The Animal Issue (yuppie scum meet the animals)

Showgrounds continued
In the last blog I left off when we stayed at the Showgrounds and saw the penguins. There were a couple of other interesting things that I wanted to mention before moving on. I guess the first was that the Tasmanian guy who pulled us out, of course wanted to have a conversation. The part that was a little strange was that he wanted to have that conversation with Mike only. I thought I might be a little paranoid, but Mike also picked up on those vibes. We were all standing around and at that point he was doing the talking and we were doing the listening, and then he asked Mike what he did for a living. The strange part is that once Mike told him we both thought that he would turn to me (like all of the other people have done) and ask me what it is that I did, but he didn't do that. Furthermore his wife stepped up and tried starting a conversation with me to I guess engage me on a completely separate topic. It felt a little like she came in to lead me away so that the "boys" could have their manly conversation. I don't think that this is an Australia thing, because we have met other people and other couples (although they were the oldest) but it was very much their thing. I didn't make a big deal about it, seeing as the guy pulled us out of the mud and did us a solid, but it was a little weird for me nonetheless...

Bruce the hugging groundskeeper

The other thing that happened is that we got to talking to the groundskeeper Bruce, who was a very lonely old guy. Within 15 minutes of talking to us he told us that his wife left him after 27 off years of marriage and told him that she never loved him. He used to be a bus driver before he retired and even made the maiden voyage from Adelaide to Perth when they put a sealed road in. This is just background information for you guys. When we were leaving he came up and hugged me and kissed me on the cheek. Mike later commented on how awkward I was about the whole thing and I reminded Mike that I do NOT like to be touched by strangers.

I have three levels of tolerance for touching and invasion of personal space:

1. Mike - I don't have personal space when it comes to him, and so he often forgets about the fact that in general I am somewhat uncomfortable with touching
2. Close family and close friends - I also see them as people for whom personal space and touching rules are bent. I like hugging them and kissing them - although I have to be in the right mood. If you have celebrated the last couple of birthdays with me - you are OK :)
3. Everyone else - including strangers, acquaintances, and work people. I like personal space and touching is basically reserved for special occasions. I hate it when people who I don't really know feel the need to touch my hand while talking to me, or pat me on the back, or invade my personal space but it periodically happens because I think it's impolite to tell people "stop touching me, we are not close like that". When one of my friends is pregnant and tells me that strangers touched their belly I cannot believe that they are fine with it. If I am ever pregnant and a stranger reaches out to touch me I may be hormonal enough to rip their arm off at the socket and beat them with it. In fact, my sense of personal space is so strong that some relatives have been known to chase me into corners (they come closer to talk to me and I take a step back to re-establish personal space - repeat until there's a wall behind me and there is no escape). Usually, if my father is around he will chuckle to himself and come in to rescue me from my personal space invasion nightmare :) I don't really think it makes me a cold person - I just think I'm not a particularly physical one. 

Anyway, due to this, my hugging and kissing with Bruce was a bit awkward. Do you guys remember "When Harry met Sally"? Harry is talking about how long to hold a woman after sex and that's exactly how I feel when a stranger hugs me. How long do I hold them? Is one second enough? How about 5 seconds? Can I let go first? Just a little glimpse of what goes on inside my head. Oh yeah, I AM this crazy :)

Adelaide
Our next stop was Adelaide and I have to say that Adelaide is probably the people dividing line in Australia. What I mean is this, people east of Adelaide look like normal people, but people in Adelaide and to the west look a little funky. Everyone is just a little off. I don't know why that is, but this is where Mike and I started noticing the difference.

I can't say that Adelaide left any kind of permanent mark on me. I loved Melbourne and I really liked Sydney but there just wasn't anything special about Adelaide. They did have a big Botanic Garden in the middle of the city, and our first day there Mike and I did a lot of walking around, but there was just nothing that spoke to me. Our time in Adelaide was also spent doing Internet related chores. I lost my ATM and credit card in Melbourne and got locked out of all of our accounts. Mike had to be on the phone and online with Citi forever to get his personal credit card joined to our account and to get login info. It was not awesome. I will say that we had some amazing food there though.

