Koala Encounter!

G'day mates, here we are with the koalas!  Oh my goodness this koala encounter was so amazing!  I've got lots more pictures, and I'll tell you more about it so soon, but it was incredible!  I honestly could have let a koala climb up me, but then I would have been bleeding in several places, etc. so I side stepped like I was taught until the caretaker picked them up, but yeah, we were right in there with them, and they were a rowdy bunch.  Sorry, "cheeky" is the term our guide used!

Well, in spite of how hard we worked each day, and how tired I was every night, I never managed to sleep in much.  And so, in an effort to not wake everyone up, and to have something more to do, I'd head outside and listen to the kookaburras.  Okay, that's also just awesome to do.  The sunrise didn't look half bad either.

This little guy is only like an inch and a half long, and he was just living on my parents window.  He was in this same 6 inch area the WHOLE time we were visiting.

Monday morning it was off to the koalas first thing... well, some people's first thing. ;)  Anyway, we signed up for the 9:30 encounter, and it seems like the best time for sure.  As we arrived they were doing supplemental feedings, and I think koalas are also usually the most active in the morning in terms of eating, etc.  But with the supplement, they were active all over the place!  Especially Denise here.

Not only was there eating, but hopping and moving and interacting!! Check out this little buddy and his big morning yawn!  Good morning to you too!  It was pretty awesome to get to see so much personality from the koalas after all of the other ones just being asleep in a tree and maybe turning their heads a little.

This guy was especially funny!  If you scratched the right spot on her bum she'd raise her hand like you can see in the picture.  Her hand is on it's way down here as she's not getting those sweet sweet scratches.

And look at this picture I got! Whoa!  It looks so good, I still struggle to believe I took that!

The koalas were sad to see us go... or, probably the zoo keeper and her syringes of supplemental feeding.  Either way, a very touching moment to see how much they loved us coming by.  And then I also got to watch him waddle back over to his tree.  Oh, and a further note about Denise, one our way out we stopped at the gift shop and one of the things we grabbed was adopting a koala for a year!  We picked Denise, in part because she was so fun and feisty while we were there, and also in part because she has a little tiny baby!  Too small to come out of her pouch, but we're hoping in the updates that we'll get some pictures.

There was a cool koala statue out front with a selfie stand, perfect for a group picture!

From the zoo, we headed over to see Ol' Bottlebutt!  This baby here is the largest bloodwood tree in all of the southern hemisphere!  And like you, all that means to me is that it's a big tree.  They're in kind of a cool shape where the trunk gets super wide, hence the name bottlebutt.  It was pretty cool to see, and it was a fun hike!

Speaking of fun hike, we were right there in the rainforest.  This felt much more adventury than when we were in the Blue Mountains at Scenic World on the raised walkways.  We had to drive on a dirt road for a while to get to the trailhead, and our road eventually became possibly impassible, so we had to turn around and take a different path.  When I got out of the car to check the road, it felt very Jurassic Park, and I definitely could have been attacked by a raptor!  Not quite the same feeling on the hike as I wasn't out alone, and I didn't just get out of a car to wait for a T-rex...  Anyway, the rainforest was cool!

After our hike, we got burgers and headed to the beach.  Monica got an Aussie style burger.  I don't remember what all that meant, but it did have beets.  It was pretty good until I got to the end and had a huge beet left, and not much else... (p.s. we shared burgers).

The beach was occasionally split up by these rocks, which were fun for a good climb.  Grayson had some fun climbing on some of these smaller rocks.  Monica and I went out there as well, and got hit by a wave!  Oh, while at the beach, Grayson also wanted to play with his pick from the zoo giftshop, a balloon helicopter!  It was pretty awesome, and we had a lot of fun with it.

The girls played their favorite game, or at least I think it is their favorite, jumping over waves.

Brooke also really likes to bury herself in sand.  It kind of looks like a mermaid tail, and then she grows legs!

Nearby the beach, there was a landmark called "croissant rock" and I just had to check it out.  Niki came with me, and after searching around for a bit, we realized that, in fact, this was it.  Looks pretty tasty, eh?  You probably thought I was in France for a second there.

When we got back, everyone was over at this other spot on the beach.  There was this little river going through the beach here.  It's actually from a bunch of flooding that happened here sometime in the last month, and it ran right through this spot on the beach, and it's still running a little bit.  I wonder if this filling of the ocean is negating all of that lifting Australia out of the ocean we did last week.

