Nana's Birthday

We head in the car with Aunt Denise, Daniel and his girlfriend Jess to Nelson Bay, back where our trip began. The sneaky Bond family decided to come down to celebrate Nan's birthday early (June 14th actual date) so we could be part of the festivities. Aunt Karen, Uncle Vernon, Uncle Ian and Tennille flew down early Friday morning and we arrived in the afternoon to meet them at the club for drinks. Nan made wonderful curries for dinner, and we stayed up very late drinking way too much, we can tell you more on that later. We had a wonderful evening, and we mostly recovered by lunchtime Saturday at The Deck, a nice restaurant at Soldiers Point Marina. It was really nice to spend the end of our trip with a family function. The weekend was great.

Port Macquarie & Bonny Hills

Our last week of the trip is spent in Bonny Hills with Aunt Denise, Uncle Jim, and cousin Daniel. We finally packed up all our stuff at uncle Ian's house. He sent us off with a lovely bbq with friends, good food again, and we hop on the train. We have a lot of stuff. We are not really suprised. We spend a few evenings at the club, and on Saturday, we go to Port Macquarie to go Dragon Boating. A little back info: on our first train trip to Brisbane long ago, we meet Anne and Gail who have been Dragon Boat Racing for Breat Cancer during the Chinese New Year festivities. They tell us about racing and invite us to join them, when we are in the area. Three months later, we call Anne and ask if we can come check it out. They have training/practice runs at 6am, and a few times a week, the 8am run is for beginners. We are welcomed, armed with lifejackets and given oars and a brief lesson. We stretch, which is smart. A Dragon Boat has twenty people, a coach bangs a drumand keeps the rythm (during races) and a "sweep" at the back steering. Our coach does not have a drum as he is teaching all the new people like us what to do. Alison and I are sitting right near the front, and our buddies explain better techniques. We start slow, go faster and after a bit learn the sprint start. These ladies are hardcore, and awesome, and most of them tiny, tiny like I can fit them in my pocket. They saw we paddle well, or strong at least. We appreciate the compliments. I splash water on the woman in front of me a lot at first. We have a really wonderful time, and Anne takes us out for coffee afterwards. We meet Aunt Denise later in the evening for Champagne at the club with her friends and tell them all about how we are already starting to feel sore. Sunday we wake early to play golf with the Bonny Hills Golf Club with Aunt Denise and the ladies, we play three man ambrose, like leapfrog taking the best shot of the players. I like golf like this, and suprisingly turn out to be not a bad player. Unfortunately this is not the case for Alison, whom does not play well at all. She paddled much harder than I did at Dragon Boats and is much more sore. We get a write up in the local paper. On Tuesday we go with Denise's friend Jenny to see the new Indiana Jones with the local movie club, and go for Thai afterwards. We spend our days with Daniel, who is recovering from knee surgery, he drives us around to see beaches, and lookout points, as well as the Koala Hospital. We have dinner together and drink wine, and Alison and I cook Greek one evening. We walk around Town Beach, and Rainbow Beach which has colorful stones all over it. Port Macquarie and Bonny Hills are filled with wonderful people and beautiful sights. We repack, and head to Nana and Grandad's again, that much closer to home.

Flashback: Lightning Ridge-we heart you!

