Australia - Birds We Saw

We saw a lot of different birds during our trip to Australia. Many of them would be considered "exotic" here in the US. We don't know all the names but just wanted to let you have a look at some of the Australian birds.

Road Trip to Mt. Magazine

On Monday morning, Rosie, Bob and Sam (our faithful dog) left Hot Springs Village on a road trip to Mt. Magazine state park. Mt. Magazine is the highest point in Arkansas; woo hoo - bring out the oxygen - NOT. It's only 2200 ft above the surrounding area.

The drive up highway 7 (a scenic drive) was beautiful. There were lots of colorful trees against the green background of the pines - a great contrast. Here's a picture Rosie took from the car on our way to Mt. Magazine.

The drive took us a little over 2 hours. After we got to the state park, we stopped for a bio-break and picnic lunch. After lunch we headed to the Lodge. The view from the Lodge and the overlooks around the Lodge were really pretty.
Here's a picture of Rosie, Bob and Sam on the walkway behind the Lodge. Bob is wearing his Akubra hat he bought in Australia.
Here's a close-up of Sam taken behind the lodge.
Several people had to stop and pet him. He's always a big attraction.

After leaving the Lodge we drove around the circle at the top of the mountain (or close to the top). We stopped at several of the overlooks to take pictures. Here's a good shot of trees and rocks.
We call this next picture "carpet trees". The trees resemble a carpet pattern.
Next we have a picture of Bob blocking out the trees in the background. Oh well - so much for transparency.Here's a brightly colored tree Rosie captured on the drive in the park.

Finally, here's a scene Rosie really liked of the light coming through the trees. It may not come through too well on the blog picture, but it was beautiful in real life!It may not be New England or the Rocky Mountains, but we had a great day and enjoyed the beauty of God's creation. Hope all of you are having a beauty filled fall.

Australia - Returning Home - October 12

Time to Return Home

Sunday, October 12, was our last day in Australia. We had a leisurely breakfast and a relaxing walk through a Chinese garden near our hotel. At 10:30 am we had a brief group get-together where we shared some of our best experiences of the trip. Surprisingly for us, the opera at the Sydney Opera House was one of our best experiences on the Elderhostel tour. We say "surprisingly" since we're not opera buffs. At 11:30 we caught the bus for the trip to the Sydney airport.

We want to thank Elderhostel and especially, Phil Hayes, for a great tour of Australia. Phil was an excellent leader and made all of us feel comfortable during the entire trip. Here's a picture of Phil (on the right) with our Sydney site leader, Russel.

We also want to thank the Fletcher family (including Saffie) for taking us in for a week. We had an exciting week in Canberra and fun just "hanging out" with them. This really allowed us to get our feet on the ground before starting our Elderhostel tour.

Our flight back to the USA was uneventful - as all good flights are. We arrived in LAX a bit early and had plenty of time to relax before catching our flight from LAX to DFW - which left on time and arrived a bit early. John was there to meet us at the airport.

We want to thank John and Jennifer Stonecipher and family for taking care of us in Ft. Worth. John picked us up at the airport, Jennifer cooked some great meals for us, and we enjoyed getting to see Savannah, Whitney, Blayne and Reagan. They're such a great family. They also took care of Sam for the last few days before we got back - thank you very much for dog-sitting.

We also want to thank Becky and Keith Beckham and family for taking care of our dog, Sam. We knew he was in good hands while we were in Australia.

Finally, we want to thank Julie and Dale Stoncecipher for putting us up - again - before we flew out. Julie got up extra early to drive us to the airport on Wednesday morning, September 17. Thanks, too, for the road snacks for our return drive to Arkansas.

We left Ft. Worth Monday morning, October 13, at about 9:30. The drive through Dallas was interesting as construction delays made for messy traffic. Oh well - it makes us glad we live in HSV, where more than 5 cars is "rush hour." We got back to HSV at about 4 pm. It was great to get back home!

Australia - Bridge Climb - October 11

Climb the Bridge!

On Saturday we had a free day in Sydney. Our friend, Lorraine, had made reservations for the 3 of us to climb the Sydney Harbor Bridge. The climb takes you to the top of the bridge for a fantastic view of Sydney harbor (and a lot of the surrounding area). We were very impressed by the safety of the climb; the climb company had obviously worked through many issues over the years and had continually improved their product. Everything was attached to the suit we wore. Also, we were not allowed to take anything with us - no cameras, watches, etc. We were "attached" to a line the during the entire climb.

Here are several shots of the bridge we took prior to the climb. If you look closely, you can see the people (look like ants) on the bridge.

Surprisingly, the climb was fairly easy. We stopped often to rest and enjoy the view. Here's a picture of Bob, Rosie and our friend, Lorraine, from near the top of the bridge with the Sydney Opera House in the background.

Thanks, Lorraine, for making the arrangements; climbing the Bridge was a great experience.