A kangaroo finally came to visit!  We did see one when we first arrived, but hadn't seen another one until this evening.  Oh, I don't remember if I mentioned this, but the place where my parents live backs up to a nature preserve, so it's pretty common to see animals go by.  Oh, actually, on Sunday morning when we were getting ready for church a kangaroo went hopping by!  I totally forgot to mention that.  It flew by really fast, so no way I had a chance to catch it.  Anyway, back to this evening where a kangaroo came to visit, and it had a joey!  Someone closed a garbage can and it got spooked for a little, but after about 30 seconds it decided the coast was clear and started scratching it's stomach to let the joey know to come back out and eat!  It was amazing!

Winry had been sleeping out on the couch every night, and rolled off Monday evening.

Tuesday morning we were of course outside hoping for more animals.  Grayson's out there looking with some awesome binoculars that we grabbed from the zoo giftshop!

The king of the forest even came to visit us!  You can tell that he's the king because of his huge crown of grass caught up in his horns.

And this deer was standing on it's back legs to get a bite to eat from the tree.

We had to head back to Sydney on Tuesday as our flight was first thing in the morning to head home.  So we got a picture all together before saying goodbye.

On our way out of town, we stopped at koala street for a picture.  Apparently I was a little stinky this morning, because no one wanted to quite be next to me.

We stopped for gas, and the gas station had another one of these koala statues!  Sweet.

And now my pictures get shuffled a little out of order due to the flight.  Our flight left at 9:30 in the morning, and we landed at 6 am that same day, so my phone is trying it's best to correctly order things here.  This picture is in LAX right before we boarded our plane and had to say bye to Niki!  We're so glad she came on the trip with us and are grateful for all the support she provided!  Her being there definitely helped the kids be calmer and have more fun.  Oh, and while we were in the airport, Niki's favorite moment of the trip happened.  Winry was being a little crazy and uncontrolled, so I got her in a seat and said I was going to sit on her, and sat down.  I was holding myself up on the arm rests, but Niki said it was hilarious, and her favorite part of the trip, so I thought I better include the story.

Rolling back, this is our flight out of Sydney.  Remember how I said I was going to miss the opera house?  Well I got one more chance to see it on our way out.  The plane took off, flew right up to it, and then turned to give me a great view!  Bye harbor bridge and opera house!  I hope this isn't my last time seeing you!!

On our flight to Austin I had to get a picture of these guys on the safety video as it was my last chance.  Delta is doing a decades thing, and this is the 90's, and when they popped up it absolutely reminded me of my brother Spencer growing up.

We finally made it back to Austin, and the shuttle bus was taking forever to arrive.  Grayson and I walked to the car, and were going to come back to pick everyone else up but the bus did eventually come.  That said, we waited the first 10 minutes with everyone else and still walked to the car a few minutes faster than they got there.  I'm not sure what's going on with the parking lot shuttles, but they're terrible right now.  Oh, and Winry's tired. We got up for our flight in Sydney like... 20 hours ago at this point.

Our sweet potato was thriving while we were away!  Monica is growing slips so that we can grow our own sweet potatoes.  I think they're ready.

And timestamp mismatch, here's Grayson sleeping on Niki.  Yeah, the flight was long enough that I took this picture at what was considered a later time than us going through LAX, waiting for and taking a flight to Austin (sidenote, when we landed in Austin I texted Niki, and she was already home, and her flight left LAX an hour after ours...), picking up our bags and driving home.  That whole day was shorter than the one where we got on a flight over the ocean.  Anyway, he looks cute, and Niki is the absolute hero for being a pillow for 13 hours.

We're still trying to get back on a proper sleep schedule.  Grayson went to bed as soon as we got home, and then woke up at 1 in the morning, for the night.  When I got up for work he was still up, but then around 8 he fell asleep on the couch until like noon.  We're working on getting back to sleeping at night, but mostly people are just tired and not getting enough sleep at night right now.

And here's Jelly happy to have us back!  I sure missed her while we were gone.

And we'll cap off the week with Grayson here helping Monica get some zucchini donuts ready.  He really knows his stuff in the kitchen.

And that's all for this week.  We're back from Australia, and it was so much fun!  It's too bad we couldn't stay longer, but it was an amazing trip and I'm so glad we got to go.  It was so incredible.  We truly are blessed to be able to have opportunities like that.  I'm glad we're back and safe, and hopefully we'll be able to get sleeping at the right time soon!
 

