Glenn and Judi arrived with very little jet lag so we just took them around the big sights of Sydney. We had a big day where we hit Circular Quay, looked at the bridge, walked to the opera house, cut back through the Botanic Gardens and ended up in CBD. They were troopers and didn't really start getting tired until dinner time. We had them stay in Kirribilli - across the harbor from the CBD (central business district) and just had dinner there before leaving them to rest and spending our last night in the Lane Cove Campground.
I don't think I really talked about the campground before, so let me just fill you in. The animals seem to rule the entire area, and I mean rule. There are very cute possums there (not the American rat looking kind, but the Australian marsupial kind) that have basically taken over the facilities. The kitchen is out in the open, just under the canopy, and they make themselves quite at home there. They climb up on tables, walk over the drying dish rag, the stove, the grill. Mike and I tried to have our dishes not touch anything once we washed them, especially the rack which the little critters like to lounge on. There is one possum that is not doing very well at the campsite, I'm not sure if he's been in a fight, or is very sick, but he is not like the furry cute possums that run around the place. I heard the ranger say that normally he would have died, but the backpackers, and the scavenged kitchen scraps keep him alive. The possums sometimes fight in the night, and have even jumped on top of our van at one point (we were parked under a tree). They have a very heavy step so it sounds like a person is walking on top of the van. We have also seen very colorful parakeets and parrots flying around, some kind of wild Australian turkeys walking around and a Kookaburra (I think that's the bird that repeats everything). We were not sad to leave the campground because the facilities were not that great and we could not wait for the real adventure to begin.
The Koala preserve
Once we petted Stony we went to the kangaroo and wallaby area. We had all bought kangaroo food (aka dried corn) and proceeded to feed them. They were so much fun. The roos were very tame and friendly and would eat out of our hands. If we happened to have our hand up to high, the wallabies would pull on the hand with their cute little front paws. The roos also like to get their chests scratched and lean in like dogs do when you pet and scratch them. It was just a lovely lovely time!. For me nothing in the preserve beat the koalas and roos, but we also petted a small crocodile (the keepers put electrical tape around its jaws so that it wouldn't bite us. It was still a little unsettling to me because if that tape didn't hold I am sure we would have lost at least part of an arm to the beast. There were also dingos and wombats in the preserve. I was very excited to see the wombat poop which supposedly comes out in cubes, but I'm here to tell you friends that the Australian tame wombat poop is nothing special. For some unknown reason the preserve also had red pandas and snow leopards. We spend 4-5 hours looking at and petting different animals in the preserve. There were also a lot of interesting looking birds, but I'm not really bird person so I didn't care too much.
Australia - where you meet everyone you have met in NZ
we stopped off at another campsite that night and were in the process of making dinner when a guy came up to Mike and seemed very excited. We didn't recognize him right away without his beard, but we had met and chatted with him and his girlfriend (or wife) in Abel Tasman during the Great Walk. They were the Canadians that told us about the knife making class that we took on the South Island. We were so surprised and pleased to see them again. Their recommendations were really awesome and they were a really nice couple. What are the chances that we would run into them again in a different country and some random campground? The BM vibe continues to follow us in OZ and I like it!
The Great Barrier Reef
We ended up getting a package cruise out to the great barrier reef. Basically the cruise provides transportation to Lady Musgrove island, snorkeling, glass bottom boat, semi submarine, and a nature walk on the island itself. I love being on boats partially because I never get seasick and damn was I lucky that I never do! Part of the safety briefing talked about what to do with barf bags, which I thought was a little excessive, but I was wrong. Over the course of an hour and a half, many people around me needed to use those bags. The ride was very very bumpy and I think most of the people who did not end up loosing their breakfast to the ocean, barely hung on. We were told that the ride back will be a lot better because we would be going with the waves instead of into the waves and it was true to the great relief of the passengers.