Our first night of walking around we came upon an Argentinian restaurant, Gaucho's, and dropped some cash there. The restaurant was pricey enough for my eyebrows to go up, and we definitely did not get the most expensive steak there, but we got absolutely delicious food. If you are ever in Adelaide I HIGHLY recommend that you go there and have some meat. It was just spectacular!

Our last day we ended up going to the Central Market and getting all kinds of yuppie goodies. Jessya and Yan would be very proud of us. We bought goat cheese, and truffled brie, and chicken liver pate, and spicy salami, fresh baked sourdough bread, and even marinaded Spanish olives. We bought those things at like 5 or 6 different stalls. It was awesome. The plan was to go see some animals and then have a picnic.

We still laugh about our day at the Preserve. We went because in South Australia it is legal to hold a koala and we wanted to pet those cute furry little bastards. The koala petting was amazing but the lady who brought out the koala was just bitchy. Mike asked if it was OK for him to pet the koala on her chest instead of her back and the lady replied in the snottiest voice ever: "No! She would not like that!" How do you know? Maybe the koala has a huge crush on Mike and would like nothing better than to be petted on the chest! Do you speak koala? Are you the koala whisperer? It was just the worst tone ever. It's not like we were gonna do it without asking! Just unnecessary attitude. Regardless, the koala that we petted was still a kid and i loved that she held some eucalyptus in her little hand and was just chewing away in my arms. She was so soft and cute and cuddly. I could have spent all day holding her. Mike and I specifically let other people all go first so that we would hold the koala for a longer period of time, and it totally worked. Take that, bitchy zoo lady!

After we were done with the koalas we noticed that the preserve was selling kangaroo food and decided

Wallabies mobbing me

that we might as well feed the roos and wallabies again. The store sold both pellets and "biscuits" (which is what Aussies call cookies) We were dubious about the cookies but the ladies at the counter told us that the roos love them and it will be better than feeding them their pellet food. Armed with a whole bag of cookies (think plain "maria" cookies) we came up to the roos. We only fed them for a little bit because they are less cute than the wallabies and then moved on to our favorite animals, the adorable wallabies. Once they saw me with an almost full bag they mobbed me. There were at least seven wallabies going for the cookies. They were so cute that we could not stop and this is where it gets a little funny. I hope no one from PETA is reading this :) We really overfed them. The wallabies started dry heaving. They would turn away from us, dry heave for a bit, and then go back for more cookies. One of them just had diarrhea all over his tail. It was so sad, but also funny because they still wanted more. By that time we were almost out of the whole bag, so we tried to find the wallabies that didn't get overfed to give them the remains, but there was one wallaby in particular that just kept leaving to dry heave and then come back and fight for more biscuit. It's like he was embarrassed by his body's reaction and didn't want us to see, but wanted more treats. I blame the store ladies for not telling us that we shouldn't feed the whole bag to the animals. I swear we didn't mean any harm, but also they were really funny about it.

After abusing the wallabies with the food, we stopped by the wombats, who happened to be up and awake and I even got to pet one through the cage. They were really friendly and could probably smell the biscuits on our hands, but we had nothing to give them (and would have been scared to anyway). I think all of the animals were still alive when we left the reserve and I will round that up to a win.

We polished off this successful day by driving to the botanic gardens and setting up a picnic among the awesome trees there. We were proper about it setting up our table and bringing picnic chairs over, it was al fresco dining at it's finest and a proper goodbye for Adelaide. It was also my favorite day in that particular city and with that we were ready to move on to some hiking.