A Week Down Under

G'day from down under, mates! We made it!  A picture outside the Sydney Opera house seemed to be the best way to kick this post off!  There is so much to talk about in this post, but I just gotta say that my heart belongs to the Sydney Opera house and this harbor.  I don't know what it is, but at the end of the week we headed up to Port Macquarie where my parents are living, and when we left Sydney it was gut wrenching to me to think I might never come back to this harbor and see the opera house and bridge, etc.  Most of our days ended up taking us through here, and I guess I just started feeling connected.

But, first we need to finish up our flight!  The kids were great through the whole 15 hour flight, and Grayson had a nice long nap on Niki!

When we landed in Sydney, we got our car and headed for the place we were staying.  Technically, we were trying to head for breakfast, but maps missed a few key splits in the road, and we ended up in an underground toll road that popped us out on the other side of Sydney.  While trying to get back, the roads in the city are VERY tight, and they drive on the left side of the road, and we may have clipped the left rear view mirror...  It didn't break off, it folded in and got scratched on the back, but after that we changed the routing straight to our house and were done with driving where possible.  The house was in an awesome location!  It was like 3 blocks away from the amazing M Deli Cafe that we ate ate like every day, and it was 2 houses away from a playground!  And I believe that's the order we experienced them as well.  We were a little early for checking in, so after some breakfast we had a great time at the park.  My parents came and met us there too.  Grayson had a great time taking Grandpa on obstacle courses around the park.

The park was right next to a trail, and one way on the trail went by a field and an outlook over the ocean for whale watching.  It was whale migration season while we were there, and we were able to see some splashes and sprays out in the distance.  But what's better than whales way in the distance?  Birds in the field!  Gotta catch 'em all!

Heading the other way on the path went down some stairs and to tide pools.  Grayson and I went down to check them out while everyone else was playing at the park.

And then Grayson noticed a crack and that all of Australia was going to fall off into the ocean, so he jumped in there and held it back up!  Thank goodness we took our trip when we did, because we got there just in time to save the continent!

It was fun to see the native wildlife.  There were lots of birds that I'm sure are typical there, but were really fun to see for me!  Like these cool rainbow lorikeets in the trees at the park.

Well, after playing for a while, we ended up having troubles getting into our house.  They had an electric deadbolt, but the battery was dead.  We just thought our early check-in didn't work out, so we drove to a really big park close by for the afternoon.  It's called Centennial Park and it's a huge park in the middle of the city, and then there are a whole bunch of playgrounds and stuff to do scattered all around in it.  It also had very little traffic, which made for good left side driving practice.  One of the places we played had this cool log ladder up to the top of a big slide.

There was also a food truck in the park where we went for dinner.  And speaking of the fun birds, there were ibis all over the place playing the roll of pigeon.  While we were eating, there were like 4 of them, and they'd all slowly approach from a different side trying to find some food, sneaking closer and closer until someone moved toward them.  Grayson took guard duty and ran around the table when he finished eating.  After the park ,we stopped at Aldi for some grocery shopping, and then back to the house where we found out that the lock was actually just dead, and we had to reach out to the owner to get a lock box code for the backup key.  So we could have unloaded our stuff hours before, not had tired kids crying about needing to go in while we sat on the porch waiting for a reply.  It wasn't the finest moment of the day, and that's saying something seeing as we clipped the mirror of our car, but we made it through, and after that we had no issues.

We had to do a little replanning after the kids were in bed.  My parents had gotten Opal cards from the mission, which can be used for public transit, and we decided to use public transit as much as we could while in Sydney.  There was a bus stop close by use (and close by M Deli!) that took us right to Sydney Harbor, which also happened to be right where we wanted to go for just about everything we wanted to do.  It's also a major transit hub right there with stations for busses, trains, light rail and ferries.  Our original plan was always to take a ferry to the zoo, and so, Tuesday morning, we headed to the zoo!  I had to include a red panda, as this is Monica's favorite animal.

Brooke got to see koalas, which she loved.  They had koala encounters there, and you got to stand really close, but Monica did research and we passed on this one to wait for a better one later.  Anyway, Brooke still loved seeing koalas up close.

Winry got an upgrade on her ears.  They look like a rabbit, but then I think it's probably supposed to be a kangaroo, except they don't actually look like that, so I don't remember what animal this is supposed to be.

I guess it could be this guy.  I don't remember what this animal was, but what I realized when I was looking through the pictures was that of his whole habitat, he chose to be on the top of the wall in front of a fan!  And it's winter!  He gets it.

