The Last Hurrah

May 14

Sydney, New South Wales, AU

It's about 3 pm and we just sat down at Circular Quay to enjoy a snack from the bakery that we've been eyeing the last couple days.  I got a cute little tiramisu, Chris got a fantastic looking cherry-cheese strudel, Jackson got a wagon wheel (looks like a moon pie), & Isee picked out a frog tart. 

We parked ourselves on the wharf across from the opera house so the kids could sketch it when they were finished with their tasty treats. 

Chris had taken only one bite of "the best cherry strudel I've ever had in my life," when a silver gull came from behind, knocked it out of his hands, onto the ground & all sorts of silver gull and pigeon mayhem broke loose!! The flock in the background dragged it away & is finishing up the world-class dessert, while this guy in the bottom right stays for a residual glob of cherry filling.  It was a million dollar moment -- wish I had caught it on film!!

The frog tart stayed intact, til Isee got to it, that is...

Okay, now back it up a few hours...today we decided to go to the Australian Museum. We put on our walking shoes & headed downtown (Or maybe it's uptown? In any case, it was the opposite direction of the harbour). We passed all sorts of independent, uniformed young teens walking to school and suited up professionals on their way to their offices. We passed New South Wales Parliament Building, the Sydney Hospital, countless cafés and we strolled through Hyde Park. 

Supposedly, if you toss a gold coin into the fountain at the Sydney Hospital & rub this oinker's nose, you'll have good fortune. The water pressure was a little low, so it looked like he had a drooling issue. 

Hyde Park was a beautiful green space in the middle of the hustle & bustle of the city. Chris said if we lived here, he'd have a hard time not going there every day with his laptop & writing. Writing what, you ask? Beats me!

Jackson surrounded by Guanlong on the museum security cam:

Home sweet home:

In the hall of minerals, we saw shelf after shelf after shelf of sparkly, shiny gems from all over Australia. There was a case with rocks & minerals from other parts of the world & PA made the cut!  Check it out:

Gift shop dino pile:

No tuna for lunch rule continues -- spinach roll with hummus for me!

Holy shopping mecca. Sydney has more shops than I've ever seen anywhere. We stopped in a few boutiques (as much as Jackson's patience would allow) as we meandered back to our hotel. A person could drop some serious coin here if given the chance. 

Got another hour in the Museum of Contemporary Art:

The Opera House at night...I was really disappointed that there was a ballet tonight & I didn't have a ticket. I really wanted to attend a performance, but I must've misread the website because I thought we were here on the two nights nothing was happening. 

When I googled the Opera House tonight, an article popped up from a couple days ago -- I guess somebody got drunk & tried to climb the barnacle-shaped building. He was escorted to safety by several police officers & had a wicked headache the next morning. 

I was hoping to have a fabulously witty or poignant closing for tonight's blog, but I am physically and mentally beaten by the past couple of days. Compared to a bush walk, city walking makes a body sore.  And given the combo of yesterday's zoo trip & today's dinosaur exhibit, I think our brains are on information overload. I could really use a day to just sit quietly & watch movies. Ah, I'm in luck. I've got 20 hours of airplane time ahead of me, but don't fret. You haven't heard or seen the last of me...the blog must go on!!

Ssssydney!!

May 12

Sydney, New South Wales, AU

Made it to Sydney. Love Qantas Airlines. Seats are comfy, food's great, you get your own iPad full of movies, tv & games and they always manage to catch a tail-wind & shorten the trip. 

Got a ride to our historic hotel in "the Rocks" from a shuttle service where you're stuffed into a mini-bus with a bunch of other passengers & their luggage. Despite getting to the bus with 6 available seats after hauling butt with all of our bags to the bus depot, they said we had to wait for another bus (not sure what that was all about, but we definitely needed some cheese to go with our whine when it started to drizzle). 

Our driver was Russian and was obviously put-out by having to drive us around -- he had a houseful of guests & wanted to get back there as soon as possible he told us.  We were all grateful to arrive at our hotel in one piece -- our driver made a crazy u-turn that nearly got Jackson & I t-boned. It was one of those life in slow-motion moments. 

One of our fellow travelers was a girl from Switzerland who's been living with a host family for the last two months & has been going to school to brush up on her English.  Our driver asked her if she was comfortable jumping because he didn't want to have to turn off the street he was on to drop her off (it was a no stopping zone).  Creep!

Made it to the hotel to find it's a little hilly & our hotel is at the top of a rise & the walk up is all cobblestone (no curbside service!). Chris lugged all of our ridiculously stupid-heavy bags from the sidewalk up the hill in the rain to the hotel reception & then up the twisty staircases hallways & to our our second floor room.  Poor guy. 

