Thank-you Jim!

Thank-you for everything Jim. We had the greatest time and are fully re-energized for travelling once more thanks to your hospitality. Now you may need some time to rest up. We'll miss you!

(The picture is from the dinosaur museum, in front of the T-Rex display. The little guy on the left jumped in when he heard we were taking a picture. Then he employed Mercedes as his tour guide. 'what's this? what's that?').

More of Jim's tour

I had to include this picture of Jim enjoying the beach. He was so happy! Below is a picture of the girls at Tidbinbilla, the space communication centre. They're thrilled to be standing in front of a model of the Mars rover (smile kids!). Mercedes was very excited to learn about the ice on Mars and that there may have been life.


To the left is a picture taken at Quest-a-con, Canberra's science centre. That would be the tallest man in the world on the wall. We had such a great time there. They have a slide that starts with you hanging from a bar and as you drop you swish onto the slide, very scary and fun. They had many activities and we saw a show about pulleys and catapaults that included Jim as a voluteer.

The last picture is from the Canberra zoo and aquarium. Kyra was brave and thought it was funny that the snake liked Kevin. Notice her hands. After a few minutes she asked to have the snake removed.

Jim's tour

Jim has shown us all around Canberra. Here we are on Mount Ainslie overlooking Canberra, a beautiful view. We could see the whole city including where Jim works and lives.
Here we are at the Canadian consulate. Inside we signed the book and they gave us Canadian flag stickers and pins. There are maple trees planted all around by our various prime ministers.
Jim took us to Pebbly beach, a few hours east to the coast of New South Wales. The water was colder here, recieving different currents from the south. We had a great time swimming in the waves, building sand castles and eating a sandy picnic.
The birds at Pebbly beach are very tame. A little girl gave Kyra some bread to feed them. This is a rainbow lorikeet. Mercedes fed them too but she didn't want them to land on her. When the birds were full they flew away. Apparently kangaroos hang around to be fed as well but we didnt' see any on this day.

sports and galahs

Jim's neighbours taught the girls how to play cricket, a favorite sport in Australia. Another new friend got Kyra all geared up for some roller skating.

The birds are called Galahs and are very common little parrots here. These 2 were sitting by the bird feeder at Paul and Carey's house on Christmas day. There were about 20 of them hanging out and fighting over the seeds.

More Christmas

MMMMMMM! Christmas dinner!

Christmas at Jim's

We've had a great time at Jim's house in Canberra. After 12 000kms in 2 months it was so nice to relax in a comfortable house with Jim the greatest host ever. He had a Christmas tree up when we got here (fake, otherwise it would only last a few days in this climate) and trusted us with his house until he got back from Brisbane. Jim's friends Carey and Paul with their dogs Duff and Moe came over for Christmas Eve. The dogs are Jack Russels and we loved playing with them. That's Duff jumping, she's 11 years old and as ready to play as ever.

The picture on the left is Christmas morning. The girls were excited to get nintendo ds machines from Santa. We also had gifts from Grammy and Boppy under the tree. We had a great day playing with our new toys and books. For Christmas dinner we went to Paul and Carey's house. They also have 3 cats and 2 chickens. They have a great place in New South Wales (only 1/2 and hour from Jim's place in Australian Capital Territory).

Coober Pedy

Coober Pedy is a town of 3500 people with about 45 nationalities, in the middle of the desert. It is the opal capital of the world. Australia has 95% of the world's opal suppy and the largest amount still comes from Coober Pedy. The town is dusty and dry, surrounded by a moon-like landscape dotted with piles of sand and crushed rock dug up in the search for opal, they look like giant ant hills. The opal workings extend for nearly 40km around the town. The opal rush began here in 1915 when a 14 year old member of a gold-scouting expedition found some surface opals. It was hard work in a dry, hot climate. They would dig a deep well then tunnel along with a pick and shovel, using a handpick or screwdriver when traces of opal were found. Meanwhile tolerating dehydration and flies that like to crawl up your noes and lick your eyeballs. (These, by the way, inhabit most of Australia and they especially like Kyra and Kevin).

In 1920 the area was renamed Coober Pedy from Aboriginal words "kupa piti", assumed to mean 'white man in a hole'. The miners learned to escape the heat by living underground in 'dugouts'. The underground rooms stay at 23 to 25 celsius regardless of the outside temperature. About 50% of the population lives in underground homes now. Most are dug into hillsides. Some homes spread up to 450 square meters underground.

We visited the Old Timer's Mine museum in town. We wore hard hats and followed the self-guided tour through an old opal mine, complete with explanation boards and mining manequins. The temperature underground was a great relief from the heat. Then we got to noodle for opals: digging through piles of discarded rubble for pieces of opal missed by the miners. Many locals make a living off this method. We found some great little pieces of opal. That's what we're up to in the picutre above, the white tub is full of water and when you find what you think is an opal you dip it in the water to wash off the dust and then you'll see the colors shine through. Notice the motorhome in the background? That's ours!