Australia - Sydney - Blue Mountains - October 10

BLUE MOUNTAINS

A two hour bus ride took us into the Blue Mountains World Heritage Site. This is the fourth World Heritage Site that we’ve visited on our tour. The mountains are part of the Great Dividing Range that spans the continent. They get their name from the blue haze that is given off by the eucalyptus trees that make up the forest. This is a picture of the Three Sisters peaks that gets its name from Aboriginal folklore. At Katoomba we took the scenic sender, a cable car that descended a vertical drop of 450 meters at a 52 degree angle. This area had been a coal mining area so there were many areas with mining explanations. We took a walk through this temperate rainforest before having lunch in a revolving restaurant. We didn’t realize that it revolved until we came back from washing our hands and found our group on the other side of the room!

On the way home we stopped at a small mountain town called Leura. They were preparing for a garden festival the next day. We also drove around Sydney’s 2000 Olympic Park before returning to the hotel. There our friends Graeme and Robyn Harris (whose home we stayed in on our previous visit to Sydney) and Lorraine Fletcher joined us for dinner at a Chinese restaurant in nearby Chinatown.

Australia - Sydney - October 9

SYDNEY REVISITED

On Thursday we had a full day of Sydney culture. First we went to the world famous Opera House which is actually a performing arts center with 2 concert halls and 3 performance (drama) halls. The Danish architect, Jorn Utzon, who designed the building was a modernist and visionary although his design was influenced by ancient cultures. The solid base was modeled after Aztec monuments that looked upwards to the gods while having a firm base on earth. The drainage scheme was influenced by ancient Japanese designs. The white “sails”, which actually are supposed to represent clouds, were an engineering challenge. Finally, a scheme was developed to have the arches take the form of cuts from a sphere. The entire project was to have taken 3 years to build at a cost of about 5 million dollars. It actually took over 16 years to complete and the final price tag was over 100 million. Even though the initial design was controversial, the Sydney Opera House is one of the most recognized icons in the world.

Thursday evening we actually got to attend an opera at the Sydney Opera House. We saw “The Pearlfishers” by Georges Bizet, the composer of “Carmen”. Thanks to a pre-opera lecture and super titles in English, we were able to appreciate this production which was sung in French. During intermissions, we took advantage of the lovely harbor views which are accessible from each of the theaters.

During the day we took a harbor cruise, seeing Sydney from a water viewpoint. The Sydney Harbor is one of the best in the world. After a steak lunch at a lovely restaurant right on the bay in a restored original colonial building, we had a walking historical tour through the “Rocks”, which was the lower-income area during the colonial days. However, today the area has been saved from modern construction and restored as a vital tourist and economic area. The final photo is one of the first instances of "tax evasion". People were taxed on the number of windows that their houses had. Notice how some of the windows have been bricked in to avoid the tax.

Australia - Great Barrier Reef - October 7

THE GREAT BARRIER REEF

Tuesday we took a catamaran trip ~ 2 ½ hours from shore to the Great Barrier Reef. Thankfully, it was a large ship (with 150 passengers) so it didn’t rock much. That, plus a couple of ginger pills, kept Rosie from hanging over the bow “feeding the fishes”.

We took a “beach buggy” from the ship to the coral beach for snorkeling. The sand there is composed of ground up coral, thanks to the parrot fish that can each produce ~5 tons of coral sand each year. We were surprised to find that the sand really was not hot even under the mid-day sun.

The snorkeling was outstanding with lots of coral and fishes. Bob said he’s seen all those life-forms in the Philippines, just not in such quantity. I loved the florescent colors! We also saw a ray and several giant clams. We later took a semi-submersible ride where we took some photos. Unfortunately, the brilliant colors didn’t come through with those photos. The reef is the largest living organism in the world, made up of thousands of species of corals. The corals are nocturnal, so we missed all the tentacle activity that goes on at night. There are both hard and soft corals with the soft ones waving in the breezes of the water currents. The reef covers an area larger than the state of Texas and its length is approximately equal to the distance from New York State to Florida. It’s also visible from outer space.

The coral cay (island) where we snorkeled is the most important bird breeding ground in the reef area. There were over 23,000 birds breeding there, an increase in population of over 22,000 in 4 weeks. The sooty tern (black and white) lays one sand looking egg on the beach and stands over it to shade it from the sun. These birds breed every 9-10 months.

There were many common noddy (brown) terns lined up on the beach “loafing”. These are the unmated birds that are “hanging out with their mates” in hopes of finding a real mate—kind of like hanging out in the pub. When they do mate, they build a bowl shaped nest in the grass using bits of coral. There were two crested terns nesting on the other side of the hill. We could only see their heads.

All of these birds spend the rest of their lives flying in the air, only coming to earth to reproduce. They have the ability to eat, and sleep in the air since one side of the brain shuts down at a time.

Wednesday morning we made a brief stop at the Tjapukai Aboriginal Park to learn about the northern aboriginal culture. We saw a film on the treatment of the aboriginals by the European settlers, another film about the dreamline, and a live performance of aboriginal dancing using a didgeridoo, wooden digging tools and boomerangs as musical instruments. The men’s bodies were painted with traditional nature designs. Although they had on clothing covering their bottoms, traditionally they would have only worn loin coverings usually made of hair.

Following a short bus ride from the Park to the Cairns’ Airport, it was time to say good-bye to the tropical area of Queensland and hop onto our airplane headed to Sydney where our journey will end in a few more days.