We LOVE Lightning Ridge. Lightning Ridge might have been one of our favorites places. We are only sorry a) we didn't get to stay longer, and b) we were not able to write about it sooner. We read about Lightning Ridge, famous for black opals, and unlike Coober Pedy, above ground. During our stay at Boongalla the cattle station, Ian the owner allowed us his car for the weekend to go see Lightning Ridge. A four/sixish hour drive away. We are pumped, it is really nice of him to do, we get the weekend off, and we leave at 5:30 am Saturday morning. The sunrise is beautiful and we are aware of animals possibly still running around. I will remind everyone that we are in the middle of nowhere at this time, like driving in West Texas, dry, dirt roads at times and brushy. We do not hit any animals, but two birds do fly onto us, a kangaroos almost gets us, and two emus do a dance in front of our car as well. We are not even driving fast. This is all in the morning. We drive even slower. Our drive is beautiful, we stop in Hebel for a scone with cream and jam (me) Yum, and a meatpie for Alison. Arrival in Lightning Ridge brings us to the information center. We know we want to go digging, called fossicking in these parts, and stop to find out more information. Annie, is VERY helpful, she tells us of the tours available, fossicking options, and invites us to barefoot bowls at the club in the evening. At the edge of town there is a hot bore spring, it is like the neighborhood pool. Everyone in town goes there after work or the pub, we are intrigued, but not sure we'll make it there. We decide on Bluey motel, across the street from the bowls club, so we can walk home later. We book a tour with Black Opal Tours, and grab some lunch. The 1:00 tour is wonderful, our driver is great, and we learn the history of Lightening Ridge as well as what makes black opals unique. We see the first miners shacks in town as well as homes built more recently. Lightning ridge has no building codes outside of town, so we see shacks, trailers, houses, and even a castle built entirely by hand from rocks in the area. It is stunning. We stop by the Black Queen, a home with glass bottles in patterns in the walls, like stained glass. Another stunning building. The owners Gale & Roger are very nice and ask us to return the next day for a demonstration of their antique lamp collection, since we are on a tour we have to leave. We are having a wonderful time on our tour, and everyone is so nice. We stop at Down to Earth Opals, a shop with beautiful jewelry, and ogle at everything. We rest at the motel, then make our way to barefoot bowls. We meet great people, eat steak sandwiches, and win a gift basket, and a bottle of Johnnie Walker. We stay late, and drink a fair bit, and decide to not go to the hot springs, since our motel is across the street. We wake up early to try fossicking outside of town. We fossick unsuccessfully for a few hours, but of course have a good time, and head back to the Black Queen for the antique lamp lighting presentation. A beautiful collection, we learn the history of the lamps, how they became the collection, and have a really wonderful afternoon. This really marks the end of our time in Lightning Ridge, we don't want to leave. We rush to a few art galleries in town, paintings and photography, and rush to say goodbye to many. We have to get on the road, we don't want to chance driving at night. We are sad to leave this town, where every person we met, we wanted to spend more time with. If you live in Australia, or make it this way, go to Lightning Ridge, please, and tell them the New York girls sent you.

Flashback: The Big Pineapple (Rachel's B-day)

Just to clarify, my birthday is in March, so this post has been a long time coming, but it was too wonderful to pass by without a post. During this time we were staying in Noosa, with Karen, Vernon and Tennille, and they graciously allowed us to stay a few days longer to celebrate my birthday and go sailing again. We had an tour packed day planned. The Big Pineapple, The Ginger Factory, a stop at the Emmundi Markets for Tai dumplings and we were trying to see how much we could fit in before sailing again and a dinner that Karen was making special. We begin at the Big Pineapple, a huge tourist destination in the 70's, and a working pineapple and macadamia nut farm. Now, not so much of either, when we first arrive in the morning, we are the ONLY people there, really, it's us and a few employees, we pay our $15 to take the train tour, the macadamia nut bus tour and the feeding/petting zoo of Australian animals and farm. We are the ONLY people on the train through the first tour. The train guys like us and answer our many questions, including ones about the downfall of the Big Pineapple itself. In it's heyday 5,000 people a day went through there, now they are happy if 30 come through a day. We learn about how pineapples are grown and harvested, and unfortunately see many rotting on the plants. They tell us they are sadly understaffed. They even used to have a chocolate factory there, now closed. But the train is wonderful and so are our tour guides. We hop off at the end and take our walk through the Australian petting zoo. Let me start by saying this is unlike any petting zoo our fellow Americans have ever been to I'm sure, not only because it is Australian animals, but there are no supervisors around, or guides, or zoo/vet/authoritative figures around. Absolutely amazing. You are responsible for your own behavior. We had bought two bags of food (grass like stuff) before our tour, and walk into a large pen of about thirty kangaroos. Now, we realize that since we are the only people here, we are the first to come through with bags of free food, we're not sure if we should be worried. We are excited, take lots of pictures, feed kangaroos, and a few of them when they stand up are as tall as we are, we try not to piss them off. It's really great and we spend a lot of time feeding and petting kangaroos, and a stray wallabie who wandered in to the area. They are cute, and both of us find our favorites, as well as a few we stay away from. The farm animals, are farm animals and we quickly feed and pet a cow, a donkey and a goat each. We are on a schedule, and we run to catch the nut bus tour and miss it. We have to come back another time. Which luckily the lady at the front desk allows us to do. We go back the next week. The tour guides think we're funny for coming back again, and we get more photos of the big pineapple itself which you can climb inside of. There is a life size diarama of how pineapples are canned and make it to your grocery store. The gift shop is AMAZING, they are selling the same souvenirs from the 70's and 80's and if we could afford it we would have bought something for everyone.

