The good news is that my luggage decided that it wanted to vacation with me in Australia after all. It arrived in Newcastle on the evening of the 6th. Not long enough for me to start worrying about what I was going to do for new underwear (I packed some extras in my carry-on) but long enough for me to start figuring out the cost of replacing everything that I had packed... it wasn't a pretty number but thankfully it is a moot point.
So Newcastle is a spectacular place. I'm sure Australians would try to tell me that it is a dingy harbour town but I would have to disagree. The area around here is pretty spectacular. Once we get some pictures on Dolan's computer I'll try posting some to the blog. In the meantime I'll just tell you the places we've been.
On the 6th we went to the Blackbutt Reserve to see some local animals; koalas, wombats, all sorts of 'roos and wallabies emus and a variety of other things. I tried to scare a Kookaberra (I have no clue how to spell it) into flight so Mark could take a picture of it but it just stared me down... it was quite intimidating for a creature that's about as big as a size 14 shoe. And did I mention that Koalas are really cute. I'm still trying to figure out how I can smuggle one back to Canada.
Yeserday we went up to the Port Stephens area. We went for a walk in the dunes and. It is pretty much a 1 km wide by 50 km long stretch of the Sahara along the coast that goes from Newcastle north. It's more like a coastal desert than 'dunes'. It was quite spectacular.
Today we are going up into the Hunter Valley to go try some wines. Smart money says Shaggy gets drunk, then intimidates Dolan into trying to keep up but both of them lose to Courtney who will drink more than them but still be sober by the end of it. As the driver I shouldn't drink but I'm debating doing so because I figure it might make driving on the wrong side of the road feel more natural.
Since I got on the topic of driving I feel like I should mention something about it. It's just weird driving on the wrong... sorry, opposite side of the road. It's getting more comfortable but it just seems so wrong. It might be better if I had a cool can't-get-it-in-North-America car like the Ford Falcon. The easiest way to describe them is that they look like a modern El Camino.
We came down here for an ultimate tournament and that does remain our focus throughout all of this. We have been very good about working out everyday in order to be at our peak come game time.
More later.
DF
Tuesday, November 07, 2006
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6 comments:
Bring on the pics!
Good luck for the BIG event Daniel from an Aussie admirer. Noni G
Indeed... pictures would make the vicarious living that much easier. Thanks for the updates Dan. willis
I won't be able to post pics until we get settled in Perth. I'm going to download some pics from the digi-cam onto the computer and share the good ones with you.
One picks up a truly dizzying array of facts at climate change meetings: Apparently, Newcastle is the largest coal exporting port in the world. Also, managed to reconfirm that cleats are more comfortable on a saturday than a suit and tie. Enjoy the festivities lads!
willis
The first thing that our hosts mentioned about Newcastle was that it is the largest coal exporting harbour in the World. That explained the 20+ enormous freighters you could see sitting in the waters just off the coast, waiting to come load up. The coal piles at the harbour looked big enough to ski off of.
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