ozblog | kiwiblog

We're back home in Andover -- only slightly delayed through Cincinnati -- with all of our luggage and no heat in our furnace, but the gas company repairman just left and the chill should be gone by morning.

More pictures tomorrow as we unpack and organize our thoughts.

Now I'm even more confused than that whole 32-degrees-isn't-freezing thing -- we left Sydney at 11:35 am on Sunday, March 7th, and now I'm posting from LAX at 8:05 am on Sunday, March 7th!

(It's all about the International Date Line, kids.)

It's a good thing, because Ben was upset about losing a Sunday at the beginning of the trip, but he doesn't quite believe me that he's getting an extra one today. The good news is that the longest flight is over -- kids and Marj slept, but not enough. We'll see how jet lag affects us tonight and later this week.

Here we are at the gate in Sydney, waiting to board, and there is a free(!) kiosk to allow us to blog from overseas for the last time. We are all a little sad that our journey is coming to an end, but we are also happy about the great things we've done and seen, and kept amazingly good spirits throughout! Thanks once again for all of your comments and we're glad we were able to share at least some of our adventures with you all.

See you in the States!

We made it back to Sydney but timing (3 hour delay from the train rerouting and one hour waiting in line, er, queue, for a taxi) and weather (steady miserable drizzle) have canceled our thoughts of riding out to see if the original iMac was really "Bondi blue". Instead, we went to an opal museum (you can guess where this is heading) as a family, and then Marj and Rachel headed back to The Rocks to do some more shopping. Our hotel room is coincidentally located at the start of Sydney's colorful Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras parade. According to our hotel concierge this is the largest celebration in Sydney besides New Year's Eve. We have a bird's eye view from our balcony.

(Hmm... Marj and Rachel just returned bearing silly grins and a jewelry box sealed for tax purposes -- if we open it, we have to pay GST. I guess I'll find out back in the States when you all do!)

Well, not quite but some of you get the gist of it. We are now riding on the Indian Pacific Train back from Adelaide to Sydney via Broken Hill and rerouted to the south of the Blue Mountains. For you rail buffs the IP made its first uninterrupted passage from the Pacific Ocean in the east to the Indian Ocean in the west in 1970 arriving in Perth to a crowd of over 10,000 people. The whole route goes from Perth to Sydney and we joined travelers who had been aboard for that whole ride as well as other who had taken the newly reopened Ghan down from Darwin at the northern edge of Australia. Most of the travelers are surprised to see three children traveling by rail (they figure that kids are typically in too much of a hurry to sit back and enjoy a train!).



We have two sleeping compartments back to back on the train and several porters and conductors to help us along on our journey. The train is very art deco with a lot of dark wood and etched glass. The Queen Adelaide Restaurant, where we dine, is quite fancy. The kids are becoming accustomed to real meals (although Ben has his own loaf of bread and container of butter for sustenance).



Our stop in Broken Hill, an old outback mining town, was thankfully short as temperatures there were hovering above 100 degrees Farenheit. We took a short walk but couldn't stand the heat so we had to get out of the outback! The outback is just as in any picture you've ever seen (and we're only at the edge of it):



The night's sleep was uneventful (more "North by Northwest" than "Murder on the Orient Express"…) We are now speeding towards Sydney with a later arrival than anticipated due to track repairs along the way. We are getting to catch up on homework and just enjoying the passing scenery out the windows.

Day 10: We drove around Auckland on our way to the airport. My Mom said that Ponsonby looks a lot like San Francisco. Then we spent a lot if time at the airport and waited in a lot of times and then we flew to Sydney. It was raining when we got here.

Day 11: Today we went to the Sydney Aquarium. We got there by traveling on a monorail above the city. My favorite part in the Aquarium was seeing the platypus, which is a monotreme native to Australia. I guess all monotremes are native to Australia. We also saw salt water crocodiles, eels, and fish found on the Great Barrier Reef. After that we took the monorail and went to the Powerhouse Museum, which is Sydney's Museum of Science. My favorite exhibit there was about Sports Legends of Australia. Also today I changed my eating habits and decided to eat kangaroo, prawn, calamari, and a spicy sausage (chorizo). The best of those foods was the kangaroo skewer.

Day 12: We went to Taronga Zoo by first taking the underground rail to a ferry station at Circular Quay. We hopped on the ferry to get to Taronga and on the way passed the Harbour Bridge and the Opera House. The zoo was full of incredible animals. One of my favorite parts was the Australia walkabout where you could walk around kangaroos and wallabies. We also saw animals native to Australia like the echidna, wombat, an assortment of birds, and koalas. Also at the zoo we saw a komodo dragon, which does not live close to Australia at all. After that we went to the Sydney SkyTower and I ate more kangaroo, emu, camel, and I tried a fruit native to Australia called passionfruit. The SkyTower has a revolving floor so you weren't just high up but it moved around so you could see all of the city too. On the way home what looked like birds in the sky turned out to be bats.