Bundaberg

After Lady Elliot, our flight back to the mainland brought us to Bundaberg. We stayed there overnight so we could check out the rum distillery and ginger beer factory. We do love tours. Bundaberg rum is made from sugar cane, locally grown, which is made into molasses. It's very good, and much sweeter than Caribbean rum. The tour was very informative, and we got two drinks with our admission price – not bad. At the Bundaberg GingerBeer Factory, the interactive tour was great. They naturally brew all their products, “Just like your Grandma used to do”. We got to taste all their products, the ginger beer is great, and the peach and apple flavors are wonderful.

Wondering where we've been huh?........Lady Elliot Island

We've found paradise, and we stayed a week. We've just returned from Lady Elliot Island, 90 miles northeast of Bunderberg. We picked Lady Elliot Island Resort for the ability to walk right into the water and snorkel. They are self sufficient, and at most they can have up to 80 guests. Our first night we were 2 of 18 guests at dinnertime, they have many day trippers, but most guests stay 2-3 nights. We were pumped, it's very much like a cruise, the housekeeping ladies made our beds, and drinks are charged to the room and you pay at the end – that parts not so exciting, but not carrying anything around for a week and walking around in a bathing suit all day sounded wonderfully tempting.
We flew to Bunderberg on a commuter plane, and wait at the tiny airport for three hours for our flight to the island. The island is actually a coral cay, completely surrounded by coral and is only approachable by plane. Boats are not allowed to get too close, as it will damage the surrounding coral. An even smaller plane arrives at the airport, this plane seats ten, I (Rachel) am sitting in the copilot seat, and I am instructed not to touch anything. Our pilot looks fifteen years old and he assures us he is much older. This plane is tiny, and neither of us has ever been in a plane this small. It's awesome. Our flight to the island is exciting, not scary and is 40 minutes long. Seeing the island from the air is amazing.
We are greeted by staff on the grass runway, and we take the information filled tour to the education center, dining area, dive center, and to our tent. Our EcoTent is cute, and comfortable, and much bigger than we were expecting. There are two sets of bunk beds, a side table, and table and chairs sitting out front. We settle in (ie: rearrange our room), read the schedule for the coming week, and get fitted at the dive shop for snorkel masks and fins, which we keep for the week. Optional activities for the week when we're not snorkeling include: the historical tour, fish feeding at the lagoon, guided reef walks, a dangerous marine creatures presentation, a fish identification talk, night stalks, and reef bingo. We try to do everything that we can. People rarely stay for seven nights and we make friends with all the staff. Breakfasts and dinners are buffet style in the dining room and staff and guests visit and talk about plans for the day or what they've seen. At 6pm, before dinner, there are cocktails and nibblies in the bar, and scheduling for the next days events.
Snorkeling: The lagoon side of the island is shallow, and at low tide, you reef walk beside the coral with water shin deep. At high tide the water is thigh high, and you float/snorkel over the coral, very close to the fish. It is amazing. You are allowed to snorkel on the lagoon side two hours before and after high tide. We start on the lagoon side first with reef walking then snorkeling. We see all kinds of fish, as well as octopus, sharks and eels. Alison has never been snorkeling before so I am excited that this is her first experience. She is as excited about it as I am, it's wonderful. She says being on the lagoon side is like snorkeling in a dentist office fish tank.
We walk across the airstrip to the west side of the island, to snorkel by the lighthouse. The west side has two entry spots through the coral into the water. You enter at either point: the lighthouse or the coral gardens, and depending on the current you drift toward the other. We put on our fins and attempt to walk through the path. This in itself is amusing I'm sure to anyone watching, but by the end of the week we have it mastered. We float out, and immediately both of us have to empty water out of our masks and snorkels because we both smiled so big at what we saw. We are instantly transported to a National Geographic movie, it's a completely different world. Everywhere we look there is coral, fish and gorgeous water. There is a large hawksbill turtle swimming around us. The visibility is amazing.
We swim with sea turtles everyday, and they are curious, they like their shells and bellies scratched. We see white tipped and black tipped reef sharks, parrot fish, sea cucumbers, and we go early one morning to see manta rays. They are ten feet across (we are estimating, if not bigger) and we see five circling below us. We snorkel all day, everyday. We don't want to leave the water, and only do so because we get hungry. We take photos of everything, but none do the water activities any justice. On three different nights they find baby loggerhead turtles (Alison finds one) that have wandered from the nest (towards the lights at the bar)– we take flashlights and guide them on their walk to the water. They are so cute and tiny, they look battery operated toys.
The entire staff is wonderful, helpful and very knowledgeable. We LOVE it here and I try not to cry on the airplane off the island (Alison as copilot). We get a warm send off from the staff, and we try to figure out how we can come back here and work. We both love the water, and spending a week at The Great Barrier Reef was amazing and a dream come true. We decide if we are able we would bring our friends and family here. It was totally worth it.
Check out their website: ladyelliotisland.com

One month to go.