We were able to see a platypus at the zoo too.  We had to go back like 3 or 4 times before it was actually out and we got to see it.  It's nocturnal, so it was in a darker room, so photos and video are a little harder to see what's going on because they come out blurred, but it was so cute!  And it was very active once it was out, swimming all over the place and even up and over a little waterfall to what I expect is a place where it's food is kept.

After the zoo we stopped and got some lunch from different places around the harbor, including Cheetos Puffs, which happen to be Grayson's favorite.  Brooke got a Subway sandwich, and she is so obsessed with it now.

After lunch, we took a tour of the Sydney Opera house.  Here is the main concert hall.

And here we all are in it as well.  We also got to go to the... Grand Balcony.  That's what I'm gonna call it.  It overlooks the harbor, and it's all glass walls, and was pretty cool.  It's open and they do parties in there sometimes.

The tour went through both concert halls, and here we are heading from the main one to the smaller one for plays, etc.  I thought the main hall was more fun to see, so I just did a picture of that, but here's Grayson tucking his arms in his sleeves.

The next morning, Monica, Brooke, Niki and I all went and climbed the Sydney Harbor bridge!  It was quite the adventure for sure.  Brooke loved it the whole time, so that's good, and Monica loved it 99 percent of the time, and the rest of us made it through.  I would absolutely recommend it.  For me the hardest part was the start/end where you're actually walking under the road, but still up like 50 feet in the air.  You walk out and around one of the end pillars of the bridge, and then you climb up 4 ladders to the top of the dome/arch of the bridge.  Being up on the top actually isn't that bad as the beam is like 10 feet wide, so from within the guard rails you can't really see straight down.  Also, we're in harnesses and connected to a steel cable the whole time.  It was a ton of fun, and a great view of Sydney and the harbor.

After the climb, we did some souvenir shopping while my parents come to meet us with Winry and Grayson.  Once we were all together, we headed for Darling harbour, and the best way to get there was on the train!  The train was even a double decker, and Grayson was very excited to ride.

There was a carousel that we all rode at Darling harbour, and then the kids played at the giant playground.

There was a whole water section with dams and switches and the kids had so much fun playing in the water.  There were a bunch of restaurants around the park, and we all picked our own thing for dinner.  We were hanging out in the harbour till pretty late to see the light show... which didn't happen.  There was a big light show event that ended the week before we came, but we saw somewhere that there was a nightly show, and it sounded like always, but we couldn't find the info again, so after waiting to see it, we headed home.

We were hoping to go to the Blue Mountains, and specifically to Scenic world, but with avoiding driving, we weren't sure it was gonna work.  We ended up finding a guided tour bus that was heading that way. So the next morning, we grabbed some food for take away from M Deli Cafe (or as Grayson called it, the yogurt shop) and off we went.  I did want to take a moment to highlight that all our disposable utensils were wood.  And they worked totally fine.  This was kinda a slap in the face to me, and I just don't understand why we can't move off plastic in the US.  There was just NONE in Australia.  I used to think it was hard for some reason, now I'm just sad.

Anyway, the only trick about that tour bus is that it only picks up at select hotels around Sydney, so we woke up and headed for a hotel lobby!  We passed this cool tree on the way and stopped for a family picture.

The first stop for the bus was at this little zoo that was halfway to our main destination.  Right when you walk in there's a big pen to feed wallabies, which everyone loved.

Here's Winry feeding one.

And me.  I guess these were the pictures I liked the most, but everyone fed them.

When we left the wallaby enclosure, we passed by this next one and one of the birds was following Monica.

They had a koala photo op I'd call it.  There was a picture line, and you got to touch the koala for the picture.  We hadn't planned on coming to this zoo, so this was an added bonus, and our first koala encounter.  Oh, another bonus here is that the koalas were actually awake and eating, while at the zoo they were basically all just sleeping and motionless.  At the first zoo it was exciting every time a koala moved it's head, so here it was cool to see them eat and such.

In the next area, there was an albino kangaroo, and he came hopping across the enclosure straight to Grayson for some food.  If only I knew what was coming, but here's Grayson feeding it.

From there, we stopped in a little town for lunch and had some pizza, and then went to Scenic World.  One of the cool things at Scenic World is that they have some cool rides, like this glass bottomed gondola that goes over a 150m deep gorge.

And the steepest railway in the world.  That was super cool to ride, and it was steep enough you felt like you could fall out of your seat even though they're leaning back.

There is also a raised platform trail you can walk down in the rainforest.  It was fun, however I'm sure it's a lot prettier in the summer. We didn't have to worry about snakes or anything, so maybe a fair trade.