Day 13: Travel day to Cairns (pronounced like "cans") starting point to the Great Barrier Reef. We had to get up at 5am this morning to get to the airport on time. It was extremely hot out. The reason for this is because Cairns is above the Tropic of Capricorn which makes it extremely hot. We swam in the pool at the Radisson Plaza hotel all afternoon! Then at night we walked towards the city and we swam in the what was like a local swimming pool but was really a lagoon. For dinner that night we found more KFC which is what Ben and I ate. And we saw more bats.

Day 14: Today we went to the Great Barrier Reef, the largest coral reef in the world. It is so big that you can see it from outer space. The Great Barrier Reef is as big as England! We sat on a bus and I came to the conclusion that buses were bad luck because it started to rain (again). When we got there, however, it had actually cleared up. The catamaran (two hulled boat) went pretty fast and we arrived there earlier than people might think. When we got there we rented special suits to block jellyfish stings (but we didn't see any) and while we were in the water we saw many types of fish and coral. After snorkeling we went into an underwater tunnel to watch fish on the reef.

Day 15: Today we went to Kuranda. It's a tropical rainforest and aboriginal village. We got to Kuranda by taking the Kuranda Scenic Railway up the mountain. We saw a couple of waterfalls that had a yellowish color and most of the rivers looked brown. When we got there we took an army DUKW boat (like the Duck Tours in Boston) through the forest and into the river. After that during lunch we got our pictures taken with koalas and we all felt the fur. Then we went outside and saw lots of animals like kangaroo (which we felt), including a joey still in the pouch, koalas, wombats, a blue tongued skink (Dad got a picture of its tongue), cassowary, barramundi… and crocodiles. Then we went to Tjapukai Aboriginal Village where we saw aboriginal people explaining their medicines and culture, their history and their creation stories.

Day 16: We woke up at 4am to catch a plane from Cairns to Adelaide. First we stopped in Brisbane and then went to Adelaide where it was steaming hot. We swam in the Adelaide Aquatic Centre and then ate more American fast food.

Day 17: Today we went to Kangaroo Island on a ferry. KI is the third largest island off of Australia. It was discovered by Matthew Flinders in 1802. First we saw Hidden Beach at Stokes Bay. To get to the sand we had to walk through tunnels and around boulders. After that we went to Pardana Wildlife Park where we got to hand-feed kangaroos (including a joey still in the pouch), pet koalas, try to coax a wombat out of his hole, and we held a baby possum. Next we went to Seal Bay Conservation Park where Australian sea lions live and breed. What was interesting about this was that all of the female sea lions will only breed there because that was where they were also born. This continues for generations. Then we visited the Emu Ridge Eucalyptus Distillery which is a place that makes eucalyptus oil products. They try not to waste anything and they still do all of their work by hand. In the gift shop we were given free samples of Eucalyptus candy. We liked it so much we bought two bags (beware, my class, you will be trying this candy!) We visited Clifford's Honey Farm after that where we tried samples of honey, non-alcoholic honey wine, and saw the only remaining pure strain of Ligurian bees left in the world!

At night my Dad and I went on a nocturnal penguin tour. When we were waiting for the tour bus to arrive we saw three wallabies hop right across the parking lot. Then when the bus picked us up we drove along and we saw lots of wallabies, a couple of possums, and on a side road we saw a whole bunch of kangaroos. I learned that kangaroos try to conserve their energy so it was a real surprise to me when I saw a kangaroo jump right over a fence (instead of crawling under it.) We got out of the bus for a moment to look at the stars and we saw The Southern Cross, a major constellation in the Southern Hemisphere. And then we drove down into Penneshaw and we saw many Little Blue Penguins in their colony. The penguins were in their mating season so we heard a lot of calls and we saw penguins chasing each other.

Day 18: The day started with a visit to the Kelly Hill Caves which holds 17% of the world's helectites. Helectites are stalactites which defy gravity by growing in different directions -- not down. Kelly Hill Caves is a dry cave and many fossils have been found there. The bones of a Tasmanian Devil, which have been extinct for 600 years on the mainland of Australia, have been found in the caves. After lunch we walked on a nature walk and we saw wild koalas, and an echidna just 5 feet away from us! Rachel and I decided to stay back a little instead of seeing another koala. And then the echidna walked right across the path and it was about 5 inches away from us! Echidnas are one of the world's two types of monotremes. Monotremes are mammals that lay eggs rather than giving birth to live young. Even though it is covered with spines, the echidna is not related to a porcupine or a hedgehog.. Also echidnas hind feet are backwards which makes it so that they can scratch in between their spines. Next stop Flinder's Chase National Park where we saw Remarkable Rocks, Admiral's Arch and many New Zealand Fur Seals. And then we went to Rock River informational centre where we got to do interactive things and feel the pelts of various Australian animals, including the echidna. Our last stop was at the Island Pure Sheep's Dairy. We saw sheep being milked, watched a video about how cheese is made from the milk and then got free samples of the cheeses. We liked the cheese called Hamouli which is cooked in the making of it and then pan-fried before you eat it. It doesn't melt in the pan. We bought a package of cheese to eat for breakfast the next day. Then we took the ferry back from KI to Adeladie. On the ferry we actually saw the sun "moving" during the sunset. We watched it sink into the water.