Our hotel is home to the oldest pub in Sydney and the site dates back to 1790 (around the time Europeans first settled in Australia). It's been a hospital, storefronts, apartments, a hostel for sailors,"Port Jackson Hotel" in 1887 and since 1981 it's been the Russell Hotel.  (Thanks to Google we just discovered it's also on the top 10 most haunted hotels in the world. Room 8.  Thankfully we're in #27). 

We slept until nearly 9 am!! That's what happens when you stay up late because you have electricity & don't have the sulphur-crested cockatoos to tell you when to go to sleep & the sun blazing through your tent in the morning to wake you!

Quick brekkie then off to the ferry at Circular Quay for a lift to the Taronga Zoo. 

Up to the Zoo entrance via gondola:

We were first in line to meet a koala up close & personal-like. This is Ruby -- she has a 6 month-old joey in her pouch. 

This zoo was fabulous. It was super clean, (almost) everything was open & in working order, we weren't souvenired to death, the animals were all really active and it was just enough walking.  The views of Sydney Harbour & the city skyline were insane & we really got to see the animals. The habitats seemed legit, but I did have the reel of "Blackfish" running through my head.  Zoos are a great opportunity to experience the world of animals in one place, but it's hard to get past the fact that some of those animals are confined to spaces smaller than some living rooms. 

Chris & a Tasmanian devil...

3 year-old gorilla eating some celery:

Chris had the weirdest iced coffee ever at lunch. Was advertised as refreshing, frozen coffee, but was jiggly like pudding & had mini bits of ice throughout it. 

No tuna!!

Chimp eating poo...

Finally, an echidna!! Jackson said his heart was beating really fast while we were scoping out the habitat to find one. 

Giraffe with a view:

Return trip on the ferry -- the guy next to me pulled a banana out of his backpack shortly after embarking. Isee knows, thanks to her grandfather's semi-unfounded phobia about this, that you do NOT under any circumstances bring a banana or any banana product on a boat of any kind. You are tempting the worst possible fate.  (This superstition originated with Carribbean banana boats sinking because the bananas were too heavy -- there's another bit involving bad fishing & spider bites). I was just about to grab his banana and toss it starboard when he'd swallowed the last bite. Anyway, our vessel stayed afloat, banana or not. 

We had 32 minutes in the Museum of Contemporary Art before it closed at 5 (enough time to see a few things without hearing complaints!)...Jackson got in a bit of trouble by a museum guard when he nearly touched a chain dangling from an installation piece. Oops. 

Striped duct-tape floor:

Dinner time came, Margherita for Jackson & ham & pineapple for Isee:

Uh, I think the animals were hungry:

Nearly Last Leg...

May 11

Darwin, NT

6,282.5 clicks

Enjoyed a wonderful mum's day in Darwin. Was woken up by Isee bearing chocolate & black licorice & was fed delicious "shake 'em up" pancakes with fresh raspberries, bananas and passion fruit and a lovely iced coffee, mixed & chilled by Isee herself. 

Potato Man stopped by to thank me for all the "scrumpscious" dinners I've made...

We took a ride down to the waterfront & had a swim at the lagoon -- salty water from the bay, but sealed off from crocs & stingers. There were tons of families celebrating Mother's Day -- having breakfast at the surrounding cafés, sharing a picnic in the grass, swimming around like we were. It was a nice way to start our day, me and all the Aussie mums and our families. 

After a few hours of homework (Isee graphed the findings from her solanum project (comparison of male versus female flowers on bush tomato populations) & Jackson finished an ecology packet that would've been about rainforests if we were in the US, but we translated it to eucalypt forest/desert/monsoon forest) we hopped in the truck for our final Darwin destination.  

I think we've done a sufficient job of completing the enormous binders of schoolwork we've been hauling along with us. Isee & I kicked Algebra I's butt with the exception of one section -- permutations. (Blech.) There were days I just wanted to toss those binders on the fire because I felt like we were, at times, sacrificing real, in-the-moment learning opportunities for book work. It wasn't always easy to motivate the kids when the skies were blue & the cool ocean waves or a climb-able boab were calling out their names. We did learn after a few weeks to completely remove electronics from the picture & that seemed to help with their ability to focus. Anyway, it is what it is. My kids soaked up Australia geography/history/culture/flora/fauna like a couple of sponges & we fulfilled the sanctioned Pennsylvania 3rd & 7th grade curriculum as promised in the affidavit I signed those many weeks ago. 

I digress...final market at Mindil Beach last night. Packed with people & more delicious food treats. 

Isee had a dark chocolate churro:

Jackson had a potato spiral -- giant french fry/potato chip kinda thing and he ate it without ketchup!!):

There was a band with a drummer & didgeridoo player in the back of the crowd. He had 4 didgeridoos strapped together & had a small mosh pit of Aboriginal teens dancing in front of him. The music was really energetic & fun & kind of frenzied -- you couldn't really help but get caught up in it. 