Uluru

We enjoyed our visit to Uluru. In 1985 it was given back to the Aboriginal people and tourist buildings at it's base were removed and access to the rock restricted with proper pathways. A tourist town called Yulara was built 20kms away from it. The Anangu people along with Parks Australia take care of the rock. In the visitor centre and around the paths there are information boards explaining Uluru's spiritual meaning to the Aboriginal people. I think the stories may lose something in the translation. They ask you not to climb it but don't prevent you from climbing it. There is a rope up one side of it for climbers. The day we were there was surprisingly cool and misty so it was closed for climbing anyway because it would be slippery.

It's beautiful to visit. The rock is larger than you think and it changes as the light changes, and as you move around it.

The next morning in the campground at Erldunda (200kms east of Uluru) an emu was wondering through campsites looking for leftovers as people slept. Later as I was coming out of the washrooms the emu was there. He came right up to me. It was very intimidating to have a bird your height staring at you a foot away from your face. I backed up and asked him politely to go away. He did. It turned out he lived there as a pet, just wandering freely.

Dec. 12, Camels

On the way to Uluru (Ayer's rock), just past Alice Springs, we stayed at a campground with a camel farm next to it. That's all it was 100km away from anything, a campground roadhouse and a camel farm. They had 70 camels on the farm. They do safaris where you can go for several days but we opted for a ride around the paddock. They laid down for us to get on, walked down one side and ran up the other. It was so bumpy when they ran we couldn't stop laughing. When Kevin got on his camel it bellowed. The girls loved the experience and Kyra was hoping for a 5 day safari. A few minutes was fun, but we're not sure about days! We liked the camels, kind of like horses but haughty and somehow dignified.

We were told Australia has the largest wild camel population of any country, about 500 000! We saw a few herds of them as we drove, one in the distance and another small group right on the road. They trotted away as we slowed down.

Here are a few photos from Darwin and Litchfield national park just south of Darwin. We also drove through Kakadu national park but it was pretty quiet there this time of year. Kevin saw a frilled lizard there.

Darwin is a city far from civilization. It's so remote. The highways that lead to the west, east and south of Darwin are mostly deserted of towns. About every 100 or 200 kms you stop at a roadhouse, the only sign of people, and get your gas, food, maybe camp for the night. The only other people you see are driving and the roads are not busy. Sometimes you pass by a gate of a station that is far off into the bush. The heat in Darwin was so humid you soak through your clothes in no time. We only stayed one night but met some great people. We met a family from Tasmania working in Darwin for awhile. Their daughter Sam became great friends with the girls. You can see their lovely photo above. Hello to you Sam and to your mom and dad if they're reading this! Their motorhome was called 'The Castle' after the Australian movie that's a great one to watch if you can find it. The lady by us had her place covered in Christmas lights and people were walking by to enjoy them. The couple next to her had a large green tree frog in their backyard and the kids had a great time harassing him, giving him a shower, and screaming when he made a leap for it only to land on one of them. We toured around Darwin, checking out the downtown area and doing some Christmas shopping in a wonderfully air-conditioned mall. Cousin Jim used to live in Darwin. We didn't stay long as we had already decided to be at Jim's in Canberra (several 1000 kms south) for Christmas and had lots to see still on the way down.

As we left Darwin we stopped at an aboriginal gift shop. The woman had emus and water buffalo fenced in. She said she kept the emus as guard dogs. In the shop she had some local creatures as pets: a carpet python, a file snake, a blue-tongued lizard, a small freshwater croc and a snapping turtle. She took out the python, the lizard and then the file snake and let us touch them. The file snake feels rough (thus the name) and lives in the water with the croc and the turtle. It was quite a treat for us.

That night we stayed near Litchfield. The next day we went for a swim at two falls in Litchfield national park. The first had about 10 pools going down the falls. We tried out several of them, enjoying the cool water. Kyra jumped from a small cliff into one, they were very deep. A few kms away were the Florence falls. It was a large waterfall pouring into a huge clear pool. You can see it in the picture above. We had a wonderful swim, Kevin and the girls swimming right under the falls. The water was clear to the bottom and the fish swim around your legs.

In the last picture you can see how big the termite mounds can get! Right after the picture Kyra got stung by something, we're not sure what. After this we continued south, backtracking about 600kms to Tennant Creek where we headed for Uluru, (previously Ayer's rock).

From Cairns to Darwin we saw a lot of burnt land. The fire above left we saw for many kms as we drove. We could actually see the flames rising up in the distance. The road on either side of us was burnt, some termite mounds still smouldering. The aboriginals cause controlled burns of the brush as they have always done, to encourage green re-growth. The land is so dry in the dry season that dead plant life doesn't compost, it just builds up. Some fires are started by lightening storms, especially if the land hasn't been previously burned.