Alison here, I'm posting a short something because it's been a while. We ended up staying at Boongalla for over 3 weeks. It was an experience that would never have happened at home, so we are pleased that we had the chance to be on a station. We were dropped off at Aunt Karen and Vernon's house where we spent the weekend. It was Anzac Day weekend. We spent the morning at the beach and the afternoon at a picnic in their friends backyard. On Sunday we met with Uncle Ian for lunch and then we came back to his house for a few days. This weekend we will spend at Surfer's Paradise with my cousin Lauren. The big fun happens next weekend. Rachel and I are heading to Lady Elliot Island. It is the southern most part of the Great Barrier Reef. It is a coral cay meaning that it was part of the reef thousands of years ago. Now it is an island that is completely surrounded by coral.So much that boats can't dock there. You have to fly there. For us it means 7 days of walk in off the beach snorkeling. We are pumped. It also means the rest of this month is a low budget affair including renting lots of movies and hanging out with family. Lucky for us we love doing those things as well. Sorry there's no picture. That's Rachel's department.

Boongalla

We are on the Boongalla organic wheat farm and cattle station. Today is our tenth day and we have been asked if we will stay on and work for two more weeks. It is not always fun, but it is nice to being doing work for a change and getting a pay check. Most of our time has been spent fixing fences. That means driving metal stakes into the ground and them wiring them on to the existing wires. It is dusty and fly's in your mouth kind of work. The fun parts of the job include cattle mustering on quads, it didn't go so well with us on the horses. We've done cow tagging, counting their teeth, and horn removal(yuk). We are currently building a new ramp to load the cows onto trucks. That means that I'm doing a lot of welding and Rachel is doing the grinding. There is a nice Polish boy here with us as well. He is doing a lot of shoveling dirt and filling holes in the road. He is jealous of our jobs, but he has never done any work like this before and the boss, Ian, thinks that he eats too much so he gets the crap jobs. On our day off we rode around on the quads trying to find kangaroos and cow skulls. Then we went to the dam and caught yabbies for dinner(a yabbie is an Australian crayfish). The farm is 9000 acres, so there is much we haven't seen yet. It is beautiful here. Every sunset is wonderful. And the stars are the brightest I've ever seen. We are allowed to take the quads out on clear nights to ride to the middle of the wheat fields to take a look. Nothing but stars. And the only familiar constellation is Orion. On the third day I was sent with the boy to round up 8 bulls and bring them to the pen. Everything went well until we got to the gate at the pen and they decided that they didn't want to go in. They all ran in different directions and it took lots of fancy driving, yelling, and horn honking to get them headed the right way. There are also lots of old cars and trucks here that we get to do some maintenance on which is also exciting. We've been into town twice as well. It takes an hour to get there. We are now recognized as the girls from New York. It makes getting stuff done hard because everyone has lots of questions. They really like us at the steel place because I know about welding. They have given Rachel and I a pair of gloves and some grinding disks to try out. If we don't want to go all the way to town, they is a gas station a half hour away. It is also the post office. Basically it is the town. Maybe you could look up were we are. The town is called The Gums. Our remoteness has made it difficult to stay in touch. Cell phones don't work and the internet is iffy. The house we are staying in is large and I'm sure amazing 1967. Now it is run down and vintage. The kitchen isn't to bad but the stove doesn't work so we make everything in a plug in skillet and microwave. He says the oven works but we're not that adventurous. We all take turns cooking dinner, except for Ian, he does all the dishes, sort of. So we are jillaroos now. We get to see kangaroos in the morning and pink sunsets at night. On Monday we start plowing the fields. The tractor is huge. Its a John Deer, only the best. Oh, and Ian has two wonderful cattle dogs named Bonnie and Clyde. They never bark and they love everybody. But when its time for work they are no fooling around. Boongalla rocks!

