A run around Sydney Harbour...

... is not complete without the Opera House, the Harbour Bridge, a croissant and coffee by the Ferry Terminal.

And 2 AUD to the didgeridoo player for the ultimate tourist photo. I bet he smells better than she does...

We're at Sydney airport now, about to leave. A great great trip.

Tasmanian Outback

The bush was wild. Untamed. Not unlike diving without a guide in the Coral Sea.

4 wheel drive. Sandy, unforgiving, and impenetrable vegitation.

Golden hills, pristine coast, ancient trees, stunning (wait until you
see the photos) sunsets, geographically isolated evolved marsupials (Beth doesn't believe these words go together, but I do. Proof: kangaroos store their young in a pouch.).

The campervan battery lost its charge due to operator error. Shunning the avaiability our 'no worries' roadside assistance package, Dave stepped in to rescue us. With his bare hands, a common table knife, and a handle from a metal table, he nearly did it. The 4wd turned
over, grrttr grrrrr grrrrrrrrrrr, but it was too much: the sparks, the vaporized edge of the table knife, the heat, and a table knife imprint blister on his left hand and he let go. Ouch, he cried.

The nurse leapt into action. Within seconds she applied the cold pot of last night's risotto which was in our fridge. Then, she calmy walked 50m to the corner market between the coffee shop and the seafood restaurant and charmed the young clerk into helping us with his jumper cables.

Crisps

While living in South Africa, I developed a penchant for flavored in crisps (chips). Unhealthy and outside my normal menu, yes. I only choose to ingest such an unhealthy snack when its flavor warrants risking clogging of arteries. I found such a crisp in the Newcastle airport and enjoyed each bite. Some might be suprised to learn that I shared them...

Hat photographed below is not a prop. Bush adventures should be next.

The Convent

Wedding Prep

Melissa was beautiful and magically tanned. The bride, groom and family arrived in a bus at the winery an hour and a half away.

Dave was the ring bearer boy (not the youngest in attendance, but perceived as the most innocent...he would like to think. It must have been my presence at his side that would allow for this line of thinking!)

After this photo was taken, Eric jumped into the shower and a suit, may or may not have combed his hair, and looked fabulous, baby! Beth finished cinching up Melissa and linked Eric's cuffs, and the couple was ready for the bus to the wine country.

We'll see real wedding photos (including Beth in a dress) from the professional photographer in attendance.

No More Frowns

More from Newcastle. Wedding morning - rain. And more rain. This photo was on the morning after Eric's bachelor party.

It looks dreary for a wedding, but at the wedding it rained so hard and for so long that the weather was like a guest. An unforgettable guest. Eric and Melissa's photos in the garden, for example, were shot amidst champagne, umbrellas, laughter, and sopping wet heels.

Don't know why we took this photo, but maybe it's because one of us was not feeling so chipper after his night with the 'bucks.'

Kangaroo Dream

Remember the last time you had a dream about happy furry friendly animals?
This post is about the last time Beth had such a dream.

During our drive from Newcastle airport to the Hunter Valley (wine country),
we saw 4 or 5 wild kangaroos. I was most surprised since I really didn't
expect we'd see them wild--I thought it was all Australian travel legend,
you know, kangaroos roaming wild, kangaroos boxing, mother kangaroos
carrying their little baby kangaroos around in a built-in pouch. Beth was
very excited by these side-of-the-road wild kangaroos. She squeaked more
than once.

Imagine my surprise when I peeked out at the weather the next morning to
discover a mob of kangaroos having breakfast just outside of the window!

"Beth, you have to look. Come look at this, you won't believe it!" She was
asleep, but I knew she'd love to see them. She stumbled over to the window,
wiping the sleep from her eyes. I expected more squeals, hopping up and
down, and more; but, instead, a grumbly face. She looked out the window,
crawled back into bed, curled up, pouting. "You woke me up from the
greatest dream just now", she said. "I was right in the middle of it. Out
of the window were kangaroos, koalas, wallabies, a donkey, and a herd of
horses. The koala was riding around on the back of the kangaroo. They were
all so happy. And all that's really out there are a few kangaroos."

So even though I woke her up to a mob of wild kangaroos lounging just
outside our guesthouse window, it was a bit of a disappointment when
compared to her expectations.