Day 19: To get back from Adelaide to Sydney my parents decided we would take the Indian Pacific train. (They were tired of flying!) The Indian Pacific travels from Perth in Western Australia to Adelaide in South Australia to Sydney in New South Wales. The train's symbol is the Wedge-Tail Eagle, which is Australia's largest eagle, and because it is so large it is supposed to symbolize the IP's large great journey. My mother says that the train is "art deco" to look like a train from an earlier time. Our train compartment has two beds, one pulled out from the couch and the other a loft above it. The compartment also has its own bathroom and shower. The shower is very well designed so that when you pull the curtain around you can keep everything else dry. Also the train has its own lounge and dining car. The dining room is pretty fancy for a train (my Mom says its kind of like the dining room at the Andover Inn).

We stopped at Broken Hill which is an old mining town in the outback. It was so hot (at 5pm!) that just a minute out there made me sweat. The locals get used to the heat and the flies but I don't think it would be that easy for me.

Sleeping on the train was an incredible experience.

If you can read this, then I was able to post from an internet café the public library in Broken Hill, a mining town at the edge of the Australian Outback. (Go back to the "32 degrees" entry from last Saturday to see a couple of updated photos.)

If I found broadband, then this link will show you the leaping koala from the zoo in Sydney last week:

Not-so-sleepy koala at Taronga Zoo

We won't be able to post again until we return to Sydney on the Indian Pacific train, early your Saturday morning. Enjoy the stories and pictures from our last couple of days…

Kelly Hill Caves are a dry limestone cave formation on the southwest of KI.



Not only did we see stalactites and stalagmites but we also saw helectites. (See if you can figure that one out!) During the lunch break Ben and Marjorie went out for a walk and saw a wild koala on the ground making his way to another eucalyptus tree. We watched him for about 5 minutes, which is a lot of time for a koala to be awake. They sleep for 20-22 hours each day. During this nature walk we saw many kangaroos, wallabies, cockatiel, and…. an echidna in the wild!



Then on to Flinders Chase National Park (named for Matthew Flinders, who discovered KI in 1802) where we overdosed on wildlife. Rachel, Jason and Kevin strolled out to the Remarkable Rocks. This cluster of granite boulders has been sculpted by the weather and is perched on a granite dome rising steeply from the ocean. Admiral's Arch, the natural rock bridge formed by the erosion of the sea, is the home and breeding ground of a colony of New Zealand Fur Seals. We watched them sun and frolic on the rocks. Back to the park visitors center where a wild (but not fearful) kangaroo jumped up to the kids to see if they had anything to eat:



The Island Pure Sheep Dairy was our last stop. Believe it or not all of the kids ate and liked pure sheep's milk cheese! Then back on the ferry and off into the sunset…

A ferry from Adelaide to KI started our day bright and early. We began the adventure with a visit to the hidden beach at Stokes Bay. To reach the sand you had to sneak through a passage in a group of limestone boulders.



From there to Pardana Wildlife Park where we saw the first of many kangaroos and wallabies, as well as kookaburra (Ben's favorite) and koalas. The kids held a baby possum. Next to Seal Bay Conservation Park, the home of the Australian Sea Lion. We rounded out the day with visits to the Emu Ridge Eucalyptus Oil distillery and the Clifford's Honey Farm. Both of these are new industries to KI and are totally self-contained, organic enterprises.

Kevin and Jason were awake enough in the evening to partake of the Nocturnal Penguin tour. They were treated to a rare view of the little blue penguins going on penguin dates.


(The red tint is caused by a filter on the flashlight used by the guide to allow them to see the animals at night without disturbing them too much.)

[From last Monday the 1st]
Having so far bypassed the poisonous snakes and other venomous creatures native to Australia we finally encountered the largest insect Marjorie has ever seen—The adult male rhinoceros beetle. A kindly shopkeeper gave us a lecture and demonstration of the beetle while Rachel and I took shelter behind the boys. Rachel was eventually brave enough to hold the thing but when it took flight we both ran away.