The Golden Staph

It started on our first day in Sydney. I reach into my pocket to pull out some 2 dollar coins and I notice that my thumb tip feels a little tender. I look for a reason for the pain, but there's nothing to see. What I now know is that was the first sign that I had a truly painful, quick moving, and very hard to treat infection growing under my skin. Goodbye Sydney, hello Grandparents in Salamander Bay. First I was misdiagnosed with a fractured thumb, then a few days later told that it was a common infection, no worries mate. I got some antibiotics and some really strong pain pills that would make it better within two days. Two days later it was worse and needed to be drained. That should do the job. It's now been over a week. Rachel and I decide that I will be better now so it is time to move on to Brisbane. First night there I receive a call from my nurse practitioner Jason (who was wonderful) that I might as well have been taking candy to treat my infection. It turns out that I have an MRSA infection, more commonly referred to as Golden Staph. Almost all kinds of staph infections can be treated quickly with metacilin (may not be spelled correctly). The golden staph is a metacillin resistant strain that resists most treatments and medicines. I was luck that they tested the goo from my thumb or it would have gotten much worse. I went straight to the doctor in the morning who gave me the right medicine. Now its time to explain the picture. The doctor sent me to have my thumb dressed by the nurse. Apparently dressed means squeezing my thumb until I scream, hit Rachel, jump off the bed, and cry like I haven't cried in years. Once I sat down again the nurse said, “Oh yes, it did look a bit tender. Hold your breath and lets have another go.” I tried to let her do it again, but I couldn't, so she wrapped it up tight and Rachel snapped a picture.
It's doing much better now that I've been on the right medicine for 5 weeks. I don't need to wrap it up any more. Now is when I have to be patient and not play with it. Lately Rachel says it looks like a raisin. Uncle Ian says more like the end of a hotdog. I'm just happy that they didn't cut if off. I'll write more, but only if it gets worse.

Back to the Beach - Noosa

We're here almost a week, Adam comes to visit as well, and we might stay a bit more. It's beautiful, and relaxing. Vernon takes us to the boat club and we go sailing - we LOVE it. We don't realize until we are there that we are speed sailing, and the boat Vernon and I are on win the afternoon race. We recieve a bottle of wine, the Captain - Peter, wants us to have it. The next day Alison & I go sea kayaking, we are very adventourous. It's us, a guide and one other couple. We are prepared to kayak in the river, we're not so sure about the ocean. The ocean is very choppy at times, but we paddle, watch surfers, and try not to roll our kayak. The guide complements us on our paddling skills (or at least Alison's, I try not to freeze when waves come) Alison might kill me but we make it through, two hours later we are done, and soaked. We go home and prep to cook dinner.

Katoomba

From Sydney we head to Katoomba where we spend two days hiking around. It is unbelievable beautiful. Waterfalls, the Three sisters - rock formations, and Grand Canyon like vastness but with greenery, then tropical forest. We stay in a super hippie hostel with really nice people, then head back to Sydney and Brisbane. We are hosting a birthday bbq for uncles' Vernon, Ian and myself (Rachel) on the weekend. We have a great time and cook a huge southern feast - ribs, chicken, cornbread, greenbeans, and potato salad. On Sunday we head to Noosa with Aunt Karen, Uncle Vernon, and their six year old daughter Tennille.

Parade

The crowd gets whistles, and Jarrod gives Alison and I a sandwich since we've been there all day. We are back in the same hostel as when we first arrived in Sydney. They are doing construction on the building, we find out this means they've torn out the bathroom in our building. We are hoping we won't wake in the middle of the night to pee. We are exhausted after the parade and crash out pretty much immediately after. We spend the next day wandering around Sydney and take an evening ghost tour.

Mardi Gars

We go to reserve a spot on the street at three in the afternoon by sitting on the curb. The parade does not start until 7pm. There is a liquor store on the corner. We meet wonderful people whom we are standing next to and proceed to drink a fair bit throughout the afternoon/evening. They give us whistles, and we're a bit tipsy. The parade is great, and the whole city is celebrating. We meet Todd's Australian doppelganger, if not soul mate. We get info for Todd, and say only good things about him.

train with baby

Finally on the train to Sydney, Mardi Gras here we come! This train has a crying baby, but our return train has really obnoxious people on it, and three people with no shoes. I'm just sayin'. Alison is mad, and yells at obnoxious guy at three in the morning - they shut up. My hero.