Maybe you had to be there. It really was funny.

Tassie

A quick note to say that we're in Tasmania with our 4WD campervan and off on our bush adventure. We'll send photos and posts when we reach an internet connection again. Need to hurry and find a spot to camp for tonight while we still have light. The EPRB is in an accessible location in case of too much adventure and we've stocked up with enough food and water to survive for several days unaided.

Scenery is amazing, campervan is everything you can imagine in a Toyota Land Cruiser with a slide out stove and awnings. We're planning to visit Maria Island, Freycinet National Park and Cole's Bay in the next 4 days. Weather is sunny and beautiful.

Bats in Cairns

Yes, I already wrote about the bats. They deserve a photo. Just imagine yourself in a tropical, seaside town walking down the sidewalk as a slight breeze blows through your hair as dusk begins to turn into sunset. A horrific screaming/cackling noise begins, the trees above begin to shudder and the sky is filled with furry, swooping bats as they leave their perch to hunt for dinner.

Amazement quickly turned to concern. Beth: 'What sort of diseases are present here as a result of this huge bat population? Are they contagious?' Dave: 'I hope this Kangaroo Bush Hat is bat-dung proof.'

I still don't have the answer to my question, but Dave had the opportunity to discover that his kangaroo bush hat effectively protects his head from bat dung! Perhaps you'll have the honor of seeing evidence of the bat dung upon our return (since he has kept the remnants on his hat...)

A little more about diving

OK, so maybe there are two ways to look at the two 'glorious' days of diving. Here we are after the near fatal events described by Dave. Maybe the smiles reflect relief that we made it back to dry land. Or, maybe we're simply happy our relationship did not come to a tragic end in the coral sea. Or, perhaps the actual events were not nearly as taumatic as suggested by Mr. Drama Queen.

Diving, Dave's Perspective

You've probably read Beth's account of the diving. While her overall account was fair, she left out a few details.

They make movies about tourists being left out on the reef for a few days. It happens out here. Somebody gets separated from the group, or goes out on their own (as we did), doesn't make it back in time, and then the boat leaves with 78 of 80 passengers. We were the last to get on the boat before the scheduled 1:00 departure to another part of the reef. Our crew were a careful lot and checked us out on the diving white board, noting our blood nitrogen levels from our previous dive, wishing us a happy time. By the way, out of 10 certified divers on board, only Beth and I ventured out without a guide.

When we surfaced near the boat, signaled we were okay and swam closer, they asked, "Are you Elizabeth and David"? Phew. About a minute after we were on board they started the engines and took off for the next reef. Good thing they were waiting for us or we might still be out there.

She also left off the story about how she elbowed my regulator out of my mouth. It was somewhere in the middle of the 3rd dive. The inside of my mouth is a little tender today. Ouch. But I look at it as if it were a drill-good practice to keep calm and hold my breath while searching around for my regulator at 35 feet. I'm lucky she didn't know my mask off, too.

Then another time after I entered the water the dive master pointed between my legs. What I first thought was a long piece of kelp was the boat mooring line. No big deal, I guess, but as I was trying to get away I rolled over and went up a few feet and bumped my head on the ladder of the boat. Goofy.

On the first dive of the first day we transferred from the main boat to a little dive boat, which was really 2 pontoons, an engine, and a bar down the middle for balance. Divers face the center and sit on the pontoons. The idea is that we all lean back at the same time, holding our masks, just like they used to do on the Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau. But before we got to the dive spot I lost my balance, luckily falling sideways into the bow of the boat, instead of backwards into the water and the outboard motor.

It really was fun. I wasn't even scared at all, not even a little bit.

Making his moves

Our dive master, Francesco, was putting the moves on Beth, but I
wasn't going to let him get away with it. I think he looks like Barry
Manilow, an Italian version. "Her name was Lola, she was a show
girl..."

Nice day out on the reef

Beth took this this photo from the front of the catamaran.

The weather was fantastic. We heard that the past 2 weeks had been
stormy and raining every day. For us, sunshine, a little breeze, very
nice. Lucky, one might say.

On the way to the reef (about 2 hours one way) we were prepping for
the dives of the day, but on the way back we lounged on deck, filled
out our dive logs, took a few photos.