[By Rachel, from last Monday the 1st]
Today we woke up and took a bus to the train station and went on a train. On the train, we saw a lot of rivers but they were not blueish - they were more of a brown color. We saw Barron Falls which looks more like it's made out of butterscotch syrup:



When the train ride was over, we went on a bus to a place called Rainforestation. We went on a duck boat (like the ones in Boston) where we saw lizards and turtles, different kinds of trees and termite nests. At the end of the tour we went back to the gift shop where you could get a picture taken of you holding a koala. My whole family got one picture - I was the one who got to hold the koala. Then we went to the wildlife park at Rainforestation and we got to pet kangaroos for the first time. We got to see lizards and wombats and crocodiles and my dad got a picture of a blue-tongued skink's tongue (which is really blue!) There was also a cassowary and dingoes.

We took a bus back to the village. We got off at the village and walked around. A guy let me and Jason try a didgeridoo:



We went into a souvenir shop and my brothers got boomerangs. Then we walked to the Skyrail station and before we got on the Skyrail we saw a bunch of squawking rainbow lorikeets in a tree.

On the Skyrail, which is a gondola over the rainforest, my mom and brothers think they saw a tree kangaroo in the jungle below. There were a couple stops but since it was raining so hard we didn't get out. When we got to the bottom we went to the Tjapukai Aboriginal Park. We saw aboriginal art and we learned about bush medicine and foods (and didgeridoos.) We saw movies about history and creation and it was all said in the way aboriginal people thought things were done. At the end of the day I went into the gift shop and bought my own didgeridoo.

Hi everybody! Here are answers to some of your comments:
Aram- Hi Aram, yes the penguins are blue, and they really are pretty cool!
Kelsey- Kelsey, I actually didn't see any jellyfish. And I haven't held a koala but I've felt the fur on a couple.
Rachel- Rachel we saw penguins tonight, the weather has been with us too, so we're having a great time!
Natasha- Natasha, we did see a lot of animals in the zoo, some were actually pretty odd ones too!
Will- Will, did you say you were wearing shorts! I guess It'll feel normal to me because summer here(although I think it might be hotter here).
Meghan-Meghan Conger, we did see Sydney, it's incredible there!
Alex-Alex, funniest post was from you! Did take picture of kangaroos, even fed them! Have kangaroo fur wallet for people to feel!
See you soon. Thanks for writing to me.
Jason

We're at a little pizza place on Kangaroo Island getting ready to take the ferry back to the "north island" (mainland Australia), but Marj and the kids are across the street looking for Little Blue Penguins peeking out of their nesting spots in the rocks (Jason and I saw them last night under the moonlight since they're supposed to be nocturnal.)

We have tons of pictures and storied to upload, but we'll arrive late tonight into Adelaide and I can't promise when we'll do it. I'll do my best, because tomorrow we get on the overnight train back to Sydney via the outback.

(Another post title inspired by a song... who can be the first to identify it in the comments?)

So anyway, today was supposed to be a low-key travel/lounge/laundry kind of day, notwithstanding that we left our hotel in Cairns at 4:00 am. But Adelaide was 34 degrees Celsius and "fine" and the lament was: no pool at the hotel. Fortunately, there is a really cool place called the Adelaide Aquatic Center with about 6 pools, slides, spa and sauna, etc. We spent over 3 hours there and the kids met some new Aussie mates to play water volleyball. We had so much fun, Marj didn't have time to shop for opals (whew!) Took a city bus back and then walked the length of the Rundle Mall back to our hotel.

I promised that Rachel would give us her memories of the rainforest day in Kuranda near Cairns, but today ended up much busier than expected and she's not done yet. The next post will be out of order -- we'll try to catch up tomorrow? (Also, I undid the idea of having all of the posts show up on the front page because it takes forever to load! Check the archive links on the left to find older entries.)

Any news from work friends (other than the long-delayed earnings release?)

(Post title nicked from an Old 97's song… actually, the reef was amazing!) We continued the Finding Nemo theme by taking a catamaran ferry to a platform at the outer edge of the Great Barrier Reef to explore and snorkel. It was raining in Cairns as we left for Port Douglas an hour north (as Jason has noted, riding in a bus seems to be a sure predictor of rain for us.) Another recurring theme on the trip has been Benjamin's complaints on the way to an activity -- for example, grumpy Ben on the catamaran before we got to the reef:



Followed by his joy and amazement when we eventually do whatever we were driving/busing/sailing/flying to -- in this case, snorkeling at a tropical coral reef:



(The blue Lycra suits were to protect us from coral and stinging jellyfish -- the water was fine.) Marj and the kids were interviewed for a news special, but the station was from Saipan (near Guam) so we're afraid you probably won't see us. While they were doing that, I went back out without a vest and did some deeper dives to the coral. The film from the underwater cameras hasn’t been developed yet, but hopefully one of mine will look something like this:



These posts tend to be a day or so behind real-time, so you won't hear about our day today in the rainforest (hopefully from Rachel this time!) until we've arrived in Adelaide on Tuesday. Thanks again for all of your comments.