Yuppie Scum
Since Adelaide is pretty close to the Flinders Ranges we decided to do a bit of hiking before continuing towards Perth. I thought that I was well enough (even though I didn't think I was 100 percent better from my horrible cold). The first day we were in the Ranges we did a small hike (4 hours) to the top of Mt. Ohlssen Bagge. We were taking it easy on the hike as it also turned out to be a marriage therapy session so I didn't notice feeling particularly tired. On our way back to camp (less than 1 km out), we came upon a wild echidna scared of some kids. I knew if I waited long enough Australia would drop one of these bad boys in my lap! The echidna was trying to dig itself into the roots of a tree since the 3 little kids surrounded it. We stood with them and tried to be quiet to see if the echidna would eventually relax and unfurl, but this did not occur. When the kids suggested that we use a stick to get it out of the hold, Mike and I both talked them out of that plan. Mike did eventually try to get the echidna out with his bare hands, but the poor creature was scared and we decided to leave it alone. Another animal seen in the wild under my belt = total win. A comment on travelling in a van together with your partner with no one else around and no distractions - either you will not make it, or it will be the greatest marriage therapy session anywhere and your relationship will come out even better and even stronger. All of the underlying problems that you didn't think were a big deal will float up to the surface and you will have to deal with them. I think that the hike to the peak of Ohlssen Bagge was very very good for us both physically and mentally but we did need a couple of beers when we were done and thank god there was a bar that provided :)

Our second day I started coughing a little bit and Mike wondered if we should go on the hike, but I didn't think it was a particularly big deal so we went. We started out at noon and gave ourselves some options - we could do a loop -9 hour, 21 km trip if we were going at a good pace (we usually would do the hike in 6-7 hours if the estimate is 9) or we could do a straight walk to the peak and back - a 6 hour, 14 km trip that we would be able to do in 4-4.5 hours on a regular day.

We made it to the top of St. Mary's

The hike started well and we were through the flat portion of it (the first 5 km in less than an hour, but when it got to the steep portion I started running out of breath pretty quickly. At first I thought that I was just a little out of shape, since we had not hiked in almost 2 months, and I had to put the running on hold for visitors and then once I got sick, but as we climbed up I started needing to catch my breath more and more often. It took us an additional 2.5 hours to get up to the peak of St. Mary's and I did not think I had it in me to make it to the top. We even stopped for lunch 400 meters from the top because I really needed a rest. As we were eating our food (the remnants of our Central Market feast) Mike decided that we were Yuppie Scum. He has been fighting becoming a yuppie since I met him, but he was no longer in denial. When you hike up a mountain and have a feast of fresh sourdough bread, pate, orange marmalade, and truffled brie cheese, you are by all accounts, a yuppie. Mike then tried to tell me that he is only a yuppie when it comes to food, but I told him that he likes travel and expensive hobbies and took the remaining fire out of his eyes. That's right boys and girls, the day has finally arrived when Mike "Danger" Aloysius Livschiz has admitted to dirty scummy yuppiedom. Muahahahaha, I have finally broken him! This knowledge helped me overcome the final 400 meters and summit St. Mary's. The view from the top was worth the pain, as we could see the Flinder's Ranges from the vantage point that they were meant to be admired from. It felt like we were the only people in the world, no sounds but the wind to distract us from the beauty that was surrounding us. I am usually a snow capped peaks and mountain lakes type of girl, but the view that we saw from the top of St. Mary's was still quite impressive.

view from St. Mary's

It is on our way down that I realized that I was in trouble. I was running out of breath going downhill and my legs were not listening to me very well. Mike stopped to take some pictures of the sunset but I kept on climbing down. The dilemma for me was - go fast and potentially fall due to legs not listening or go slow, and end up hiking in the dark - then fall due to not seeing things. We managed to get off the steep part of the mountain before the sun fully set and only had 5 km of forest trail in the dark. At this point I couldn't even breathe walking down a pretty straight portion and any incline at all left me completely breathless. Mike took my hand and together we made it out. In total, the hike took us seven hours and we got back waaaaay after dark. I guess my lungs were not ready for hiking yet. I was coughing all the way back to camp, but I knew that I would be OK because we had flashlights, and Mike was with me. I don't regret hiking St. Mary's, I just regret the fact that I was not as healthy as I thought I was.