The roadkill doesn't compost for a long time either and it's so far from anywhere that no one bothers to remove them from the roads. We see many stages of decomposition. Sometimes just the bones are left, other times more and Mercedes likes to report on the color and amount of 'meat' she can see. The wild pigs are the worst, we try not to breath for awhile when passing pig roadkill. Australia's interior has had a 7 year drought. Some farms have suffered greatly and the government has just recently pitched in to help them.

The wet season in the north starts in December and goes to March or April. The post you see in the first picture lets you know how deep the water is that floods over the road during the wet season. You see these quite often. We were out of the north by mid-December and only experienced a few rains. It's amazing how much you appreciate the rain after several hot days driving through the desert. We all cheered the first time it rained in the desert, just past Katherine, near Darwin.

Heading to the centre

As we started across the Savannah Way the land became flat with low bushes and sand. The wind was like a hair dryer on high blowing on you. Our air conditioning works for the front seats but not well for the kids way in the back, so we drove with the windows open a lot. There was a lot of great roadkill, mostly kangaroos but also some wild boars, emus, and echidna, and even the odd cow as most of the livestock wanders free for 100s of kms. Termite mounds are as common as trees, they come in all sizes from a few inches high to far over Kevin's head. Here is one of the girls next to one of the first big ones we came across, little did we know we'd be seeing hundreds of thousands over the next few weeks.

After the picture Kyra noticed the red back spider on the side of the mound busily tending her eggs.

The next day we were almost to Normanton (1000kms west of Cairns) when Kevin saw far up ahead a cloud of dirt. He thought some crazy guy in an off-road vehicle was messing around. When we drove by the area he glanced to the side looking for the off-road path and he saw instead a car up on its side with a guy climbing out the sky-ward door. The car was very camouflaged and he never would have seen it if he didn't look. The guy was limping and acting odd but seemed ok. We drove him the last 10km to Normanton because we had no emergency signal on our phones. The number here isn't 911, it's 000. Just to reassure you all, we would never have picked a stranger up had we not seen the accident happen. It's so remote no one passed by while we were helping him and it was soooo hot. Had he been knocked out and we hadn't seen his car he could've easily perished from the heat. We got him to the hospital and made sure he was taken care of. We think he was driving to fast and maybe fell asleep as he'd been rushing from Darwin to get to the coast only since the day before.

On the way to Darwin and then down through the middle to Adelaide the scenery is pretty much the same: dry and sandy, low bushes, sometimes low trees. You have to watch out for emus, cows, kangaroos (although we only saw the dead kangaroos all the way through), and even wild camels. The speed limit is 130 kms/ hour, we only went 85-90 because that's what our motorhome drives best at. Jim says the 130 limit is new for the Northern Territory, there wasn't any before that. You have to watch out for the road trains also. These are large transport trucks like we have at home, only instead of one trailer they're pulling 3 or 4. It's a train. On some of the highways the paved area is a one-lane strip and the shoulders are wide and dirt. If another car comes you both have to get two wheels over. If a road-train comes you want to get right off so they don't have to drive in the dirt. Apparently they'll kick up rocks and put out your windshield. It's good to talk to the locals and learn these things.

Thanks for all the comments. It's great to hear from you Robyn, the girls still talk about you and are excited to be hanging out with your uncle! Thanks to Rob and family too, it's nice to hear from you. Your brother's been such a great host and the kids love him, we threaten to not leave!

To Grandma, Happy Birthday! We hope you had a great one. Thanks for all your best wishes and comments Maureen and Colin.

We'll be taking off on travels again soon so I will be updating this site often before we leave Jim's all-too-comfy abode.

I forgot to date the last entry, that all happened on Dec. 1. Here is another picture from that day in the Daintree. Can you spot the crocodile?

2 days later we headed out on the Savannah Way, destination Darwin. On the way through the great dividing range we came across and injured crimson rosella on the road, a beautiful red parrot. His family was nearby. Kevin scooped it up in his t-shirt and we found an animal caretaker nearby. That was our first highway rescue. We didn't get to our campsite until after dark because of the rescue (and because of a wrong turn, my fault) and we saw many cane toads with our headlights. They hang out on the roads at night, perhaps to catch bugs that fly to your headlights. We couldn't help but pop a few as we drove. They actually made a noise.

After Cairns we took a drive up to the Daintree rainforest. We went for a boat cruise on the Daintree river boat with a nice quiet battery run motor. Our boat driver pointed out crocodiles we never would have seen on our own, they were so camouflaged. We also saw 100s of flying fox bats in the trees along the shore, and some white-lipped tree frogs on a little tree hanging over the river. It was a peaceful ride and we were lucky to see 4 crocodiles, 2 large and 2 small, in their natural habitat.

After the boat ride we drove further north and took a walk in the Daintree rainforest where the birds and bugs filled the hot, damp air with noise. Butterflies floated around and the ants were busy. We saw this little praying mantis and when we got to close it leapt 2 meters to another tree, making a perfect landing.