We arrived in Sydney after a short flight from Alice Springs. Of course it was raining when we landed, but now the winds have arrived also. It appears we brought the Seattle weather with us or stole it from Seattle leaving you with sunshine up there. The winds here have been 80 to 90 Kms per hour, this is very unusual for here.  People we meet say they have never seen it like this. On top of that we are having  up to 420 mm of rain in 24 hours. That's between eight and 16 inches of rain depending on where you are. We find it is very much like Gearhart in a strong storm. Trees are down everywhere.
 Right now Sydney is having a wonderful celebration called vivid. They project wonderful images and bright colored lights on all the tall buildings, especially the opera house. We find that there are installations of light on every corner or down every street. There are things like waterfalls of pop bottles with the lightsshining in them, or flags with lights shining on the, that move with the wind. Too many innovative ideas to explain them all. Unfortunately the wind has  reeked havoc on everything. While this is a celebration that continues for a month, and is supposed to go on for another two weeks, many of the exhibits have been destroyed by the strong winds. People here have never seen anything like this. They are too far south for cyclones and rarely have this type of wind coming from the east. They are certainly getting used to the weather now though . We have been out and about the whole time because it is not too different for us. The streets, however, our deserted and there is very little traffic because of the Highwinds and heavy rain. We did go on a tour of the opera house last night and it was spectacular. What an incredible setting. There are six venues within the facility and we got to visit three of them. On the outside there are these beautiful lights creating motion pictures on the tops of the sales of the Opera House - really spectacular. We were supposed to go on a city tour yesterday that would take us up into the mountains and along the coastline, however they failed to pick us up. So instead we went this morning. (We were supposed to be kayaking Sydney Harbour today, but that got canceled yesterday.) The tour this morning was wonderful but the waves of bondi beach were incredibly high so there was no swimming; there were a few surfers.  It is now dark out. Mark is on a nighttime climb up the Sydney Harbour Bridge. There is no FRIGGING way that you would catch me up there in these highs winds in the dark on the narrow track on slippery stairs.  Obviously I am aging less Gracefully than Mark, but far more wisely!   Cognitive function seems to be better for me than him. Tomorrow we head off to Q station, which is the quarantine station for Sydney and all of Australia. This is where all immigrants used to have to arrive and be sorted for disease. Kind of like Ellis Island in New York City.

We have two nights there before catching a flight home. We are still looking for day number 16 of May and hope to find it sometime soon.

Have a little bit more information about the woman who was killed by the crocodile. It was not at our hotel, but was instead At the Thornton beach near Daintree, the beach where we saw the black tipped shark and the driver/guide told us never to swim there. She and her friend had gone swimming at 10 o'clock at night. Very very bad decision.
We got up early the last morning of our last day in Palm Cove and caught a ride to the airport in Cairns. From there we flew to Alice Springs. I must say that almost everyplace we have been on this trip it has been raining. We have not had great heat or any problems except for spectacular humidity.
The next morning in Alice Springs, Troy, our Palestinian heritage man from Australia,  picked us up for the long drive to Ayers rock. First we drove for two hours until we got to the camel farm. It was too rainy to ride camels. Then we drove for another two hours until we got to the aboriginal art exhibit. Too expensive to consider.  Finally we drove another hour or so until we got to the campground at Ayres rock. We were there in time to watch a spectacular sunset while sipping champagne.  As the sun went below the clouds it got dark. Then it got bright orange again as it dropped below the clouds before it finally settled under the horizon.  Prior to the sunset we spent some time hiking around to different parts of the rock. The next morning we got up early to catch sunrise at Kata Tyuta.  Though smaller than Uluru (Ayers Rock), these 36 domes trail off into the desert in a spectacular line that may be even more impressive.  Mark hiked up and around and down the backside of the first few domes. I had stopped in the middle and then went back down,  and then back up to the middle, and then back down again. I did not want to risk the slippery slope on the backside.
  We spent two nights camping, somewhat. We actually had tents with beds and mattresses, pillows and sheets. We could have slept in a swag outside. But it looked like it was going to rain so we opted out of that. A swag is a big canvas bag which includes a blowup mattress, or foam mattress, sleeping bag, pillow and a lot of warm blankets all encased in mostly waterproof canvas.  I would've like to try that but in the middle of each night we had torrential downpours.    The Stars were amazing; no light pollution here!!
The last day we went to Kings Canyon, a lovely small eroded Valley. You can climb up to the top and walk around the rim but it's quite a steep climb in and has steep drop back down. Instead of making that climb I chose to walk up the middle of the canyon, much of it in a stream up to my knees. It was supposed to be dry, but then again, there was all that rain