The Road to Perth
After the Flinders Ranges we had a long long way to Perth and thank god there were some things on the way

Oysters on the rooftop of "Ceduna Oyster Bar"

to break up the very long and tedious drive.On our second day out, we came upon a little town called "Ceduna" known for it's oysters. Our travel guide suggested that we go to a place called The Ceduna Oyster Bar and sample the local goods. We had some trouble locating the place, which turned out to be a hole in the wall type of shack with 2 tables and some chairs on the roof. We got there right as the owner was closing up, but he did sell us 2 dozen oysters for 24 bucks with slices of lemon and some Tabasco sauce and even let us sit on his roof and eat them after he was gone. It was unbelievable. The oysters were super fresh and tasty and we had an ocean vista as our background. There were a few unlucky souls who stopped by hoping for a treat, but alas, we were really the last customers and the shop was closed .There really is something nice about sitting on the roof and eating some super fresh seafood with the one you love. We stuck around town some more, showered, and went to stock up on our morning coffee additive.

Since we started travelling, Mike and I like to pour a little Baileys in our coffee to get the day off to a proper start. I should really say that we started with Baileys, and then downgraded to Feeney's but in Ceduna we downgraded again. We went down a step and bought Kilkenney and then downgraded another step and also bought something called Father O'Leary's. Father was one step too far on the level of money savings vs. taste. After sampling the mixture of urine, spoiled milk, and desperation known as Father O'Leary's, we noticed that there is no address to send complaints to and immediately understood why. We were hoping that since we are just adding the swill to our coffee it would be OK, but it wasn't. Father has failed us, to such a degree, that we didn't finish the bottle. We actually threw away alcohol, that is how bad it is. Truthfully, with Irish cream you really do get what you pay for and 3 steps below Baileys is just one step too many.

After Ceduna we drove through the Nullarbor plain named so for it's lack of trees. Mike and I did spot a tree here and there, but in general it is pretty treeless. This was also the place where there is a 90 mile (146 km) stretch of straight road. I will not tell you that the drive was exciting, because that would be a bold faced lie, but it was definitely an experience. We slept in a place called the "Head of Bight" because I read that there are whales that can be seen from their whale center.

We woke up to a chilly and windy morning. I will say that the minus of a treeless plain is that there is no protection from the wind (also it looks desolate). We made our way over to the Head of Bight center and did indeed spot some whales. There were a bunch frolicking off shore, but right by our viewing platform was a mom with her young calf. The calf came up for air more often so it was a better experience overall.

The rest of our day was pretty uneventful except for crossing the border from South Australia to Western Australia. I knew that they were really strict about transporting fruit and veg across state lines so we ate most of what we had, but two potatoes and a half of an onion were confiscated from us at the border. I am not lying. Apparently different states have different farming pests and Western Australia is the strictest of them all. If this was America there would be huge local farm stands on both sides of the border so that travelers could restock on confiscated goods, but this was Australia, so we had no fruit or vegetables until we got to Perth.

Our last night before Perth was spent free camping in the town of Meckering. When we woke up in the morning we saw that the park we were in had a display about an earthquake and found more information on it at a photo store that looked like a giant camera. The local man there was an expert on the earthquake and his store was wallpapered with pictures from the time. The town of Meckering is located on a fault line so they have earthquakes often, but the one he told us about was a 6.6 and is the biggest offshore earthquake in Australia to date. The other thing that made this particular earthquake special is that there were no deaths. The man told us that the earthquake hit at 11am on the queen's birthday and people were all outside. One story was of a woman who put her baby to sleep in the crib and went into the garden for a second. That is when the earthquake hit and the house was basically demolished. Once the trembling stopped the woman rushed to find her baby, and found her daughter still asleep in the crib, with the house collapsed around it. The town has a display of the water pipeline that was cork screwed and rails that were bent to very strange angles. It was very unexpectedly educational.

Perth
Not much can really be said about Perth, even the guidebooks tell you about all of the things around, but not in the city. The one thing that Perth does have is King's Park situated on a hill that allows for beautiful views of downtown and contains a botanic garden that we did not walk around in. To me, Perth was about people watching and food.