At last check, the Wombatmobile took us on the most spectactacular 6,282.5 kilometer journey. Here she is resting in the hotel parking lot.  

We spent most of the evening packing & our bags are STUFFED, like can't fit an extra pair of socks in it/straps extended to their ends/no more souvenirs kind of stuffed. For all the underwear we burned, nasty tees tossed & the pairs of shodden shoes we ditched, I thought we'd have room to spare. No dice. 

We tried to eat as much of our leftover food as possible this morning. For breakfast, Jackson had: a bowl of cereal, 2 bananas, a crumpet, a hunk of baguette, 3 Baby-bel cheeses, ice cream, pizza flavored crackers and 3 glasses of pineapple-mango juice. Kid took one for the team, that's for sure. 

Presently, we're camped in the Darwin Airport awaiting our flight to Sydney. Two days there & we'll be on our long flight home. 

Darwin Days

May 8-10

Darwin, NT

An original Jackson Martine colored pencil design:

Beginning stages of Isee's watercolor landscape of the Ord River:

Dunno if it's the "h" that makes it so tasty, but this yoghurt is dee-lish!!  Australians make real yogurt/yoghurt, none of that crappy Whipped Yoplait in their dairy cases!!

Chris had a huge day in the NT Herbarium while I schooled the kids. He sent back to Bucknell 3 rather large boxes of collected specimens (biggest lot yet!) & hasn't slept for the last two days worrying that they're going to get lost or explode or get delivered somewhere else. 

It's funny.  He was "en fuego" in the field -- strong, agile, running on instinct, super focused, memory on full power, awesome at 4WD driving. Now that we're back to civilatization (like the kind of place where we live) his memory's shot, he seems to be in outer space, he keeps turning on the wipers instead of the blinker, and he's all antsy. Methinks he can start sleeping outside -- or we need to spread some grass seed on the floor & bring some bushes inside, just take the doors off the hinges and let nature in. 

Three markets in three days...

Last night after Chris made it back from the herbarium, we went to the Saltwater Flats Arts Market. Turns out that those kitchen towel things with the crocheted tops are a universal craft -- I don't know why it struck me as funny, but I giggled when I saw them and was nearly compelled to buy some as souvenirs (I didn't though...phew!!). 

Isee found a $15 piece of artwork that truly spoke to her person:

Went to the Parap Market today. It was packed with vendors and people alike with the most delicious smells wafting from the mostly-Asian food trucks -- soups & egg rolls & kebabs. There were enormous papayas and fresh mangoes and some peppers (capsicum) that looked absolutely deadly. 

We bought a couple tees from one vendor (subversive art) and he told us to check out his wife's booth when he heard Chris was a botanist. Turns out, we'd already been to (and admired) her jewelry booth where she makes bracelets and necklaces out of red seeds from an acacia relative. 

The kids had a hard time keeping their souvenir money in their pockets, so we walked away with a croc tail keychain, a tee shirt, a shell ring, coconut husk earrings for Jackson's teacher and four fruit smoothies. 

After a grueling afternoon working on permutations (Hate them.) and ecology and the Russian Jack biography, we needed to get out of this hotel room desperately. 

[Editor's digression:  I needed to get out of that hotel room. We've had A LOT of together time recently & we're getting a little punchy. My patience for whining/kid noise is hitting low & I needed a caffeine pick-me-up to take away the edge.  I mixed two different instant coffee packets & came up with a flavor reminiscent of Starbuck's finest.  (Iced coffee Aussie-style is really coffee flavored milk & leaves you with less of a caffeine buzz and more of a dairy overload kind of bloat.)  I chilled it in the freezer, took a few sips & then went to help Isee with permutations.  I thought about how delicious it was going to be with some ice cubes in it, but when I went to pick up my cup, it was hot & a paler brown than my elixir. Chris had dumped it down the drain thinking it was old.  Smoke, rockets, fireworks, tears, bloodshed. That chilled mug of blended instant coffee granules was the glue holding me together, the proverbial linchpin.]

So after a little time out for Mom and spaghetti & green beans a la Chris, we went to Deckchair Cinemas to see "Walking with Dinosaurs."  That wasn't my first choice in movie selections, but it was completely apropos watching a herd of dinosaurs trundling across a beach as we'd just imagined they'd done when we saw their fossilized prints in Broome. 

It started with this:

Fun signage:

And deckchairs:

We sat in the closer-up sling-back chairs plumped with pillows from the self-serve pillow bin & the kids had chocolate covered bananas, popcorn & ginger beer for snacks. An opossum walked across the screen before the movie started while fruit bats flew overhead and a gecko, or two, were spotted stuck to the movie screen looking for dinner. 

It's open every night during the dry season & serves dinners, local beer & wine, deliciousness like mango ice cream & locally made chocolates. We didn't even need to use the complimentary bug spray as the mozzies were kept at bay by a gentle breeze from the Indian Ocean.