You may recall that last year we visited an animal sanctuary. We liked what they do, and for Christmas we decided to sponsor an animal. A duck, to be specific.
We’re now the proud godparents of Patito the duck!
Apparently Patito was found abandoned by her mother, and a kindly soul brought her to the sanctuary. She now lives in an organic garden with her friend Pip.
Isn’t she cute!
Live well Patito. Your new godparents will be down to visit you in the spring 🙂
Yesterday, perhaps foolishly, I decided to go for a walk to Bondi Beach. I say foolishly because even though it was to be cooler, I’m feeling the effects of days of activity and at the point where I’m waking tired 🙂
That’s Bronte beach above. The walk had been oppressive. Where was the cool change? My 10 L of sweat had almost washed away the 5 L of sunblock 🙂
Tamarama beach, nestled between the cliffs, was home to an amusement park in the 19th century. In addition to Elephant rides and giant slides, there was a roller coaster built on the sand and an airship was permanently floated above the water just offshore!
I’m not too proud to admit that when I finally got to Bondi Junction mall (yes, I walked via Bondi beach) I was ruined. It was very hot and very humid and the plentiful hills between the beach and the junction had drained me of all but a tiny spark of life! I needed sustenance quickly…
Are you sick of Oporto photos yet? 🙂
After some much needed recuperation at Adams (during which a light rain started) we headed out for the evenings entertainment: a soccer football game between Sydney FC and Melbourne Heart. We met Adams mates CM and AM and took our seats as the rains became heavier.
It was my first live soccer game. I was pleasantly surprised by how fast paced and genuinely exciting it was.
Sydney pulled out an edge-of-our-seats win with a last minute goal, at which point the crowd went understandably wild. It was a great end to a good game.
But the night was not over! Here’s what we did next:
Adam’s local bowling alley is a real gem! Comfortable shoes, luminous pins, great sound system with cheap food. We were amazed to order $2 hot dogs and have them delivered to our lane by a cute attendant!
And then we discovered the jukebox. Three songs for $2! And they had a diverse range, from Khe San to Gangnam Style 🙂
Adam requested no embarrassing photos or video, but I can reveal that after he’d had a dozen few beers he revealed surprising talent as a dancer. I’d say his style is half John Travolta and half Michael Jackson 🙂
Here are the results:
No idea at all how I got 158 in game one. That’s got to be the best bowling score I’ve ever got or ever will get! As you can see my form was much more down to earth in game two, which was competitive to the last ball 🙂
When we finally got back to Adam’s I was ruined and now, the morning after I’m ruined-er. I suppose I need to take it easy today?
It was an early start yesterday, on the 6:41 am train from Broadmeadow to Sydney.
As with my previous three train trips, I saw only a single Kangaroo on the trip. Once again the glimpse was fleeting and I was unable to photograph it. Here’s an artists impression:
I was in Sydney early, and after dropping my stuff at Adams set out for the city. I had an inkling to hit the shops!
I did the usual places – Kinokuniya, QVB, Pitt Street – before heading to Darling Harbour. There was something there I had to see…
It’s a 3-storey tall inflatable duck art installation, which is floated in Darling Harbour for the Sydney Festival. I’m lovin it!
As I got closer to Darling Harbour I began to see signs advertising dugongs at Sydney Aquarium. I’d never seen a dugong, so decided it was worth a look.
The cost was $38, and the first few displays were decidedly underwhelming. I’d been to this aquarium several times before and feared it may have gone off a bit.
My fears were unjustified! The displays are now themed, and it was just that the first set – Australian river fishes – were just a bit drab. As I wandered through the next I was treated to a kelp forest, a sunken ship, a steampunk themed crab and lobster display and a remarkable ray tank:
And then, the dugongs! Seeing them float around happily almost brought a year to my eye 🙂
They have two, a male and female, who have been there for three years. They are two of the only six dugongs (a south pacific relative of the manatee) in captivity in the world. They eat 50 kg of lettuce each a day!
They are in one of the giant walk-through tanks at the aquarium, which are submerged under the water level of the Harbour.
It’s a very peaceful and special way to see the animals.
There is a mural painted on the walls of the ramp leading down to the bottom of the dugong tank. It details one aspect of man’s history with these beasts:
Sailors jump from a ship pursuing a lovely mermaid…
But mermaids don’t exist and it’s a dugong!
But then later on we discover there is a real mermaid after all 🙂
Fancy a real dugong? Well that would be difficult, but the shop sells the next best thing:
There wasn’t a price tag 🙂
Overall the aquarium was spectacular, and I’m very pleased I visited.
Changing tack a bit, the above is ‘Dark Escape 4D’, a new light gun shooter I played (for $4 a go!) The game is in 3D (you wear glasses) and has a moving seat, an air gun that blasts your face and even a pulse sensor in the gun handle that makes the gun fail if you panic! It *is* a scary game (you sit enclosed in a dark room), but it’s a bit slow for my taste.
I wandered over to The Star casino, where I would boggle at the variety of machines and how geared to Chinese Tourists they have become. $10 of my hard earned dollars went – in equal portions – into the paired games Ice Horse and Fire Horse, mostly because I was attracted by the pretty fantasy horses galloping through the videos 🙂
A bit later I visited an Uggs shop in which no employees seemed to speak English. Do you think Chinese tourists buy a lot of Uggs:
I wasn’t there for the shoes though. A stuffed animal had caught my eye:
Yes it’s real fur, but the price tag scared me away! Will I return?
