Brothers or Gay?

Sydney is beautiful, crowded, and hot. John & Becky took us to the Sydney Fish Market for lunch which consisted of small, low-calorie portions of local seafood:


We shared a table with a local couple who, noticing that John & Andrew were wearing the same colored shirts, almost identical sunglasses, and matching three-day stable asked "Are you two brothers or are you gay?" We responded "No, we're just Canadian."


Afterwards we covered the Sydney Aquariam & Wildlife Centre (note to future visitors: don't go there and see how big the spiders here can get until your *last* day in Australia or you will never sleep for the rest of your visit) and then down to the harbor for drinks at the Opera Bar below the Sydney Opera House and looking at across at the Sydney Harbour Bridge. Something they don't put in the tourist literature: as the sun sets, the sky over the harbour fills with bats from the park next to the opera house!

Oh, and this picture will only make sense to those of you who (like Andrew) have a low enough IQ to watch "The Real World":

Movin' On

"Phase One" of our hoilday comes to an end tomorrow morning and we are headed to Sydney to visit John & Becky and do some hard-core touristing. Not sure what internet access will be like so don't hold your breath for frequent posts. Happy New Year if we don't post before then.

Booderee, Booderaa, life goes on!

We've spent the last two days exploring Booderee National Park. The batonic gardens were a bit of a bore, though they offered up our best kangaroo photos:

(We're now bored of kangaroos; last night there were some in the empty lot three doors down and we could scarcely be bothered to have a look.)

The beaches in Booderee were gorgeous. We spent the morning at Murrays Beach, which featured the clearest water you'll find outside of a bathtub. However, as noon approached we it had gotten relatively crowded (by Jervis Bay standards anyway):

We moved on to Steamers Beach which we figured would have less crowds since it had a 2.3km walk from the parking lot, followed by a long, steep staircase. It turned out to be relatively deserted, which made Andrew quite happy:

Teeming with Life #5

Andrew was in the our cottage's kitchen trying to make the very important decision of whether to have a beer or glass of wine before dinner, when suddenly he realized a strange pit bull was staring at him from two feet away.

{OMG! OMG! OMG! IRRATIONAL REACTIONARY PANIC! OMG! OMG!}

Once his heart rate dropped below 200 bpm and his knees regained strength, he realized that the pit bull was on the other side of the kitchen's closed sliding glass door. After a few moments, it moved on.

To be fair, the pit bull seemed friendly and pitties get do get an unfair rap, but Andrew wasn't going to risk it. He went with the beer AND the wine instead.

Random Pics

First of all, kangaroos!


This tree seems to know it is on the bottom of the planet and has decided to hang upside-down:
(Sadly, it's a bit tough to tell in the photo.)


Jessica at Granite Falls in the Australian bush:


Andrew enjoys his vegemite for Boxing Day breakfast:

We Must Destroy Nature Before It Destroys Us!

This place is teeming with life:

1. There are tonnes of birds, but unfortunately most of them are nocturnal. They spend all night squawking and hooting and chittering and cawing. Our favorite is what we're calling “monkey birds” because they make a sound like a howler monkey defending its territory AND QUITE LOUDLY AND ALL NIGHT! It's all quite soothing when you're trying to sleep off some jet lag.

2. No sooner had we arrived at the beach yesterday when a pod of dolphins did a swim-by for the cameras:

3. We went out to get traditional Festivus-eve Chinese take-out and on the way home we had our first kangaroo sighting. Of course, we didn't have the camera with us.

4. Santa managed to track us down and brought us a gift on Festivus morning: a rather large cricket in the bathroom. We decided the spiders would be jealous so we set it free. (Moments later it was probably eaten by a bird; see #1 above.)

Roughin' It

Jervis Bay is not without it's flaws. First of all, there are the crowded beaches:

Also the murky water:

And finally the stingy food portions:

Miles from our Home

It's been a tiring journey but we're finally here. The flight was long but bearable. Andrew dealt with it by getting 'faced in Vancouver airport and then proceeded to pass out for the first five hours in the air. The new “extended range” airplane was terrific except that our seat controls were cross-wired so Jessica controlled Andrew's entertainment centre and vice-versa. The stewardess tried to reboot our units to see if it corrected the problem but then came back and said the computer doesn't even think our seats exist on the plane! Really gives you confidence that they've worked out the kinks on these new airliners, eh? (They did give us vouchers for free flights to make up for it, though.)

We had a terrific view of Sydney Harbour Bridge and the Opera House on the approach to the airport but that's all we've seen of Sydney so far since we headed straight out of town once we got our rental car. On the drive to Jervis Bay we both had a crazy burger craving but we won't eat McDonalds and the roadside venues were nothing but McDonalds, McDonalds, KFC, McDonalds, McDonalds, McDonalds, KFC, McDonalds... Finally, facing starvation, we gave in and went to KFC (the quality of which made it clear that the reason they often serve their food in buckets is so that you have something to vomit into afterwards – Andrew figures you should eat KFC once every two years just to remind yourself why you never eat at KFC.) Andrew spent the whole meal grumbling that we were bound to see a perfect burger place two miles down the road AND THEN WE REALIZED THAT THE KFC SHARED ITS PARKING LOT WITH A LOCAL BURGER CHAIN AND WE HADN'T NOTICED!

Our cottage is quaint and spacious (doubly so now that we have gotten rid of the world's largest spider in the bathroom; the legends of Australian spiders have not been exaggerated!) The neighbors on one side are the owners: classic Aussies (he was actually waxing a board when we met him) with a happy little dog called Pepper (sorry, Gibson). The neighbors on the other side, however, are quite noisy:

On a tour of the neighborhood to get supplies we found that the Aussies have attained the pinnacle of civilized achievement: the (literal) drive-thru liquor store!
You just pull in and order what drinks you want and they load it up for you. All you need to do is pay and let the good times “roll”. In fact, one customer was already drinking a road pop in her car when she pulled into the liquor store. That's just awesome.

Pre-trip post.

The next trip is only five days away.