I have already mentioned that people to the west of Adelaide look a little strange and Perth proved this even further. The fashion in the city for girls I found simply mind boggling. Shorts worn over tights is a huge thing in the city. I am not sure if Perthians just don't want to invest in pants or they are trying to make some sort of a statement, but this style is very prevalent. Another common sight, is girls hobbling on heels. I really do mean hobbling. I think the women of Perth are missing the high heel gene. I don't even know why they try. Either they are an crazy high heels that are clearly too tall, small, tight, or somehow wrong for them, or they are in chunky chunky platforms that make them stomp around like Frankenstein. In Sydney and Melbourne girls had no problems with heels (although they did have a problem with buying clothing that was their size). My theory is that the mom's of these girls were too rugged to wear heels, so they never had anyone teach them how it's done.

Aside from the crazy fashion, the good thing about Perth was the food. My favorite place was called Baby Mammoth and served food with a South African twist. It was very different and very delicious. Mike and I also sampled some cheap Vietnamese and Korean food. All of it was lovely, but Baby Mammoth was my fave. We spent a lot of time walking around and happened upon a plaza with a screen that just happened to be showing a BURNING MAN video from 2008. Can you believe it? I think the universe wants us to make it there this year and is pushing us in all sorts of ways. I could not believe that out of all things that could be on that screen, it was a BM video. I just didn't know it was that much of a thing here.

I have also been toying with the idea of getting a couple of more piercings in my ears and Perth was the last big city that we would visit for a while so I did a little research, found a respectable place (called Off Ya Tree) and got two more holes in my ear. I have to say that it was more painful than I would have thought, but I love how it looks. As a side effect of this decision my hair is now either up or off to the left so that I don't get it tangled. I am very happy with this and it will forever remind me of this great adventure that I am on. I decided that one piercing is for NZ and one is for OZ :)

The last Perth story I have is actually just something completely bizarre that happened on our way into town from our camping area. We were driving down a pretty empty road and this is what occurred to both of us at around the same time:

• Hey what is that in the middle of the road heading in our direction?
• It looks like a car...
• It looks like the front tire has blown and there is no more tire there...
• Why is it not slowing down?
• Oh shit! We better get off the road.

Thankfully the road was pretty empty and we saw the car from very far away. It is just one of those things that you don't expect to see. The guy was going full speed when he passed us (we were on the shoulder by this point) and did not look at all like he was slowing down. That is all. No explanation, no climax, just a weird thing that just happens to you when you road trip in OZ :)

Pinnacles
Our first stop after Perth was the Pinnacles Dessert. It is pretty damn cool and surreal. There are very phallic

Apple van at Pinnacles Desert

looking mounds sticking out of the earth as far as the eye can see. Some places have small pinnacles and some are twice my height. We had driven through the park once, but then the sun came out, so we drove through one more time for the sake of picture taking. It really was a completely unique and beautiful landscape. The weather provided us with quite a few sun showers that resulted in multiple rainbows throughout the day. We finished off the day by walking on the beach as the sun was setting. Pretty damn sweet.

Shark Bay
Our travel book listed Shark bay as one of the four places we MUST visit while in Australia, so we made it our next destination. The first thing that we did upon arrival was visit Hamilton bay where the stromatolites are. Apparently stromatolites are formed by the oldest organisms in the world and look kind of like pinnacles in the water. The site itself was not particularly exciting, it was more about the fact that Australia still has a spot where the environment allows them to grow. Mike and I also decided that we would finally jog together on the walking trail and it did not go well. I fully realize that I have not run since before Melbourne, but I didn't even last 30 minutes. The point was to do it though, and we did :)