The boat doesn't actually dock at the island, but at a pontoon that's pretty close by because the water there is really shallow. Glenn and Mike opted to do a SCUBA add-on, but I st opted for the snorkeling. I liked the snorkeling so much, that I didn't even do any of the other optional activities! It was so beautiful and peaceful to float around and see the beauty below. I saw starfish, sea cucumbers, colorful fish of all types, a manta ray and a whole tribe of sea turtles. The turtles were huge and they occupied what looked like a basin of coral. There were five turtles in the basin floating in the basin but all facing out in different directions. As I was floating by one of the turtles swam past me and so close that I could probably touch it if I wanted to. It was just so calm and serene and happy to be there. I'm not sorry that Mike and I have to come back there with his parents ;)
Mike and Glenn had their intro dive with a German instructor who used Australian sayings, but with a heavy German accent. Imagine the Terminator saying "No worries mate". It was super hard not to burst out laughing. I was a great day all in all. The town we stayed in that night is called 1770 because that's when captain cook landed there. How cool is it to live in a town that's a number.
The Outback
The next leg of our journey went through the outback. It's kind of funny because at some point you just pass a sign on the highway that says "Welcome to the Outback". I didn't think that it was an official place, but apparently it has borders. The outback has a smell, and its the smell of decay and rot, the smell of roadkill. I am not being dramatic when I say that. It's a pretty constant stench of rotting hot kangaroo flesh. They are everywhere and they are very numerous. In the three days that it took us to drive from 1770 to the underground city of White Cliffs we saw cows, wild goats, emus, but more than anything else we saw kangaroos. They are nocturnal and even though you can see some in the daytime, the majority of them come out at dusk and take over the road. Driving becomes a different kind of an adventure. We drive about 20-30 kilometers under the speed limit and the whole car becomes kangaroo spotters. They dart across the road, they are constantly on the shoulders, they are in the middle of the lanes. They don't seem to run away until the van is within 10 feet of them. We love them and we hate them. They are really cute and really dangerous at the same time.
Having read up a little beforehand and after talking to some locals we follow big semis down the road once the sun goes down. The roos seem to be weary of the trucks, and if not, the truck takes the hit. Some of the roos are over 6 feet tall and the resulting accident would be no joke. We try not to drive too much after dark, and once our guests are gone and we don't have a schedule to keep we will likely stop driving at night at all. It's strange that the kangaroos still own the roads to such an extent and by the smell and look of it they die in staggering numbers. Its not just the smell, you can see decomposing bodies and skeletons on the side of the road. I don't think anyone cleans up the roads... If the drive down the coast feels suburban, the Outback - although greener than I had anticipated still looks more or less like I had pictured with the red earth, the stunted trees, and the hundreds of hopping roos and wallabies. This is true adventure.
One of the nights, we were pretty far away from any caravan parks so we stopped at a free rest area type of place - basically a field with a public bathroom/shower building. This is the first time that we were introduced to the flies in the outback. I don't think I knew what a swarm was until now. The good thing - they don't bite, the bad thing - they are on you flying into your face, your mouth, your eyes, just everywhere. One day we stopped on the road to have a snack and I ate it while running around the van so that the flies don't interrupt me. Why do they swarm you might ask - they are looking for water. They want your sweat, they want to drink and they just keep coming. Construction workers wear nets over their hats and heads to protect them. I don't think you could stay sane for long standing still. If you stop moving you will easily get 30 flies to land on you in a minute, but back to the free campsite...
Once we understood the plight of the flies we set up for the night and I went to use the facilities. Say what you will, but I think that I have toughened up in the last couple of months and all I really want from a bathroom these days is to not have mosquitoes attack me when I'm on the toilet or any bugs to fly into the stall while I'm there. This bathroom did not fit these requirements. When I first came in, I could hear a scratching noise that I couldn't place for a little while, but I finally found the culprit - a giant beetle slipping around in the metal washbasin. It was so large that I could hear it's feet scrape on the metal. I pulled it together and marched into a stall where I saw another giant beetle swimming around in the toilet - I can do this I said to myself. I flushed and saw a frog almost fall from a place in the toilet basin where the water rushes out. That's when I lost it, screamed like a little girl, ran out of there, and peed outside where there was a smaller critters per square foot ratio. I will report that I did use those facilities in the morning when I didn't have the cover of darkness and the frog was still there. I tried not to pee on it :).
