Are There Really Flies in Australia?

Yes. The annoying, swarm en mass and get in your face type flies. Flies that have no qualms about crawling in your nose, landing on your eyeball …or even worse…flying into your mouth just as you are breathing in so that you get a late afternoon meal. These two stunning photos demonstrate the phenomenon...in certain areas it's almost impossible to take a photo without a fly in it. I guess that flies, like humans, lust after recognition and fame.

the great ocean road

January 16th-18th

Here's the winding road along the cliffside--one of the world's most spectacular (and fun) drives.

The anchor is from a shipwreak of the Marie Gabrielle in 1880, one of two wreaks at Moonlight Head and among oodles of others along this stretch of coast. We walked down and up 380 steps to get down to the beach!





The limstone cliffs are at Loch Ard Gorge and the rock formations are the remains of the Twelve Apostles (apparently in this story the apostles are picked off one at a time instead of Jebas - only 7 or so are left.) It's still so pretty!

sleeping koala

Look at our cute little buddy fast asleep after his afternoon snack of eucalyptus leaves, some hand picked by us! We just pulled off the road (jan 16th at Kennett River on the Great Ocean Road) and there he was, right in the wild--much lower down in the tall eucalylps than koalas usually are. A typical day consists of eating, then a lot of sleep, followed by more eating.

Sad thing is right now with all the bush fires, there's lots of koalas being burned in their trees and kangaroos with burnt paws from hopping through embers. : (

http://www.heraldsun.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5478,17949418^2862,00.html

Cafe Mimo

We had to stop for a coffee at the fabulous Cafe Mimo in Melbourne. Who knew that Mimo would make a go at opening a coffee shop Down Under.

Drowsy Drivers Die

It's been a long time! We FINALLY got internet hooked up in our new home and now can update re: our adventures so far.

In brief:

• Penrith for four days. Hung with Darren and Kelly who were nice to put us up. Saw some kangaroos suffering in the sweltering 45.5 degree heat. We comisserated with them.
• From Penrith to Sydney for two nights accomodation at the Four Points Sheriton hotel (free thanks to Nico's parents! gracias!). We saw a hell of a lot in a whirlwind tour that went from 9 am til 10 pm at night. We bought a 'See Sydney' card which let us into most attractions all for one low price as long as we saw them all on the same day...we really saw too much so that by the third museum it was more about saying we went there than actually absorbing anything useful.
• Rented a car in Sydney and drove down the coast swimming at numerous secluded beaches. Stopped in Ulladulla for two nights to enjoy wine and good company with Tony and Jo. We had our own suit in their house. Awfully nice of them.
• Onward to Melbourne and Geelong our new home.
• Puttered in Geelong and battled a massive hangover. The hangover won for a day.
• Took our new Suburu (it's David's but it's ours for the year) and headed out down the Great Ocean Road. It starts at Torquay - the home of Billabong, Ripcurl, and the 'best surf beaches' in the world...like Bell's Beach.
• The Great Ocean Road is the most stunning road trip I have ever done. Better even than the Redwood Forrest trip in California. The road is carved into the side of cliffs hovering above the ocean. It's only 300 KM but it took us over three days to do it as we stopped every KM or so for yet another stunning vista. We handfed a wild koala. No he didnt fall and just cause he was wild doesnt mean he was ravenous so no one lost any fingers.
• From the Great Ocean Road to Penola the gateway to the Coonawarra wine region known for its Shiraz and Cab Sav. I love the latter, Nico the former. We stopped briefly and hand fed wild possums. They are even cuter and less dangerous than koalas. We met Mark and Cathy who invited us to their house for a huge Ozzie feed that included Kangaroo sausage and steak. It was yummy despite how cute they look in life. Nico ate a cute and cuddly animal - someone please harrass her for it. Mark, funnily enough, is a Yank from Oregon and moved here in 73 to pursue teaching and to avoid the Vietnam war. Super great people. I battled a massive hangover yet again the next day. The hangover came in second.
• From Penola back to Geelong where Internet hookup became possible! Woo!!

That's the brief version, many more stories to come.

Some Ozzie Facts:

• Ozzie's do not pronounce the letter R and thus the word wierd sounds exactly like the word weed. This could lead to confusion back in Canada if I ask someone for a bee.
• Speeding is not tolerated in Australia. The speed limit IS THE SPEED LIMIT.
• Overstaying your welcome by 1/2 an hour at a parking spot is a serious offense and leads to a $75 fine.
• Driving drowsy is frowned upon. Some roadsigns "Drowsy Drivers Die" "Drooping eyes? Powernap now!"
• As anal as Aussies are about speeding, drunk driving, illegal parking, driving while drowsy, they are the opposite about bee's. The passengers can all have bee's in the car as long as the driver is under 0.05.

That's all I got for now!

The Damo.

hot rods and huntsmans

we're in ulladulla right now, a cute little beachside town south of sydney, sleeping in a real bed (hoorah!), thanks to damo's friends, tony and jo. tony is a wine buff so we drank lots of kick ass wine last night and celebrated the day after my birthday (happy birthday me!). after this contact with the world over via internet, we're going to hit the beach again in our attempt to get rid of our sun reflecting pale white skin!

the past weekend was spent in canberra, the nation's capital. it's this neat designed city so it's full of green spaces (in theory, but was bone dry so they were all brown spaces), random public art and beautiful or weird buildings.

highlight: war memorial--a big, thorough, interesting, spectacular museum covering all of australia's involvement in what seems to be every major conflict in the past two hundred years.

lowlight: we chose the one weekend that sees canberra host a souped up car festival. we ended up on a crowded tent field in a caravan park with rowdies, young and old, who partied and revved their engines ALL night long. by night three we were cranky with no sleep.

wildlife update: damo killed a big ass spider outside the tent--probably a non-venomous huntsman but we didn't know at the time. damo tried to shoo it away but it reared up and tried to attack the twig (!!) he was using so he smooshed it under his shoe. we're reading a book on aussie's most dangerous animals so are in a heighted state of paranoia right now with anything creeping, crawling or swimming. we've seen a white tip spider in the bathroom of a friend's house already.

lots more to write about--it was australia's hottest new year's day on record (45.5 degrees outside of sydney!)--but we'll update once we hit geelong.

the nico