nice along the water
avenue of flags
pretty spot to sit
national WWI memorial
unknown soldier
poppies were the first flowers to grow back on the battlefields and they also represent the blood spilled on the ground
after reflecting on the sadness of war, we cheered ourselves up at this Science Center. This is an 18 foot drop. You're supposed to overcome your fear of heights....
...and I did! (No, I didn't put on 100 pounds. That's just the suit they make you wear so you'll slide better)
Several people backed out or went away crying, but Jeff was not one of them.
on to Sydney!
Olympic Park
you could take acrobat lessons! Um....I guess I didn't get over my fear of heights after all. No thanks!
we'll just dirnk instead.
just outside our hotel in Sydeny
first view of the Opera House
and Harbour Bridge
and part of the city's skyline
inside the main opera house theater
this is what the outside tiles look like up close. It's so different from the gleaming white pix you see of the place
I like how different it looks from different angles
classic
the land was settled by soldiers, pioneers, and prisoners/convicts. Jeff was the solider.....
so I played the convict.
looking back from Harbour Bridge
so beautiful
another cool view
we walked across the bridge to north Sydney, so you can see us with Harbour Bridge and the Opera House in the background
old-timey amusement park
looking back from north Sydney
this is the Prime Minister's house
and this is how close I am to it.
skyline
money shot
and another one
loves it
last one, I swear
pretty night skyline
fountains at night
a bit odd....
Captain James Cook, the explorer who made the first European contact with Australia
another war memorial
the Queen Victoria Building
we went to an ICE BAR called Minus 5. You had to wear these heavy jackets, ugg boots, and gloves and you could only stay there for 30 minutes at a time because it was so cold.
EVERYTHING was made of ice--the bar, decorations, tables, chairs, even the glasses you drank out of!
Afterwards, we went to a play at the Opera House
and styled Jeff's hair into a mohawk
he loved watching them refill it