White Cliffs
After three days of driving and a whole lot of kangaroo spotting we made it to the town of White Cliffs. It's a small mining town, but a lot of people live in bunkers underground to get away from the heat. The last 200 kilometers of the drive was insane. We were warned by the hotel staff of White Cliffs that there is an insane amount of roos out on the road but we have never seen anything like it. There were portions of the drive where it looked like a kangaroo and wallaby obstacle course. We had to drive 20/30 km under the speed limit just to have enough time to stop when a kangaroo would hop onto the road in front of our car. Some were already on the road and would not be in a big hurry to move. You could have cut the tension in the car with a knife, but it was so incredibly exciting. We were also warned about goats (which we saw in great numbers) and black cows which you supposedly can't see at night until you are almost on top of them, but we have only seen them in the daytime.
After everyone came back from their flight and the tour of the opal mine we ate at that same general store and proceeded to close out the towns only pub, at 10:23pm on a Wednesday :). We met some of the locals who were colorful characters. One told me about a snake he killed outside of the towns health clinic and the other told of a group of guys that had recently found opals worth 50 million dollars (I think this is just a story they tell people to add to their White Cliffs experience) The pub also had the town's notice board with the schedule of health professionals that will be coming in. In that town, everyone has a dentist appointment on April 23rd and a podiatry appointment on May 6th :). They get their medical care via the Flying Doctor which is a big thing in the outback. The towns are really remote so there is a doctor who flies around to give medical assistance. The towns raise the airplane gas costs to help the Flying Doctor come in.
The next day we got up and went to look for opals. There is a public area here where visitors can look around. Of course all of the really big opals are got by digging in the ground, but there is enough on top for you to get a souvenir of your visit. We were warned to make sure that we don't cross over into private claims which are right next to the visitor area because some of the owners don't take too kindly to such things and could potentially shoot at you. Once in a great while a visitor can find something that is worth a couple of thousand dollars, but obviously that's rare. Mike told me that the mine tour is a Tom Sawyer kind of a setup. A man takes you to his mine, you dig where he tells you, anything you find is his, and you pay him for the privilege :) we found a couple of small opals and maybe I will make a ring out of them to remind me of this time forever more. If you are serious about the life of an opal miner you can get a claim out here for 200 a year and you can live there and work there. The night before at the pub a townie told me that most people out in White Cliffs go on unemployment while they are mining. They just tell the government that they are trying to find a job here and get money for quite a while which is more than enough to live on if you live cheaply and in your mine dugout (which most people would do anyway because of the heat).
Western Plains Zoo
We were going to stop by an "aboriginal town", but it was just a small town with nothing really special about it other than that 75% of the population were aborigines. Instead we drove town to Dubbo to visit a zoo that was recommended by Frommer's. This turned out to be the most humane zoo that I have ever seen. There are no cages as there would be in an American Zoo, rather there are very large fields that is sectioned off by a fence where the animals live. For the animals that can't swim there are islands that they live on and no fences at all. The good part of the zoo is that the animals look much happier. They actually graze peacefully or frolic with each other instead of sadly looking out at the hundreds of people that are pointing at them and yelling (the lioness that we saw still paced, but in a very tiny part of her enclosure so I'm not really sure what her problem was). The bad part is that the zoo didn't actually think about how the visitors can see the animals better. I would expect that for the full price of the ticket, which is nearly 50 dollars, every visitor would get a pair of binoculars, but we didn't. We could barely see some of the animals they were so far away. I fully support the idea of the zoo, but it was not well executed. The highlight of the zoo for me was seeing three different types of rhinos including the one that looks like it has plates of armor under it's skin. A second favorite was watching a family of monkeys interact on an island. Overall, after our other adventures everyone was pretty underwhelmed by the zoo. After the zoo we drove to Sydney and because we got too close to the city, ended up not finding a campsite and all 4 sleeping in the van. I kept waking up and hoping that it was morning, but seeing nothing but darkness. Glenn and Judi somehow rigged it so that they could both sleep horizontally in the back, but Mike and I just curled up in our seats up front and tried our best to get some form of rest. In the morning we just had enough time to get breakfast and get Glenn and Judi to the airport and checked in on time. It was sad to see them go, and we hope that they had a good time.
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