After Scenic World, we drove back to a ferry stop to head back to Sydney harbour.  We got back after dark, and got this awesome view of the opera house.  I will say, I am happy we were able to go to the Blue Mountains, and it was nice finding a tour so we didn't have to drive, but I feel like the tour was a little too fast everywhere.  Still a good day.

Back in Sydney we needed some dinner before heading back, and pancakes were on the menu!  Winry was having a hard time while we were waiting, so I took her outside and gave her a piggy back, and she'd point and I'd walk that direction until she pointed me somewhere else.  She was having a lot of fun and it cheered her right back up!

While riding the bus, I noticed that Australia also has a CTC.  I tried getting a picture, but they're all a little blurry what with it being night, so here's a street map.  Upon closer inspection, I don't think Cigarettes, Tobacco, Cigars is a satellite of Chicago Trading Company...

The next day was time to check out and head for Port Macquarie.  Once the kids were all packed up ,I think Niki took them to the park while we did some final walkthroughs of the house, etc. and loaded up the car.  When I made it to the park, Grayson had made a friend, and they were lining up "tree oaks."  That's what Grayson calls them, it's really... "she oaks."  Never seen it written, so I'm writing what I hear.  Anyway, I asked him if he wanted to go to the tidepools before we had to leave, and the other boys mom was like, "oh, you've gotta go see the tide pools!"  They were super nice!  Actually, everyone in Australia was super nice to us.

Grayson and I were excited to give everyone a tour of the tide pools, and while we were down there, we saw people getting ready for a swim in the ocean!  A whole group actually swam over to pick them up, and then they dove in and joined them and off they all swam.

We heard a little creaking, so we all jumped in to stop all of Australia from sliding into the ocean.  Again, they're so lucky we were there this week!

And here's Niki enjoying the tides.

On our way out of town, we stopped at the temple and walked around the grounds.  We also went in the family history center for a few minutes and did some activities in there.

I also had this urge to be right side up again after being upside down in Australia for the week.  Ah, nice to have my head in the right direction again.

The drive was about 4 hours, and Grayson took a much needed nap with his new best pal, Rainbow!  Also, once we got out of the city, there was more space in the lanes and everyone drives very respectfully and gives space, etc. so driving on the highway is actually a good way to get some comfort with driving on the opposite side of the road.  Oh, and speaking of, not only do you drive on the opposite side, the turn signal and windshield wipers are also swapped, so it wasn't too crazy to run the wipers one time whenever we wanted to turn!

Port Macquarie has a bunch of koala preserves around it, and there were koala crossing signs all around town.  We never saw one in the wild, and thankfully never in the road, but I guess it happens sometimes.

When we got to my parents place, we had visitors!  The kangaroos get spooked off easily.  You can kind of see the second one back in the trees.  They didn't stay too long after we came out to see them.

That night we went out for dinner, and the place we went had a koala statue outside it.  They are scattered around town.  I don't know how many of them there are, and I'm sure there's a way to look up the locations, but we'll see how many we happen to run into.

On Sunday, we went to my parents branch, and they asked us all to speak in Sacrament meeting.  Brooke wrote her talk completely on her own, and did awesome.  I think Winry wrote hers too, but I think Monica might have helped a little.  Not 100% sure.  Anyway, they both did an excellent job.  It was nice having so many speakers because no one had to talk for very long either!  After church they had their linger longer, (they changed it to this week so we could be there for it!) so everyone stuck around and we had a potluck lunch.  It was a lot of fun chatting with everyone, and the food was excellent!  I will say, someone made taco soup, and I was excited to try it, and it was definitely missing some spices.  I'm not sure Australia has Mexican food quite like we do here in the states.

Sunday afternoon we were trying to head to this light house, and took the closest street parking spot we could find.  There are trails along the coast that we were hiking to get there.

But instead we ended up on a beach.  This part was more rocky and loggy, and we weren't here most of the time, but it did make for a good picture.  We did some sea shell hunting and playing in the sand.  We weren't here very long before it was getting dark and we had to head home.  OH! while we were driving over here we also saw a kangaroo on the side of the road.  He was standing up tall right in the tree line and looked like he was trying to be very non-suspicious.

We could see the whales again out in the ocean, or, we could see the splashes and sprays.  I was able to get a video with something in it, it's a little up and right from the boat (the white bit) when it happens.

And that ends our week.  We've still got a few more days here in Australia before we fly home.  It's been an amazing trip so far, and I'm sad that we're getting to the end, but it's been an amazing experience!