And with all that sun and lounging around, one of us is a little
burnt. Maybe I can talk her into posting a photo.

Crocodile

If either of us run into a crocodile, and if the croc has an attitude,
then I'll show him this photo. He'll think twice, yes, if he knows
what's good for him. With a big lazy swing of his tail he'll head back
to his swamp, still hungry. He might even warn his buddies, "Whoa,
mate, stay clear of that mean bloke out there, he'll eat you for
dinner along with a glass of local Two in the Bush Cabernet Merlot,
and he'll smile with every bite. There's rumor around the river that
both he and his lady friend ate a croc, then had fillet of kangeroo,
and finally an emu. Savages, both of them. When I realized it was him,
my pea-sized amphibious hasn't-evolved-for-200-million-years crocodile
brain was so scared that I lost my crocodile appetite."

Great Barrier Reef

Two glorious days of diving completed (Day 1: Passions of Paradise Day 2: Down Under Dives) – 5 dives total on the Great Barrier Reef and it all ended with Francesco, our Italian/Australian divemaster saying, ‘You are great divers. And really good on air.’

Why would anyone be excited to be told they were ‘good on air?’ Well, while scuba diving it’s a bit of a competition to see who can use the least amount of air on a dive. The person who runs out of air first is responsible for the dive coming to an end. You never want to be ‘that guy.’ Dave quite impressively stayed pretty close to my air consumption. He was practicing his Zen breathing and frog kick and is quite chuffed with his ability to be 'good on air.'

We had a dive on our own today – on Hastings Reef. Took the waterproof camera (Thank you Margie!) and set off for a 40 minute dive without a guide. It was a blast! Found all sorts of things including a huge green sea turtle resting under a large coral. Admittedly, we did have to surface once to see exactly where we were since we became so enamored with the reef that we lost track of our location…then, we returned to our dive and surfaced the next time right near the boat. I had my ‘Safety Sausage’ ready in case we needed a rescue. Dave found my level of preparation a bit…should I say…surprising? He was obviously never a boy scout.

Water was warm enough to dive in swimsuits only. It will be hard to return to the frigid Monterey Bay! We tried to get photos developed for posting, but all photo shops were closed by the time we got back from the reef.

Here’s a partial list of our sightings:

• 3 sharks (the guide assured us they’re of the vegetarian variety)
• 5 different types of clown fish (known by most as ‘Nemos’)
• A Potato Cod fish that was at least a metre long
  
• Green Sea Turtles (Dave especially enjoyed the turtles)
  
• Wrasse (spotted, rainbow and more)
• Nudibranch – orange and grey with black spots
• Angelfish, Butterflyfish
• Sea Fans
• More sea cucumbers than one could ever need to see or touch – black velvet, pokey, not pokey – you get the idea
• Amazing coral – especially on our first dive today. Lots of colors, shapes and sizes. (Brain coral looks just as you would expect)

Cairns

Cairns (pronounced CANS as in 2 CANS, or toucan, Cantaloupe Island), is humid, warm, and not too crowded. It can rain like crazy around here. It rained so much last week that they don't have the pharmacist's favorite motion sickness medicine in stock--the roads a little south of here are still closed.

Did you know that the running time of the epic movie, Australia, is 2:45? The pilot crew announced the flight time of 2:40. They knew what they were doing--to us it appeared that something was wrong, but really they were just fast forwarding so they could finish the movie. Nicole Kidman was finally reunited with the Aboriginal boy during our final approach.

Nice little hotel. Checked in, walked around the town, stopped by the pier to talk to our scuba diving company. Then, without a nap, dinner.

What should we eat? We went out for a nice meal. Ordered the game platter served with deep fried yams, bok choy, and sweet potato au gratin. What would they serve on a Australian game platter?



















Deep fried crocodile was not our favorite, but the Kangaroo fillet was really tasty and tender. The emu was lean with excellent texture.










The above post written by Dave while I was off trying to discover what bird was making such a raucous sound. Turns out that it was hundreds of incredibly huge bats flying into a banyan-looking tree (still need to research what type of tree it is!). They were quite literally larger than a large crow. By the time I came back to find Dave so he could appreciate the madness, most were already hanging upside down in the tree. Photos tomorrow morning.

We're off to dive today.