Brisbane to Sydney take one

Back to Brisbane for a day, repack, and back to the train, another 16hr trip back to Sydney. Actually, when we book our tickets, the women we speak to tells us the wrong time for the train. She does not account for daylight savings time, seriously?, and we miss our train. We think we are an hour early, but in fact we are five minutes late. We are mad. We rebook for the next day and Ian picks us up from the train station. (the photo is taken at this time, I have a mouth full of peanut butter- alison made us sandwiches for the train) We try again the next day and are really an hour early this time. There is a crying baby sitting behind us on the train. We are afraid it will cry the whole time. Thank you iPod, you make our lives better. They exit the train after a while. We actually sleep this time. We are packing lighter and traveling savvyer than before.

Outdoor feast, family & new friends

Lauren Rocks it out in the grilling department. She makes potato & avocado salad, and coconut thai fish, along with prawns and scallops on the grill. I'm not even showing the pictures of all the meat Adam got, kebabs, sausages, and steak. A wonderful day and meal, including above mentioned peach daquiris. A great send off for us. We'll be back there after Easter.

TaDa!!!!

This is a Dragon Fruit, it's really cool looking, and feels rubbery on the outside. The inside's texture feels like a kiwi fruit in your mouth, but has no real flavor, or much to be able to describe anyway. Really interesting for a fruit that looks so distinctive. We decide to add it to peach daquiris we are making for a bbq Lauren & Adam are giving. Good choice. I need to get my eyebrows done - I know.

ALL NEW INFO!!!!!.....

For all of our friends and family in the states...We have figured out how to forward our calls from our computer to our cell phone here. Sooo...if you call us at 646-867-3849, which is a New York number, instead of going to our computer, and leaving a message with a creepy sounding recording (which we've since changed), your call will automatically forward to the cell phone we are using here. It still only uses our minimally priced computer Skype minutes, (isn't Skype AWESOME!) so don't worry. If you want or need to talk to us, no worries mate, we're here.
look forward to hearing your voice.
xox

Day Trip with cousins

We see some nature, and spend the day hiking in the bush. Beautiful. I feel like I'm on vacation.
We're too early in the day for glow worms, but we do see bats, and waterfalls. Good enough for me.

the Gold Coast

Adam takes us to the Gold Coast and Surfers Paradise, about 45 min. from Uncle Ian. Where we spend almost a week with cousins Adam, Lauren, and roommate Ainsley. We hang out, cook food, see sights, hike, have a barbeque, and swim. Excellent. Lauren lets us sleep in her bed. The weather is perfect. We think the rain has stopped.

he looks like Alison's dad

Ian is wonderful, he lets us borrow the car, stay at his house, and takes us to the bar. He also has a pool, so we try to cook dinner for him.

and queso

Adam asks us to make tacos and burritos, we must ablidge - we make him wear this shirt.

Ian, Adam, and meatpies

Alison's cousin Adam comes to visit, they take us for meat pies. This is a super cute place by Ian's house.

bye for now

New Postings!!! Here's whats been happening in the last two weeks: Nan and Grandad take us to the train station where we hop on a bus, then a train for Brisbane. Uncle Ian picks us up at 6am, we realize it's hard to sleep on the train sometimes, and it's really cold. We spend the day wandering around Brisbane. We are exhausted but happy. And we check out the Brisbane Botanical Garden. It's beautiful, it's raining and we take an hour long guided tour with two other people, one of whom is from Katy, Texas. (Close to where I am from.) We see lily pads, and two large turtles, and large iguanas and lizards, as well as the ibis, my new favorite bird. They have really long curved beaks. Ian takes us to the club (bar) after work and then we head home. Australia is all about clubs ie: rugby clubs, rowing clubs, barefoot bowls - which Ian belongs to and we'll explain later (when we understand). We are back in Brisbane on Friday for a Barefoot Bowls Tournament - which I think we are participating in.

long time

We know we've been out of touch, here's to say, we've been trying. We'll post soon, and bring you up to date on all our travels. It's been raining, and wireless has been in and out. More soon. we miss you. xoxo.

P.S. thumb is good, biting gnats - not so much.

