Today my goals were the following:
1) Get back to Sydney
2) Spend at least one day without sunblock on
I accomplished both.
After arrival I went to Westfield Bondi Junction looking for a Thermos for mum and dad. I didn’t find one, but I did find this guy:
I wonder how KLS would have felt had I bought him and brought him home with me?
Speaking of KLS, while in Australia BS sent me some ABC store advermagazines from Hawaii. In one, I found this ad:
I laughed and laughed!
(We saw Hirokawa’s show when we were in Honolulu. It was great, but he wasn’t melding with steel back then. Clearly we’ll have to go back next time we’re in Hawaii…)
Tomorrow is an epic day of shopping. Adam tells me it will involve busses, a taxi and even light rail to get to all the locations worth seeing. Should be good 🙂
Finally I walked the entire Fernleigh track from Adamstown to Jewells! It was long and hot but I managed to finish the ~20 km trip (including from my parents place to the start of the track) in a little over 3 hours.
A couple of notables I saw on the trip:
This walk, which diverts from the track just beyond Burwood Road near Kahibah, leads all the way to Sydney! Although I love walking, I’m not one for multi-day hikes. That said, I’d love to walk to Sydney from Newcastle!
If you’re looking for spiders, walk Fernleigh. I must have seen about eight-hundred zillion this morning and this guy is a nice example. He’s a Saint Andrew’s Cross spider, and measured about 6 cm in length. I saw some spectacularly big webs this morning as well, spanning the entire width of the path (ie. meters). I can only imagine the size of the orb weavers who created them (in one night!)
This was an ironic find. Many, many years ago I was walking (with a few friends of mine) on the old rail line that has now been turned into the Fernleigh Track. We came across a tiny old shack that contained a single chair and a wooden box. In the box was a collection of very old – but well preserved – magazines (I can remember some Playboys, Family Circles and some train magazines) and some unopened – and also very old – tinned vegetables. It was a bit creepy because we wondered who put it there and why, and also how long it had been there, presumably forgotten. So we just put it all back and left.
Cut forward ~20 years and imagine my surprise when I found the shack again on the track about five minutes north of Whitebridge! As you can see it was very overgrown, so I didn’t explore. But it certainly brought back memories of that strange find many years ago.
Dad was to meet me in Redhead for the final leg of the walk to Jewells. I got there early though so strolled down to the beach. It was very, VERY hot (easily over 30, with no breeze) and I couldn’t believe the amount of people out sunbathing. It was all I could do to stand out in the sun just to take a few photos.
Also near Redhead I found this on the track:
Oh the memories! That’s a used firework, probably brought home illegally by someone who holidayed in another state. I could (and one day, will) do an entire entry on the fun Bernard and I had with fireworks in our youths. Before they were banned in our state 🙂
I had seen and heard countless birds along the way, including kookaburra, cockatoos, whip-birds and bellbirds (common between Whitebridge and Redhead) but down in the north Belmont wetlands dad and I were treated to a fine performance of bellbird song:
After we finished the track we bussed to Charlestown for some lunch and quick shopping. Both of us were pretty tired by now, so I debated the madness of getting off the bus home on Beaumont Street for one last look at the used bookstores. How fortuitous I did though, for I was able to get two more gamebooks I didn’t have, that were – the attendant told me – just sold to the store yesterday!
Two last shots:
Pretty mannequins! Why do I always take photos of mannequins? In this case I like how they are all different…
Yesterday I bought my parents Scrabble. The new version includes an incredibly complete rulebook, that contains advanced rules (“Don’t think about using the X unless you can make at least 30 points…”) and a dictionary of all legal 2-letter words. Fun stuff, but this next shot shows what can happen to a game when such a dictionary is available:
Tomorrow I shall bid my parents goodbye and take an early train to Sydney. I’ll have 2.5 days left to amuse myself. Hopefully I shall make them productive!