Mike and Kathy at Shell Beach

We were fully intending on heading right up to Monkey Mia after stopping at the town of Denham (the westernmost town in Australia) but as we were driving along we passed Shell Beach and I thought I saw mangroves there. I am so glad that we went there :). First of all the beach is made out of cockles. I am not even talking about shell fragments, I am talking about actual full shells. Its pretty crazy. As soon as we got on the beach we saw a sign (and you know how much I adore Australian signs) which stated that we should not remove shells from the beach. For some reason I find this idea pretty crazy. THE WHOLE BEACH IS COVERED WITH BILLIONS OF SHELLS!!!! The other amazing thing about shell beach is how calm the water is. It looks like a mirror. There is a reason for this as well as for the shells. Basically this portion of Shark Bay has developed a sediment bar which keeps most of the water in place. At high tide water from the ocean flows in, and at low tide only a little flows out. Most of the water is kept where it is and evaporates creating a much saltier area where the only organism that can survive is the cockle which has a symbiotic relationship with some algae that allows it to survive the extreme saltiness. The only other creatures that we saw were either dead or dying jellyfish. We made it to the "mangroves" right as the sun was setting. It was low tide so the beach had little pools of water everywhere with trees growing out of them. The sunset was

absolutely beautiful with crimson and gold that was reflecting off the mirror smooth water and the birds were singing a beautiful melody. Mike and I just stood there for a while and let it come over us. It was just us on a completely deserted beach, with the sunset, the birds and the reflective pools. Not a bad evening. Of course adventure was just around the corner as there was no marker on the beach indicating where the road was and the shells created a mound preventing a casual walker from seeing too far out. By the time we were coming back it was pretty dark and we did not think to bring our flashlights on this walk. We did manage to locate our car with only a little extra wondering as it reflected the moonlight a little bit more than the surrounding limestone dunes. Also, since we took so long at shell beach, both the grocery store at Denham and the Monkey Mia resort were closed. We ended up spending the night in Denham which was not a huge deal.

In the morning(ish) we were too late for the dolphin feeding which we decided was not a huge deal so we took our time and managed to buy all of the groceries we needed in the tiny Denham IGA. It was amazing - they even had lactose free milk (cheese!)! We got to Monkey Mia around lunch time, had some sandwiches and went on a nature walk around the area. We didn't see the thorny devils which I was really hoping for, but did run across some very tame emus. We also walked in the water for a bit - because it was finally warm enough to do that and I discovered that Pelicans are awesome water skiers. Pelicans are almost as common as ducks everywhere we go in Australia, but in Monkey Mia we saw a whole flock of them. It looks like when they are taking off from the water they push off with their feet and when they land - they look like they are water skiing to a complete stop. It was pretty cool.

Having warmed up a little with the walk we went for a jog again and this time made it to 40 minutes, but with a crappy pace (over 1 minute slower per mile than my best). The run was waaaay better than the previous day and Mike and I celebrated with beers and small plates at the resort restaurant. We made it an early night and I kept waking up because I was so excited about the dolphins that I couldn't really sleep :)

Let me just say that even the cold and windy weather did not take away from the dolphins. They are AWESOME! The way that the dolphin feeding works is that each dolphin gets 4-5 fish so not everyone gets to feed them. There was a huge crowd but Mike actually got picked to feed! He offered for me to go in his place, but he always gives me all of the best things so this time I told him to just go ahead and enjoy it. I even took a picture of him feeding the dolphin a fish :) We weren't allowed to touch them and he said that it took all of his willpower to comply with that particular rule. We also found out some pretty cool things.

Apparently the local dolphins of Shark Bay forage in a way that has not been seen anywhere else in the world. One of the things that they do is pick up a sea sponge and carry it in their mouth so that they don't hurt themselves on the sandy rocky bottom while they scare up food. Once they see the fish they drop the sea sponge and catch it. The other thing that they do is pick up conch shells where fish like to hide, bring the shells up to the surface and shake them out. There has even been anecdotal evidence that the dolphins line the conch shells up like traps. This knowledge is passed on from mother to daughter in Shark Bay (boys find this kind of hunting too slow and tedious). I am still amazed by those awesome awesome dolphins.