King of the old gum tree

The birds, much like the rest of the landscape here, are really captivating. The noise is like waking up in Jurassic Park every morning. The bird calls and the trees that grow sideways, it's a bit prehistoric feeling. Being in this landscape makes me wonder what it looked like completly untouched. This photo is of a pair of Kukaburras, and that is actually a gum nut tree. Nan and Grandad have a handful of Kukaburras in the backyard. Their call is really great, and it does sound as if they are laughing. It's very much like a Muah!, without the M, and repeat the uah, uah, uah a few times. Make sense? Other birds habitating the backyard are the Minah bird, which has a bright yellow beak, and is really chatty and apparently a pain grandad says. They feed them the table scraps from dinner, (that might be why they like it here so much) which they pretend to fight over. The Kukaburra always wins. We've seen a few small parrots, which are really bright green. But they haven't stopped enough for photos. Every other morning there is a bird that sounds like a penny whistle, which might be my favorite. Although the Kukaburra does make me laugh every time I hear his uah, uah, uah, uah. We've packed or bags again, and are headed to the train later this evening: on to Brisbane! Goodbye to you Kukaburras, I'm sure they'll miss our portion of scraps, although they don't exactly look underfed do they?

Alison's Food of the Week : Nanna's cooking

It wasn't very hard at all. Simple really. We have now been at my grandparents house for 10 nights,(thanks stupid thumb), and we have decided that every meal my Nan has prepared is the best we have eaten. She has wowed us with such traditional fare as roast pork served with peas, green beans, carrots, potatoes, yorkshire puddings, and a heathly splash of gravy. The condiments on the table included HP sauce and mint sauce made from the mint in their lovely garden. We've had a home cooked big Australian Breki like the one we had in the picture Rachel already posted and Nan's own MEAT PIES!, with mushy peas and chips. Both of these meals were accompanied by HP sauce, tomato sauce, and salt and white pepper. I asked why white pepper instead of black, but they didn't know. Tomato sauce is the Aussie equivalent of ketchup, it doesn't have as much flavor, more like runny tomato paste. These are important things to know for future writings. Let's get back to the food. We have also enjoyed more exotic foods like her Moroccan chicken tangine and rice, which had tons of spices, apricots, and raw almonds. One night Granddad did most of the cooking. We had Thai basil beef with chili paste and snow peas, egg fried rice, and sang cho bow. The last item is a ground pork mixture of asian goodness, eaten wrapped in a piece of lettuce leaf. Yummy. I don't want to tell you about everything because it would be to much for some of our more delicate readers to be able to handle. This is aleady a lot to dream about. I will conclude with the meal shown in the picture at the top. Chicken shnitzel covered in a luscious Diane sauce surrounded by boiled white potatoes, sauteed tomato and zucchini, steamed snow peas, and broiled tomato halves with fresh thyme. Whatever Diane sauce is, we like it! Beautiful, filling, tasty, perfect.

We see wildlife

Yesterday Grandad let us take out the golf cart, for a pre-dinner drive. They want us to catch sight of the many kangaroos that are living here that I was beginning to believe didn't really exist. But at the second hole, there they are...four of them, so cute, sooo not afraid of us. We though at first, like deer, if we got too close, they would hop off. Then we thought, we can get photos of them hopping away, action shots - yes! Well let me tell you, they did not, would not, hop away. After trying to sneak up on them slowly by foot, Alison, trying to be a cowboy, drove by them in the cart, and they didn't even budge, they just stared at us. It was comical really. They were laughing, I was laughing, Alison was not laughing. We got some good photos, and figured we probably won't be this close to them ever outside of a zoo. Very exciting either way. I found this out as well, kangaroos sleep lying down. The ladies at Nan's craftclub told me this morning. I went to craft club today up at the clubhouse, me and sixteen ladies of the community. Weatherwise it was the prettiest day we've had so far. We read our books in the backyard. Grandad did most of the cooking for dinner (a real honor I'm told). Excellent meal.

um...

Do they have enough warnings? I'm not sure, but I want this sign. It's awesome.
If you can, click on the photo to check it out in detail.

after the doctor....

we head to the beach. It's still gray out and a bit drizzly, but we still have to see the sights. I'll do a few short posts just to show you some pictures. And to let you know that even with minor injuries, we are leaving the house.

that's the thumb

So back to the doctor yesterday...we headed to the poly-clinic about 8:30am and after waiting for a bit went to see the lovely nurse pratitioner who checked Alison's chart and decided it was time to open things up, and get the evil out. I know. He numbed up Alison's thumb, she tried to tell him stories the whole time without looking, and he kindly showed me everything, so I could tell her later. I'm so nice. It was gross. But hopefully it'll be better soon. Really, it wasn't that bad, a couple cuts here and there, he drained stuff, relieved some pressure, and wrapped it up nice. It immediately looked better. It took longer to prep everything, and wait for the shot to work. He sent some stuff to a lab so we can find out what happened, we call on Friday...and we got this all for the low, low price of $65. I'll pause for you. $65. I would go to the doctor ALL the time - only $65, seriously? Amazing. We got more medicine, and pain killers, not so heavy this time, and we're keeping an eye on it. On other fronts, we are planning on getting the train on Sunday to Brisbane, we'll arrive early Monday morning, where Uncle Ian will pick us up.