Sydney

Just kidding-no Paris today. Instead, clouds, humidity, and a
shortage of traffic controllers mean a delay to our flight to Cairns.
Thought we'd enjoy a double decaf latte in Sydney airport. Ha. No way
those are decaf. Result? We needed the fastest shutter speed for this
photo because neither of us could hold the camera steady enough.

We made it 7500 miles today, not counting BART. One more flight to the
Great Barrier Reef.

Wrong plane?

As soon as the plane starts to taxi the announcements begin. "We'd
like to welcome you onboard flight xyz to WhereEver. It will be our
pleasure to serve you... Please take the flight information card out
of the seat pocket..." Most passengers don't pay attention.

Did she say Sydney, or did she say Paris? Uh oh.

Milbrae -> San Bruno -> Milbrae -> San Bruno -> SFO

BART station. We took the photo and started discussing what would
constitue 'non-trash' items.

And then the adventure began.

While I was trying to post the photo to the blog, Dave managed to get
two women to follow him, carrying their international size suitcases
up three flights of stairs only to discover they needed to walk back
down the stairs. They then followed us again right onto the wrong
train which returned us to milbrae. Why was I blindly participating in
this? Because I was trying to write a blog entry on the photo...so
much for practicing being 'present in the moment'

My original question: What could be defined as a 'non-trash' item?
And, what item precipitated the placement of this sign?

Ready to Leave

What, you don't like the picture? Hopefully future posts will
demonstrate a good deal more imagination than this one. The primary
purpose here is to test posting over email and iPhone.

We're packed and ready. The flight is direct from San Francisco to
Sydney, leaving tonight (Saturday) around 10, arriving Sydney around
8 Monday morning. Between us we have at least 4 pounds of airplane
snacks, 5 iPods loaded with tunes and audiobooks, and 2 issues each of
the Economist and Scientific American, a book about brain surgery and
a new cartoon book about genetics and DNA called Stuff of Life. That
ought to do it.

Beth is at the gym and I've got to get a run in or I'm gonna go nuts
in that airplane seat...

I bet the next post will be from Oz.

Trip Components

The trip is coming together, like a recipe.

• 348,000 km2 (>70 million football fields) Great Barrier Reef
  
• 64 fl oz Wedding in wine country
• 5 lbs Tasmania in a camper van

Fresh large reef, salted to taste like the sea, with animals.














A beautiful wedding in the wine country, with celebration and barrels of the local varietals. One local bride and her family, if available.


















If you can't find a few days of camper van at your local market, substitute one medium Tasmanian Devil.
















In the food processor, begin with the reef, carefully adding wedding at medium speed until the mixture has the consistency of Australian Frog cake. Finish by folding in the camper van or Tasmanian Devil.

Take photos.

Beth? Blog?

Yes, I know. You thought I was going to New Zealand, alone, for three weeks. Now you find that I'm going to Australia, with Dave, for two weeks. What precipitated this dramatic change of plans? And, a blog?

I began to have trouble swallowing. As matter of fact, I couldn't swallow. NZ trip cancelled for the need to solve that problem. The video above is a creepy yet incredible piece of evidence demonstrating that I have recovered. The time has come to adventure.

What better opportunity for some true adventure than a wedding of good friends in Australia?

A blog? Those who know me well may find it inconceivable that I would choose to blog an adventure such as Australia. It shouldn't be too arduous a task to deduce what has happened: I've been kidnapped and contributing to this blog is my only hope for release. Therefore, I have agreed to participate and hope you enjoy this atypical perspective of my/our adventure. There will be photos and perhaps some sentence fragments, but I will draw the line at sentences ending in prepositions.

Planning

Eric and Melissa are getting married Feb 14 in the Hunter Valley, a nice 2 hour drive out of Sydney. Beth and I made the list of exclusive North American invitees, so we're planning to go and stretch the visit to a couple of weeks. A little exploring, the wedding, and then more adventure.

Kangaroos, vast expanse, diving, bush walking, photography, blistering heat, 1/2 meter of rain in a day (really, it happened earlier this month in Cairns), jellyfish, killer snakes and spiders, great food and drink. Lots of options.

Sorry for my liberal use of sentence fragments--one of the first steps in recovery is acknowledgment of the problem; but, still, I do it all the time. Oh well.