Thursday, July 30, 2009
Monday, July 27, 2009
Sunday, July 26, 2009
Latest adventures
Sunday, July 12, 2009
Weird Australian Animals & Other Unspeakable Things
From Subaru Forester Tuncury we headed North to Nambucca Heads. En-route we fondled and fed jailed Australian wildlife such as kangaroos, wombats, koala bears, and spider monkeys. Yeah, we know what you are thinking. Spider monkeys in Australia? They must've come over from South America in tiki rafts. In any event, they are in custody now, so it's no problem. We didn't take any pictures of the spider monkeys. It just didn't seem right.
What do you do with a kangaroo?
Or an emu?
Or a wombat?
Koala.
We stopped by Crescent Head Surfing Reserve. Not enough energy to make a move.
After that, due to an incident involving a bridge and the side of the Sherwood Palace, we didn't take any other pictures for the day. We spent the evening lamenting our sorrows away with fish and chips, watching the locals play night tennis in lit courts. Those Australians are an active bunch. Always lawn bowling and playing tennis and all kinds of other strange sports. No wonder they earn the most olympic medals per capita (by some measures. Lichtenstein, Slovenia, and Armenia are tops by some other measures. But lets not lose track of our mission here). They are very sporty. Plus they are constantly honing their reflexes by dodging overactive bridges.
The next day we drove "The Waterfall Way" over to an inland city called Armindale that has lots of old churches. Waterfalls are cool. And the positive ions helped us forget about the above incident that I've already forgotten about. There were a lot of cows in the area. Cows and horses. Everybody said we'd see lots of kangaroos on the road. Perhaps the cows ate them. We only saw one.
We stayed at a hotel in Armindale that was designed to thwart the intentions of all children and little people. Check out the height of those doorknobs! That was a universal feature. We actually chose the place based on the guidebook's description: "offers good value and faux-fur bedspreads - very Miami Vice... or perhaps more '80s porn." No mention of eye level doorknobs.
And then, we wandered down through the Hunter Valley, Australia's oldest wine growing region, where we stopped at a cheese factory and a brewery (hey, we saw Sideways, no need to stop by an actual winery) and then called it a successful mission. On account of the above already forgotten incident involving the mysterious disappearance of the passenger side mirror and other parts of the Palace, we returned the Palace a day early. (All said, it wasn't too bad. We just got an email informing us that the repairs cost $380 Australian. It could've been worse. We could've gotten another parking ticket.)
We spent a glorious day and half wandering around Sydney and it's lovely landmarks. Again, the guidebook's descriptions can't be matched. The opera house, "architecturally orgasmic."
The best deal in town is to take the ferry and ride it around all day. So relaxing. So roomy. No bridges to dodge. Okay, enough of Australia. Back to Kodiak, where we've had stunningly long, hot, sunny days.
Saturday, July 11, 2009
"I want to go to Booti Booti Park!"
Buladelah to Forester-Tuncurry. It's not pronounced like Subaru Forester, although we liked to say it that way. Subaru Forester-Tuncurry. It was tough to top "the rock", Uluru, the roadside attraction version. Unlike the authentic version in the outback, the one we visited had a slide. And meat pies. (kangaroo). And a Hungry Jacks, which is Australian for Burger King.
But nonetheless, we topped "the rock" experience first thing the next morning. We managed to see the largest (known) tree in (Northern) New South Wales. As Nicole and Boppa both have Welch roots, we were looking at this whole mission as sort of a heritage tour. Amazing that their ancestors were running around under huge trees like this one. Amazingly, we had the site to ourselves. Unsurprisingly, it's kind of hard to capture the largeness of the tree with a digi cam.
Onward... Booti Booti park beckons! But first, a stop at Seal Rocks Beach and the most amazing light house location ever. Again, it features a vista so huge that it's hard to capture on film, but you can kind of get a sense of things. Auntie Nicole taking action photos of Boodah chasing pelicans at Seal Rocks Beach.
The light house and the light house family picnic. You can stay at the old light house keepers cottage for about $250/night Australian. During peak season, you have to rent it for a week, but what a spectacular week that would be! If I were a rich celebrity wanting to get away from it all, I'd rent this place for a week. There is the light house keepers cottage and the assistant light house keeper's cottage.
The signs were fairly clear. Here's another one we enjoyed. I made Boppa read this one twice:
Finally, Booti Booti! Mister passionately wanted to go to Booti Booti Park. He had a small sleepy tantrum about it. He must have heard us say the name as we were looking over the map. "I waaant to go to BOOOTI BOOOOTI PA A A A ARK. I waaant to go to BOOOTI BOOOOTI PA A A A ARK." You get the idea. Sadly for Boodah, he was sleeping by the time we got there. It is a pretty amazing place. But it's almost more fun just to say aloud. Looking north.
Looking south.
Out to sea. That is some seriously pounding surf.
Sunset at the Subaru Forester Tuncurry caravan park:
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