As if that wasn't enough, we also had another jog where I shaved 20 seconds off my pace and got it down to under a minute off my best time and on our drive north we caught what I think is the most beautiful sunset I have ever seen. Mike took pictures and he says that they are good so I will attach one later. The sky glowed like crimson and gold and the cloud cover made the craziest shapes and picked up the strangest tints. There was even a piece of sky that changed from turquoise to green to pale yellow. Just unbelievable!

The most beautiful sunset

Quobba Homestead
We got in to our campground around 9:30 and I ran for the shower. I had been craving one all day and it was finally here. I got into the furthest shower stall and let the hot water hit my body (it was more lukewarm than hot, but that is very typical so whatevs) I want you guys to picture the scene from Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho. I am standing in the shower, enjoying the water and I have my eyes closed. La la la di da..... I finally open my eyes and stare at a black spider that has come down to about eye level with me. It has a round body and a bright red spot on his back. I look at it and it starts to hit me that this is one of THE MOST POISONOUS spiders in all of Australia, the Redback Spider (a type of black widow spider that likes warm and cozy environments which is why it bites people so often) If I wasn't already naked, I would need a change of underwear!!!! I froze and eventually the spider went back up to the spiderweb above the shower stall, but the rest of that shower took all of 30 seconds. I shook out all of my clothes, but for the rest of the night I felt spiders all over my skin :)

The next day we took it easy. We started off the day with me making crepes (I'm the camping Martha Stewart) and then we just explored the beach by Quobba. Mike and I have been to Mallorka, but the beach we were on is definitely a contender for one of the most beautiful beaches we have ever seen. Imagine water so blue that you can't stand it, imagine waves crashing on cliffs and giving off spray that is over 25 feet high, finally imagine cliffs and rocks that look porous, almost like lava rock (although it might be sandstone). It was pretty much breathtaking. Mike took pictures all afternoon and we were already on our way to the Blowholes (the actual reason we were in the area) when we saw a goat (sheep) standing on the rock that was sticking out of the water. Mike ran to take a picture but the goat (sheep) was already getting back up the shore and so needed to be herded back onto the rocks by the water. Mike thought it would be easy to chase the little bastard back down, but he faked right and ran left completely outsmarting my husband. To add insult to injury the goat polished off his adventure by jumping over the grid in the road that only exists for keeping livestock in certain locations. I named him "The Goatfather".

We got to the Blowholes in the early afternoon and let me tell you, they are pretty spectacular! Basically, imagine that the slab of rock on the shore has a hole in it and when waves hit they go under the slab and water gets pushed out through the hole. Depending on the size of the wave the blowholes shot water out 30 feet high. The whole Quobba area was really really sweet. Mike and I took a walk through the rocks and on to a sandy beach and came out to what looked like a hobo town full of retirees. The locals explained that all of the structures that we see are fishing shacks for the residents of a nearby town and people come in around this time of the year to do a little bit of fishing.

To explain all of the retirees I will teach you guys a new term - Grey Nomads. The term is applied here to people of retirement age (with grey hair) who decide to travel around Australia (that's the nomad part). Most of the ones that we have seen take a more glamping approach to the thing than the youngsters living out of a van. Grey Nomads have sweet ass trailers and RVs, cable dishes, generators, and solar panels. They are really not skimping on luxury :) We actually see more of them than the camper van crowd in some places, and they are very friendly and very very talkative. I think the US term for them is "snowbirds". I have nothing but respect for them - even with the luxury are still pretty bad ass.

Coral Bay and the road to Exmouth
We have finally made it to the tropics! (We are currently just a couple hundred km north of the Tropic of

That's what people that swim with sharks look like

Cancer and the weather is simply beautiful. Coral Bay is located in the Ningaloo Marine area and we decided to go snorkeling by the Ningaloo Reef. Our expectations were high, but I feel that Ningaloo has met them. First off (and we might not have snorkeled in the very best place) the coral reef is nothing like the Great Barrier Reef. The colors here are a lot more muted and the variety is just not there, but what the reef lacks in coral it makes up for in marine life. We actually snorkeled with reef sharks! They are so damn cool! They basically look just like the Great Whites, but way smaller and they only eat small fish. In fact, the poor guy was more scared of me than of anything else. I tried chasing him, but he lost me in about 30 seconds. I ran into him in the same area of the reef again, and again he ran. I also saw some sea turtles, but at this point I was not as excited about that as about SWIMMING WITH A SHARK!!! Can you tell that I am excited - cause I'm excited. They also have tours where you swim with whale sharks (also harmless, but huge), but those tours are $390 a person and they don't even guarantee that you will see any. I feel like swimming with reef sharks is just as good.