Two more photos to end this epic post. First, a magazine from 1990 I bought at a comic store:
And lastly, this…
Today I set out early on an odyssey. I planned to walk to Charlestown, have lunch, then find my way home via circuitous means.
As I do every trip, I wanted to walk the Fernleigh Track. I got an early start, and walked the couple of kilometers from here to the start of the track. The temperature had dropped significantly today, but was still about 30 C, and I was quickly very sweaty.
I’m still a bit croaky in the AM from my cold, and discovered that humming seemed to help. This led to singing, out loud, the song Planet Earth as I strolled through Adamstown. Since I wasn’t sure of the words, I had to make them up:
“Look now, look all around,
there’s no sign of life.
What they said and how they sound,
I can’t hear them now…
The track itself was as quiet as I’ve ever seen it, probably because of yesterday. I saw only a couple of cyclists as I headed to Kahibah, and this meant the birds and lizards were quite active.
That cockatoo was holding a sprig of gumnuts in his left foot. He was quite interested in me, dancing and bobbing on his branch as I walked below. A bit later on the track I saw, from a distance, a large lizard (a monitor, I think) walk across the path. He was gone before I got the camera ready, so here is an artists impression:
I left the track at Burwood road. My original intention was to deviate onto a bush walk which would come out near one of our old homes, but the only path I found was overgrown and quickly petered out.
So I walked through the streets of Kahibah. We used to live in this suburb, and there was much nostalgia as I explored the familiar landmarks. At the end of Murrakin Street (where we once lived) I found a better path leading into the woods:
These are the paths we used to walk as kids! It’s now part of ‘The Great North Walk’, but it’s essentially identical to 20 years ago. It was a pleasant breezy walk through the bush, although if you’re bothered by flies you may have been a bit uncomfortable!
I was a bit surprised to see the path continue into ‘the quarry’ (and yes, I’m using specific language in this post that probably only me and Bernard will understand). This was mostly new, and in parts nicely made:
A little bit later, a right turn, a walk through a wide open gate and I was (surprisingly) inside my primary school, Saint Joseph’s Of Charlestown! Here’s a shot for Bernard:
Charlestown Public pool was a place of many firsts. First Pac-Man, first Xevious, first Centipede, first Galaga. It looks much smaller than it did when I was half my height:
Pacific Highway Charlestown held many firsts of its own – Exedexes, Ghosts’n’Goblins, Kung-Fu Master – all in the cramped quarters of two long-gone fish and chip shops. The area is now dominated by the truly massive Charlestown Square mall, and most of the shops around the mall have closed. Once again, so many memories (Snow Brothers, Pang, Street Fighter 2) come from this area.
Having been walking for over two hours I was hungry when I reached the square, and enjoyed this ambrosial lunch:
Not surprised, are you?
What about this then: the pet store was well stocked with ‘Mexican Walking Fish’ of all colours. I found this guy quite charming:
The Square has an arcade now, under the food court. It was very busy, and mostly ticket redemption and driving games. Amusingly it’s still called Timezone, like that arcade of 1989 that was also in the Square and holds so many fond memories such as Black Dragon, Narc and Thunder Force. Today I played only pinball machines: Transformers and AC/DC.
Then it was the 100 bus to Mayfield to check the used book stores. I once caught the same bus to University back in 1990-3, so again it was nostalgic. The bus was mostly empty today, and the trip went quickly. Newcastle University is almost unrecognizable to me now.
If I were to use two words to describe Mayfield they would be ‘age’ and ‘graffiti’. At least the stencils are still impressive:
Good to see Sonic The Hedgehog is anti-fracking, as its called in the US.
The bookstores yielded nothing, so I meandered on, pausing briefly to make a note of an event I’ll sadly miss since I’ll be back in the US:
Before I left Mayfield I also stopped into an arcade game store. Why isn’t there one of these in Albany?
It was mid afternoon now. I’d been out for hours, spending over five of them walking in the sun. I was still over an hour from home when I snapped this shot:
I look miserable but it was, in truth, a great day. I’ve got another epic stroll planned for Friday. Lets hope it’s as successful.
Let’s cut right to the chase:
Yep, that’s me and a wombat. It’s a nine month old female, who was placid and soft and loved to be hugged right under her arms. It was awesomely cute 🙂
Today I visited the above with Sue and her two kids. It’s an animal park about an hour south of Newcastle featuring a good collection of Australian animals.
Going to the shows alone would fill your day. We saw several: venomous snakes, alligator feeding, dingo feeding, croc feeding, Tasmanian devil feeding.
There were many opportunities for animal photos, including snakes, alligators, wombats, koalas and devils. In addition, free roaming animals included emus, geese, ducks and…
Beautiful beasts they are. There were two types there, Eastern Grays and Kangaroo Island Kangaroos. As I said to Sue, how many other animals can you think of with the same word in its name twice?
Inside a reptile house was the above statue. It periodically breathed smoke and spoke what sounded like the language of Mordor. As a child, I would have loved it. As an adult… well I loved it still 🙂
Much fun was had by all; adults and kids alike. Especially the old guy that hugged a wombat 🙂