Mark took the highroad I took the low road. Both of us saw beautiful sites. The rain cause us to have to retrace our drive back toward Uluru and Alice springs. We had meant to take a short cut on a long dry road through the desert, but the constant rain had caused the Palmer river to flood and we could not get across it.  That road was closed.  Even so, many places in the regular road had low spots which were flooded. We learned how to speed into the low spots after checking the meter depth sign and continue to accelerate all the way out so the tailpipe did not suck in the water and kill the engine. We got back to Alice Springs in another downpour and had a lovely dinner before crashing in bed. We got picked up about noon and took our next flight into Sydney. More on that tomorrow.

45th anniversary...crocs and all

FISH!!!!

So we have been somewhat out of touch for the past week. Started out in the Coral Princess with a lovely cabin and only 17 of us passengers.  Almost as many crew as tourists.  A morning visit to Cooktown and then off to Lizard Island to visit the giant clam beds.  Wow!!!  Giant is right.  I think the largest was 5 feet across.  Mark and I both got to do a preliminary scuba dive.  Once I admitted to asthma, though, not to mention the heart issues, they never let me get deeper than a meter.
Over the next three days, we snorkeled and dove at 4 more fantastic spots.  Ribbon reef no. 3, Ribbon reef no. 9, Escape reef, and more on Lizard Island.  It was a difficult trip...get up early, eat, snorkel, eat, snorkel, drink, eat, sleep.  Oh my.  So much for losing weight while I travel!  There were so many fish, we didn't have to swim far or fast.
Finally, though, the fish were awesome.  Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for the coral.  It is terribly stressed,  every bed we were at showed major signs of bleaching.  Though beautiful, all those shiny whites piles of delicate calcium are not the thing we want to see.  In addition, many of the beautiful blues and Reds were sadly showing a sickly mushy brown and yellow color.  On the way to bleaching.  They had little rain in the "wet" so the sea temperature was too high for the past six months.  They are hoping that the winter "dry" will be cool enough to let the coral recover.
After the boat trip, we stayed in Palm Cove for a few nights.  We swam within the jelly nets and took long walks through the mangroves, but only in daytime as we were warned to avoid them at night...dangerous people or crocs....Took a trip through the Daintree and visited Cape Tribulation where Capt. Cook visited in the 1700s.  Black tip sharks swam in the shallows of the ocean and crocodiles lazed in the shallows of the streams. Everyone told us to stay clear of the streams and do not swim in the ocean there.  In addition to the crocs, there were swarms of little deadly jellyfish so everyone only swims within the netted areas at this time of year.  We swam in a safe stream in the Daintree - clear and too fast moving for the crocs - and enjoyed Billy Tea and tucker before heading back to the hotel.  This morning, we hear that a 40 year old woman got et by the crocs in front of our hotel....OMG!  EVERYTHING inAustralia seems dangerous.  Oh well.  Having a good time.  Off to camp and hike in the Outback at 5a.m. tomorrow morning.  More when we get back

Flying foxes... Aargh, No!!!

So we got to the WhitsSundays on a lovely drizzly afternoon and proceeded to walk all around the marina and the resort complex.   We signed up for a variety of kayak or snorkel trips. Unfortunately, all these trips except one were foiled by the wind. We didn't get to go out on kayaks but did make it to Whitehaven beach and chalkies beach for snorkeling and swimming. Whitehaven beach has this perfect all silica sand, white as can be, and the texture of cornstarch. After walking for maybe 15 minutes, all of the calluses are sanded off my feet.    Because the weather was poor, the coral reef wasn't brightly colored. There were fish, but not many. The variety of coral was better than we have seen in the past years. Sadly much of it has been broken by people walking on it and there are some  signs of bleaching and coral death. They surprised me in that there seems to be little protection built in for the coral reef. They do not sell reef safe sunscreens,  they do not require floating vests while snorkeling above the reef, and they do not seem to regulate what people do the reef. You could break off pieces and take it with you or walk on it, damaging it. The ocean  is about 82° quite warm. I have no trouble swimming for a long periods of time; Mark however still gets a bit cold after a while.   Fortunately, the dangerous jellyfish are not in the water at this time of year.  We are now in Cairns and will be heading out on a boat for four days .   While in the Whitsundays and here we have been surprised by the large birds flying each sunset. Last night we got a much closer look: flying foxes,? Heck no, they are giant flying BATS!!!! Upon closer examination it was clear their wings worked differently than any bird we've ever seen. They are not vampires, but fruit eating thank goodness.