As if the sharks weren't enough, we also got to swim with a Manta Ray. They are between 2.5 and 4 meters at their widest point, so they are pretty impressive. The highlight of that particular swim for me was when the Manta Ray turned and showed us her belly. I got to see the vents and tummy markings that are used to identify each individual ray. Our guide told us that the manta ray we saw was pregnant and both Mike and I feel that she is carrying her pregnancy rather well. We would have no idea that she was with child if we weren't told. You go girl! We polished off this amazing day by going to the beach with a couple of beers and seeing a couple of shooting stars (a first for me). Now THAT was an awesome day!

Our plan was to go to Exmouth and check it out, but sometimes life works out better than a plan. We were about 40km away from Exmouth when Mike saw a dirt road leading straight to the beach. We went on it and it looked pretty solid until the end which looked a little too sandy. I voiced my misgivings and was told, in a surprising twist of fate, that it will be "fine". It was not "fine". Our car got stuck in the sand and Mike worked for a good two hours to get the car out. A couple of Aussies showed up and gave a lot of free advise, but also helped us push the car out. We got out of the sand and moved a couple of feet back. The Aussies left and Mike and I celebrated our successful adventure. We celebrated prematurely...

Mike celebrating our escape from the sand prematurely

Mike got in the car to move it all the way out and it got stuck again. This time nothing he did helped. Worse, our rear right tire was digging us further and further into the sand on every attempt and so our van started tilting heavily to the right. After several hours of trying to dig us out, Mike gave up and we went looking for

Stuck Again...

help. Our original plan was to go to a nearby house to see if they could assist us in any  way, but on the way to that house we spotted a couple of hardcore 4 wheel drive vehicles parked on the beach. Mike went to ask for help and brought back two sisters, Georgie and Ryley, who knew a whole lot about cars in general and digging cars out of the sand in particular. They didn't even need to tow us out, because in their truck they had two plastic "sand tracks" that we jammed behind our rear wheels and drove our van out of the sand for good. It took them 15 minutes total to get us out.

Georgie

We had nothing to offer them but two lukewarm beers (they would not take money) but in return they invited us to fish with them and their friends. It was quite a day. Georgie left pretty early on with another girl, but we spent some time with Ryley and her friend Fro. Ryley drives heavy machinery for a living and she is only 25! Apparently you can make about 250,000 a year doing that job, so she has been working for a couple of months at a time and then travelling around. This time around though she is getting serious and will buy a house. Her boyfriend already owns two by himself. She said that if you know what field to go into there is crazy money to be made in OZ, and it looks like she will be making it. The girl had personality and a half and we ended up driving to the marina for more fishing, cooking dinner together and drinking A LOT of beer.

Her friend Fro (not her boyfriend) is a different story all together. He is 30, and "doesn't believe in having a

Fro and Ryley

job" although he works from time to time. He usually lives in a swag (the Australian version of camping) or crashes on his friends' couch. I kept meaning to ask how in the world they are friends, but could not find a polite way of doing so. This was such a cool day because everything went wrong and it ended up being loads of fun. I absolutely loved it, even though I was slightly mad at Mike for getting us stuck again.

You are now completely caught up with us. I hope to not backdate posts after this. We have been taking it easy for a couple of days in Exmouth, doing laundry, jogging, and just having some down time (which is how this blog entry happened). I am very excited about the weather (seventies and low eighties in the daytime, and sixties at night). I think we will stick around here for a day or two more and then will continue up the coast. That's all she wrote!