Kangaroo Mystery Sausage

The second most tasty food item of the trip was the kangaroo mystery sausage we had (or should I say, savored) on Nicole's first day. Come to think of it, that was also the Vegimite day. Ahh, the culinary delights down under. Mmmm... The mystery sausage was actually fairly tasty - although it did leave quite a lingering aroma around the palace for a few days. Not even dirty diapers could be detected amidst the fog.

So, back to the story. We picked up Nicole and headed north. Though we ultimately made our way about 100 kilometers north of Sydney, in stopping at Manly Beach, Newcastle, and Stockton we managed to log about 10 hours inside the Palace on the road. It is rumored that many people compare riding in the Palace to riding in a luxury vehicle. That rumor was started by Boppa. In truth, it's kind of like riding a bucking bronco. Maybe that's why they were so strict about the whole seatbelt thing. Which we ignored for the entire trip. Safety first!

For just $81, we were able to park the Palace in a prime location on Manly Beach.


No wonder the Australians are such ninja surfers - they get the little ones out there training at a wee age.


Cruising around the cool pedestrian areas of Manly Beach.






One awesome thing about Australian coastal cities is the frequency of these ocean pools. They are pretty awesome. Newcastle has two of them.






The view from the Palace in our Newcastle parking spot.


Note: This parking spot did not cost $81. Whew! That's also Boodah there not enjoying his Vegimite sandwich.

Sunset number one. At the time this photo was taken, we didn't even know we had tasty mystery sausage to look forward to!



One part of this day's adventures that we didn't catch on film was the awesome breaching of the whales. They were hanging out about 200 meters behind the ocean swimming pools. As you can see, we were very fortunate on the nice weather we had for the trip. The days were short, but we saw some blue sky every day, and lots of blue sky most days. (Of course, it seems silly to comment about it from back here in Kodiak, where ever since we've been home we've seen about 22 hours of blue sky each day. One of the great joys of going away on a long mission is always being stoked to come back home!)