Off to rent bikes for the morning and tour the Esplanade of Cairns. More later.

Language barriers

All we wanted was a cocktail while we watched the glorious sunset.  We don't know what went wrong but this guy showed up and wouldn't leave.  Wild yellow hair, rude obnoxious behavior, wouldn't shut up and was really loud.  Thought we left this behind!? Never did get that cocktail.  Guess we haven't yet figured out the language down here.

Melbourne afternoon and evening the 18th

We may never again be able to play "go fish" again with a straight face.  After a lovely day walking through the Botanical Gardens, and then resting in the room to recover from the five or six mile walk, we headed out to dinner on an antique tram through the neighborhoods of  Melbourne. We were joined on the tram by two young (brainless) Canadian women and twenty Chinese men with little English.  Hence, we got extra service from Rowan and Tim, the two marvelous waiters.  A wonderful dinner with bubbly, wines, and more bubbly ensued.  Followed by port and Baileys Creme over ice. Tim was a great guy and we spoke of Seattle, his upcoming trips to SF and Vancouver. He seemed quite taken with us, more so with Mark.  After a thoroughly enjoyable evening - the Canadians flirting with the Chinese and Tim with Mark, we had way too much to drink.  As our children know all too well, Mark can get carried away with his comments in this situation.  At the end of the  evening, the waiters passed out postcards of Melbourne.  Mark fanned out the postcards as if in serious contemplation and asked Tim :  "Do you have any Queens."  Tim answered readily, "I am one.  What would you do with me if you got me."  The Canadians screamed "Go fish!" And Mark melted into the corner of his seat.  Tim loved it all and we could all hardly get off the tram we were laughing so hard.  The Chinese laughed along, but had no clue what was going on.  They obviously thought the Canadians were entranced  by them.  They kept flashing "V" for victory signs and trading pictures.  Now it is time for us to "go fish" for real.  We are up at 4 tomorrow morning to catch the plane to the Whitsunday Islands.

Melbourne morning...

Having woken up way too early, we descended to the lovely breakfast bar.  Our table overlooks the Yarra River in downtown Melbourne.  As the sun comes up, about 6:45, the town slowly comes alive. Blue lights shine off the footbridge as the commuter trains arrive and we relax into our lovely tea and coffee.  Melbourne claims to be the coffee capital of the world.  Vienna and Seattle, take notice!!  This is a lovely town.  I have already developed shin splints from walking many miles,  aargh.  Sustained by a variety of fresh fruits, omelet and pastries, we are off to swim and then walk some more!

Well damn! We got here early this morning after traveling for more than 30 hours. And look what we found! We found the 17th !  It wasn't lost afterall! Sadly, though, this means we actually lost the 16th instead ... so sad. We have spent today recovering from the long flight by eating our way through speciality doughnuts  (creme brulee stuffing with caramel topping, chocolate cake with candied hazlenuts), wonderful mussels (in a cream, coconut, tomato and chili broth), and the speciality coffees of Melbourne.  Mark is now swimming at the pool before working out and I will be getting a massage in a short time to loosen up my stiff muscles - perhaps I will find the 16th after that massage. I now at least we will find ascrumptious dinner.  Melbourne is very similar to SF, PDX and Seattle with numerous restaurants, cosmopolitan speakers and bicyclists and activities everywhere.  Spent some time at the huge city market.  We do always love those....We will be spending the day at the botanical gardens tomorrow and then will be flying on to the Whitsunday Islands.  I expect we will find a fish or two there, perhaps the 16th also.

Ozzie Fish !!!

Still in search of fish, fish, and more fish, we are about to head off to the lower ... what?!  Australia is lower, or something!  We leave May 15, fly about 20 hours and arrive May 18.  Wait a minute!  What happened?  We lost a day!  Where did 17 go???  Damn!  I had plans for that day!  Can we handle a trip this long?  Kayaking on the reef for 4-6 days, camping in the whoop-whoop?  Sydney Harbor, Melbourne?  Whitsunday Islands?  No worries, she'll be apples!  Watch this space if you're bored and in need of something to put you to sleep!