We might move in...

Been hanging out with Nan and Grandpa, we took a nice drive the other day when it was not raining to Morpeth, which use to be a port town, and is now filled with cute shops and cafes. We have not yet seen a kangaroo, or koala, but we have seen alot of kangaroo or koala crossing signs by the side of the road. Stopped by the Morpeth Wine Cellar, had a tasting and bought a bottle of nice white wine. We have not opened it yet since Alison is heavily medicated. For all of you on pins and needles about the state of Alison's thumb, we went to the clinic a few days ago, and it seems she's got some sort of infection. Since it is under the nail, it looks horrific, but she does get to keep the thumb, and was given antibiotics, and massive pain killers. I really wanted to get a photo with the doctor for the blog, but alas, Alison wasn't really in the mood. (Who knows perhaps we'll see him again) Lots of stuff is happening under there, so hopefully we won't have to go back to the doctor, and have him cut things open. Ew. She'll probably lose the nail. And as Todd commented, it seems that making her do all the hitchhiking really didn't matter that much. I'll try to get a photo later for those interested. Since she is medicated she's been sleeping very well. I keep trying to stay up late, which so far means 10:30. This retired life gets some taking used to. Yesterday I took a walk up to the driving range and hit a bucket of balls. I wouldn't start betting on me yet, but it wasn't too bad. Alright I have lots of practicing to do. I think Alison would have gotten a kick out of it, had she not been asleep. It was probably better that I was alone for my first go. Then I went to the clubhouse and had a beer. Nan is feeding us very well, the past couple of days we've had homemade meat pies, shepards pie, chicken cutlets, pork with yorkshire puddings, and a wonderful trifle with mandarine oranges and passion fruit - heaven. The rest of which I had for lunch the next day - the trifle that is. Oh yea, and some magic toast things for lunch, with egg, cheese and vegetables made in the broiler. Yum. By the way, we are having a hard time checking our email, we're not sure why, but Yahoo doesn't want to play nice right now. All for today. It's lunch time.

Off to Grandma's house we go

I'm playing catch up a bit and posting more than once today...sooo we sorted out all of our grown up things that we had to do. Verify our train tickets, get bank accounts, tax id numbers, visa stuff, blah, blah, blah. We repacked all of our stuff into manageable packages, hopped on the train, and two hours later were in the Broadmeadow station. We are staying with Alison's grandparents, and it couldn't be lovelier. They live a short drive from Broadmeadow, in Salamander Bay, off the Le Meilleur Horizons Golf Resort. It has been raining here since we arrived, we've been reading, visiting and eating wonderful food, but today there was enough of a break in the storm to take a walk around the neighborhood. We stopped at the clubhouse when it started to rain again to have a beer or two... or four, but who's counting, it was raining after all. More tomorrow...

Breakfast

So let me tell you what's on this plate...I'll preface by saying that on our second day in Sydney we made our way downtown, and figured the city out. This was our $5 breakfast - called either a traditional Irish or Australian breakfast, depending on where you looked. This includes: toast, eggs, a sausage, roast tomato, mushrooms, bacon and beans, and a beer. Yep, that's bacon, right next to the sausage. Wow. Pretty awesome, and very good for walking the city for the rest of the day. I had no idea. Perhaps the beginning of our trip will not be the slimming down part of our trip - I'm just saying. It is unseasonably rainy here from what people are telling us, but it is allowing us to become accustomed slowly to our new schedule. We are still waking up at 5:30am. So we are going to sleep pretty early. We liked the bar across from the hostel, and spent a rainy afternoon drinking some Victoria Bitters, and Tooheys (two excellent Australian beers), and playing our travel Scrabble. I would also like to add that this is not Alison's food of the week post, I (Rachel) wrote this as Alison's thumb, is hurt...aka: bruised, fractured, something to that nature which we are not sure. She is fine, but nursing a bum thumb.