Australia Day 8

Departure Day. :(

For breakfast we finished off the mangoes, yoghurt, and the "emergency" pasta (we had purchased just in case we got hungry in the middle of the night or couldn't find a good restaurant for dinner, or something).

 Second Bedroom

 Bathroom and Washer and Dryer

 Front Door and Kitchen and Dining Alcove as seen from Living Room

As we were packing things up, we had a little surprise as I picked up the damp ponchos off the floor and a little frog hopped out.

 Scott set him free.

 Back canal and fish cleaning station (I told you it was like Florida!).

 Gloomy, misty day.

 More back canal.

Our condo back porch.

As we headed out we stopped somewhere to try to pay the toll for the Sydney Harbor Bridge which we had accidentally gone over on our way out of Sydney. However, they wouldn't let us pay for some reason, and Scott had to wait quite a long time for some Larry's to get off the phone at the phone booths.

 Aussie Christmas decorations.

 Santa is watching you!

We ate lunch at the Stuffed Olive Deli in Berry where we had some good sandwiches ("a la Panera" according to the notes). 

 Poorly focused echidna crossing sign.

 Poorly focused deer crossing sign.

We ultimately survived the trip to the airport despite being attacked by a wallaby or kangaroo who jumped out in front of the car. We also spotted a live echidna, but he ran away before I could capture him.

 Animal crossing sign in the Sydney suburbs.

 JH

 Goodbye Australia.

 Mostly boring returning of rental cars and airport annoyances, but since we were catching buses on the Auckland end, we finished off the rum just before checking into our flight.

My suitcase was chock-full of souvenirs!

Amusing note upon arriving at the passport check in Auckland:
Passport Official: "You haven't noted your final destination on your travel form."
Us: "We live in Auckland."
Passport Official: "Oh. Welcome home!"
:)

Beer Log: Friday - Cascade Lager = 6
                 Saturday - James Squire Porter = 9
                 Sunday - James Squire Amber Ale = 9, Tooney Old Ale = 8
                 Thursday - Barefoot/cove Radler = 9

Game Tournament of DOOOOM (and cuddles!)
Scott = 21
The Jeninator = 13 and two stars

And now I can finally recycle our notes from our Australia trip.
Cheers.

Australia Day 7

Writing procrastination you say? Nonsense! I am merely finishing up something that should have been done 3 YEARS AGO! Now, where was I?

Second to last day of the trip. We ate the rest of the cheese we had bought in Tilba and had some more of the fresh mangoes we bought on the roadside for breakfast. Then we started our day by playing some billiards at the clubhouse, playing tennis in the rain, and going for a swim in the indoor pool with an open hole in the ceiling to the rain. We had fun singing in the rain shower.

After the swim, we got ourselves together and headed out for lunch in Bateman's Bay. We ate at a restaurant called the Hog's Breath Cafe. We had a BBQ beef wrap, mushroom avocado salad, and cheese sticks, and either received a 10% off coupon for putt-putt golf, or received 10% off the lunch for a coupon we got playing putt-putt yesterday (notes unclear, though think it was the latter).

 As you can see, the Hog's Breath Cafe had a lot of rules.

After lunch, we went souvenir shopping. Our first stop was a place called Gifts on the Bay, which if I recall correctly had a bunch of expensive crap that had nothing to do with Australia. Also, walking to the shop, I got pooped on by a bird...a large bird if you know what I mean...I was not in a good mood by that time, but then I forced Scott to check out another shop called Treasures from the Deep. It was pretty much a "Shell World" (for all those snow birds out there), but also had opals! Turns out the owner was an eccentric ex-opal miner who was originally from France. He had hopped a freighter in the 1950's or 1960's to Australia to make his fortune mining opals. Apparently, since then he had made his fortune and then lost it again, and was now too broke to go back to France. It was really an amazing and tragic story, and it was here that Scott bought me my opal.

