Opera House

It looks like a foe of Gojira, if you ask me. A couple of whistling fairies peek out of a clamshell and summon the Opera House to defend the harbor.

Video Replay

Chloe beckoned me further back into the wildlife park to show me the Singing Gate. "Do you hear it," she said. "West Side Story."


Part of our first day's walk. Nearly all the sites are epic.


We were told that the koala's were exceptionally active during our visit. This is only a small portion of their wackiness. In fact, we were asked to step back in fear of the little cuties would leap onto us and start scratching.


Listen for my trademark laugh. Driving in OZ was no problem. The real weirdness came from sitting in the passenger seat.


During Chloe's leg of the trip. We both got some good behind-the-wheel time.


Someone who wil remain unnamed, accidentally raped this bird.



This is my new best friend again, the Tawny Frogmouth owl. We were fairly buddy buddy throughout the day, except here where i seem to be damaging his calm.

More from Down Under

It's rather chill down here.
The right-side drive debacle wasn't even an issue. I drove through St. Leonards (just north of Sydney) and for about 40 minutes into the bush.

There i found my totem animal - the Tawny Frogmouth Owl. It doesn't look like much here,, but i will be posting more pics of it in a bit. Imagine Fizzgig from The Dark Crystal, with wings. When it opened its mouth the entire top half of its head flipped agape exposing the inside of its head, which was neon green.

These birds show up on the balcony every morning. Beautiful as they are, the Frogmouth is still my best beastie.
Chloe driving through the city.
The buildings are rather tall in the city.

We stop for one of these nearly at every corner.

Audra (red hair) helping some locals find out where the hell they were, and where the hell they needed to go.
Bats! These guys live in the middle of metropolitan Sydney, not any more than 300 yards behind the Opera House.

More bats!

Day 2 - The Storm

OK, so I've already posted about the dust storm, "The Red Menace."


This was the view from my room. It's like looking at a spotlight through a milkshake.


Everything in the city was covered with a layer of dust. The desert shed a layer of skin.

A light dusting.

A pit stop before the movie. Mmmm beer!

No Rest for the Wicked

I didn't sleep on the plane. Chloe got in 9 hours, but she had some help from Tylenol PM. I tried to get some help from the same, but my body refuses to sleep while sitting up.


The family waiting for the train. We left Sunday night, and arrived in OZ Tuesday morning. You can see by the look on my face my body was in utter confusion about why it was still up. But the day is just beginning here.

This is in the wrong chronological order as far as when it was taken, but it's a picture of the train. There you go.


We stopped at Audra's 18th floor apartment just long enough to drop off our bags before we began with the day's mayhem.


On the way to the beach. Somewhere south. My intake was a bit hazy at this point. i did have enough sense to snap a few pictures.

Jesus.

Um... somewhere. The greater metropolitan area is quite clean and inviting. Much like my butt, actually.

This beach looked man-mad, and was at the end of a concrete inlet. It was full of moms and their screaming children.

Las ladies scoping out a good diving point.

A beautiful view from further south.


This is where most of my attention was focused.

This is part of the beautiful cliffwalk, which bordered a historic cemetary to the left, and the Pacific to the right.

Linda found a location where she could discreetly change out of her swimsuit.

It really is beautiful out here.

These are ibises. (Ibii?) They are the rats of down under. "The Garbage Bird" i've heard many times. Audra says she wants to pick one up by it's neck and shake it.


An incredible walk.


Some more of the local wildlife. (I'm catering to the lady readers here).

This is NOT a cell tower. This is what the pine trees look like down here. Geometry. Gee I'm a Tree.

Walk this way...
More to come from day 1, but now it's time to depart for day 3!

The Flight Out

OK, after the post Apocalyptic wake-up call, we're now back to our regularly scheduled programming.

The flight to Sydney out of SF is a late one. 9:45 was the boarding time. Chloe and I had already a full day at this point, and were ready to crash. I found a couple things interesting in the airport.

Chloe loves the honesty printed on Japanese cigarettes.

Gate A4 is down the escalator. I got my first hint of the Oz vibe on the way down from the screaming Chinese kids with an Australian accent.


This piece of "art" is was greeted us. It reminds me of this exercise we did in my first grade class. Everyone gets a smaller square of the greater whole of the picture and recreates them in crayon. They are then all put back together into a huge mish-mash checkerboard version of the original. Ours was better.

International flights know how to treat their patrons. All of this was not only edible, but actually quite yummy. Creamy cilantro lime chicken with greean beans and edamame filled me up, and not so much that i would be forced to take a shit on the plane. Nom nom nom.


All gone.

The view from our seat. This door allowed for some extra legroom.

Very back of the plane. We hung out with the flight attendants.

Huge farking plane.

First Thing's First

We woke up to this.

This is a dust storm. They are not the usual weather system to run through Sydney.

I haven't adjusted these photos.

The news just said that this is the worst dust storm in a major city in the history of recorded weather.


I have more exploits to share thus far, with the flight and our first day adventures... but this Beyond Thunderdome theme for today is remarkable. Audra said, "We couldn't take you guys to the outback, so we had the outback brought to you." Magic.