Sue and I started our day with a quick jaunt up Mount Sugarloaf, one of the tallest mountains near Lake Macquarie, and sight of many TV transmission antennae.
The walk to the lookout is much shorter than I remember as a kid, but still somewhat strenuous especially in the heat. There wasn’t anyone there when we arrived, or for some time after, so we had the butterfly and lizard inhabitated lookout for ourselves.
That second shot is of course no butterfly. It is instead a horse fly, and they can give a nasty bite so avoid them if you see them. They are hard to miss as well, being about an inch long. Yucky things, they are 🙂
After Sugarloaf the real adventure began. Today we went to Hunter Valley Zoo.
I can hear my brother asking right now “What?”. And the answer is there is a very small ‘zoo’ up in the vineyards calling itself Hunter Valley Zoo. Some may say the admission price of A$16 is a rip off. But to those people I say the following: “At how many other places can one do this…”
That’s a (super cute) Wallaby. Here’s some video of one of his friends:
And some of his distant cousins:
I was in heaven at this point. For some reason ever since I arrived in Australia this time I wanted to touch a kangaroo!
But guess what: it didn’t stop at Kangaroos!
Yes sir! Rosella feeding. The one on my hand was the parent, and kept nipping at my fingers when I tried to pat the baby. They were both very friendly though, and so close I could really admire their beautiful plumage:
Before you think the zoo was all about Kangaroos and Rosellas, I give you… Koala petting!
What Twilight Zone had we stepped into that we found a nearly empty zoo that let us just wander around touching the animals? Cute Australian animals too!
But but but but… amidst all this splendid fauna of terra australis, who ever would have thought the childrens petting farm could have been the best attraction? Don’t believe me? Then watch this video:
Until this day I honestly had no idea how much fun it was to hold a goat 🙂
Yes, I just kept picking them up 🙂
And so on, and so on. Here’s a bunch of other random shots from Hunter Valley Zoo:
And there was plenty more, including Alligators (which we got to touch), Pademelons, Thick-Knees, Ostriches, Emu, several types of Deer, an Ibex, Tasmanian Devils, many types of Monkey (!) and many, many, MANY birds! The zoo may be small, but it has heart and variety and given how close we got to many of the animals was just a great place to visit.
Right at the entrance, just sitting on a branch out in the open was this guy, a tawny frogmouth.
He’s beautifully creepy isn’t he. When I put the camera close to take the photo he leaned forward, almost as if begging me to touch him. Unlike most of the other animals today I declined 🙂
Emi’s been bored by the rest of the blog so far, so here’s a few bits and pieces specifically dedicated to her.
First Emi, lets address the fact that you are a pet. In Australia there are pets like you (cats) and pets like your friend Terry (hounds). But there are also pets like this:
That’s called an axolotl, and in some countries it is eaten as a delicacy. Were they available in America Emi, I’d buy you one (as a pet!)
It’s winter now Em, so the view out the French door may not be as riveting as summer, but I’m sure you remember the birds you love to watch. I bet you’ve never seen one of these:
It’s called a Willy Wagtail. It hops around like you do Emi, unpredictable and (seemingly) crazed. I can only imagine how your eyes would bulge were you to see a few of them in out backyard.
Everyone knows that you’ll eat anything you can fit in your mouth Emi, but I wonder how you’d deal with Australia’s best candy. Yes, yes I know I went on and on about Cherry Ripes and Violet Crumbles. But I’ve had an epiphany this trip, and it’s become more than obvious that the greenly crystallized loveliness that is the Peppermint Crisp is the new pinnacle of sugary taste. I promise I shall bring one back for you and let you taste it 🙂
And lastly Emi, one of the things in the above shot is almost as big as Florence (you know her!), and costs over A$600. I know you’d love to sit next to it on your chair but were I ever crazy enough to purchase it I’d probably have to buy it a ticket on the plane as well!
So there you go Toad, a few shots just for you. Maybe you could leave a comment and let me know if this post was a bit more to your liking 🙂