Unfortunately we still did not have the souvenirs I was looking for, so we headed over to Mogo where the ice cream shoppe was actually open now. While we were enjoying our ice cream a cold front blew in and we retreated inside a nearby shop. They had actual Australia-themed souvenirs! So after buying a good deal of stuff (including a kangaroo that said "Aussie, aussie, aussie! Oi, oi, oi!", and a "real" boomerang), we headed back to the condo for a little nap.

 Can't remember if these pics were on the way back to the condo, or on the way to dinner.

Before heading out for dinner, we watched a little Aussie T.V., which ended up being mostly British programming. We watched a funny British show with a character named Madame Hooch, then happened upon a cooking show with a sexy chef lady who really, really loved cooking.

Then it was off to have our fancy dinner of the trip at a place called the Blank Canvas, which was on the water in Bateman's Bay. I had seafood linguini and Scott had a lentil, sweetcorn, and pea pie. He definitely won in the food department, but we both won with the Barefoot/Bare Cove Radler which was delicious!

 Same beer, different name.

 Showing off my shiny!

 How you doin'?

We still had a little food that we had to get through back at the condo, so we skipped dessert and headed back so that Scott could make us a delectable dessert of apples and rum! We then played games (like FLUXX) until we were both weary and "full of breadcrumbs". Then called it a night.

 Aforementioned stuffed kangaroo playing FLUXX.

Back to Australia, Again

O.K., O.K., so I am a terrible person. It is only once in a while that I actually get motivated and have the time to work on this. I promise that when Scott and I do really cool things again, I will post those things, but really, life has been a bit lacking in the adventure department since returning to the states.
 So, anyway, here we go again. Thank goodness we took notes.

Australia, Day 6:

 Ahah! Yes, I remember this well. Today was our designated Beach Day! As most of you already know, Scott is a bit translucent and turns into a lobster when exposed to too much sun. Therefore we try to minimize time just hanging out on the beach, but did designate one day of our trip mainly for my benefit.

We started our day with a leisurely breakfast of mangoes, yoghurt, pepperoni and cheese, and marmalade on toast, then headed out to our first beach: Broulee Beach. It was very windy. Here are some photos.

It was a bit rocky, and oh yeah, there were hundreds of dead birds!! You can't see them very well from these photos, but trust me, they were littering the beach in various states of decay. Mostly see birds if I recall correctly. Anyways, too windy, too rocky, too many dead birds, so we pushed on to beach #2: Tomakin Beach. Truth-be-told, some of the above pictures may actually be from Tomakin Beach, point is, there were also hundreds of dead birds at that beach as well. Ick!

We were a bit discouraged at this point, but decided to try a beach further north after we had stopped for a spot of lunch ('cause all those dead birds made us hungry?). Anyways, we decided on a lovely little cafe called "By the Beach" ('cause, you know, Beach Day). Scott had a steak sandwich and I had fish and chips.

After lunch we noticed that the sky had become quite dark and cloudy and that the wind had picked up. Crumbs. Well, how about we go into Bateman's Bay for a bit of putt-putt golf instead of going to the beach?

We tied in case anyone was wondering. J=HIO? (Cryptic note that neither of us can remember what it means.)

As we were golfing the skies cleared and the sun came out, so we decided to give the beach one last try. We headed over to Surfside Beach. It was a nice, sandy beach with calm waters and no (oops, strike that) only one dead bird. Yay, good enough! The water was really cold, but we swam anyway darnit!

 At this point I believe that the penguin boat captain called us to tell us that there would definitely NOT be any penguins for us on this trip (I recall that there was a slight possibility of seeing penguins later that day). Boo! So instead we went with Plan Q, which involved us grilling steaks on the outdoor grills provided by the resort. Crap. They aren't actually grills, they are like big, gas hotplates and it is starting to rain. O.K. well Plan W then: frying up the steaks in the condo.

Then I had a hankering for ice cream, but soon found out that the evening sun was very HOT and there was no ice cream in the nearby town of Mogo. Bummer. Well, lets play some board games then. The front desk boasted that they had some in the common lounge. And they did...Ludo and French Monopoly. I am not kidding. Here is a picture of the Monopoly board, and if I remember right, Ludo was the generic version of Parcheesi (if that's even possible).