G’day, mates!

We arrived on October 30 and have done so much that it’s hard to keep up with the blog.  I’ll tackle the first couple of weeks anyway, so you can have a taste of “Oz.”  Australians shorten most words and often add an “ie” sound to the end.  Australians are “Aussies”, Doug has often been called “Dougie”, breakfast is “brekkie”….  I find it makes everything sound a lot more fun and endearing!

We rented a nice little apartment on Narrabeen Beach, a bit north of Sydney, ideally located near our local Norris relatives.  It was a lovely place to settle while we visited family, and shopped for a vehicle to use during our four months in Australia.  Doug scored a 2006 Toyata LandCruiser Prado with bull bars (protection from kangaroo collisions), a truck snorkel (so we don’t stall out when driving through water), and a roof top camper.  We’d shipped some camping gear from home just before leaving, so only needed to buy a few additional pieces to completely kit ourselves out for comfortable camping.

Even though we’d only met Ariel and Don once, nearly 5 year ago, we’d kept in touch via social media with Ariel.  We all had that instant affinity that comes with “you’re family!”, I loved hearing the Norris twang in Don’s speech (those of you familiar with the Norris clan will know exactly what I am talking about!).  We were very psyched to see them and visit some of their local stomping grounds (so much so that we returned later in the month to share a Thanksgiving dinner with them).

After leaving Narrabeen we spent a few nights in Manly–another beach town just north of Sydney, and a quick ferry ride to the famous Opera House.  Doug was reminiscing about his time here 30 years ago when he and his brother spontaneously joined friend John Gryska on the tall ship Soren Larsen, and traveled for 9 months throughout Australia’s harbors for the 200th anniversary reenactment of the First Fleet.  No sailing for the Strouts this time, though we did enjoy our trips on the ferry.

With our LandCruiser packed to the hilt, we headed northwest for our initial bush camping experience in Dharug National Park.  Here we saw our first goanna lizard (or as I like to call it, the Go-Anna! lizard), and heard our first bellbirds.

The next day, onward north to Port Macquarie to visit friends Peter Coe and Annie Kiehn.  We met them last year when we happened to stay at the same lodge in Zanzibar, Africa, where we celebrated Doug’s parents’ big anniversary/birthdays.  When we told Annie and Peter we were coming to Oz, they said “Come visit!”  So we did, and had a great time with them in their lovely home with their two long haired dachshunds.  We enjoyed Port Macquarie’s Shelley Beach, visited the koala hospital, ogled a large fruit bat colony, and went to a brilliant concert at a spectacular house nearby, where two performers from The Beez–a german woman rocking an accordion and an Aussie man with his electric guitar–entertained some 30 fun guests. https://www.thebeez.de  It turned out to be an excellent, very entertaining show about the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Most of the koalas in the hospital are recovering from being hit by a car or are blind from the venereal disease chlamydia, which they spread readily.  There are many more koalas being fostered in people’s homes, often due to an infant losing its parent to an auto accident.  We regularly see road signs warning drivers of koala habitats, though have yet to see a koala in the wild.  This is partly due to their being the same color as the eucalyptus trees they inhabit, and partly due to their inactivity; koalas get very little nutrition from the 60 varieties of eucalyptus they eat (of the 700 species of Eucalypt available to them) and therefore have to sleep about 18 hours a day.

It was hard to leave Peter and Annie’s incredible hospitality, but we were well equipped with maps marked with their recommended places to visit on our travels, including our next stop at Yuraygir National Park.  This park covers the largest stretch (65 km/40 mi) of undeveloped coastline in New South Wales, Australia.  We arrived after dark and camped in a beautiful eucalyptus forest, though a ranger came by the next morning and recommended we check out nearby Pebbly Beach Campground, which could only be accessed at low tide.  As we excitedly and nervously drove over dunes and beaches with various densities of sand, and then through a tidal estuary, we realized we’d made a wise choice buying a 4-wheel-drive.  For the next four nights we camped 100 meters from the beach, with the perpetual sound of surf, and the frequent sound of pied currawongs, ravens, and sulfur crested cockatoos (which are really loud and squawky).  It was a spectacular campsite facing the beach, situated near amazing tide pools, a few nice walks, and a refreshing tidal river.  We snorkeled one day and saw some stingrays.  Helen met up with some sea turtles and in her excitement got separated from us (you can read her account of that at hellastrout.com).  We also saw several pods of dolphins swimming and leaping right in the surf close to shore.  It was a magical place–a perfect spot for Doug to spend his 53rd birthday.  Our only mishap was draining our two batteries, but we were helped out by a great next door neighbor who had a generator.  He and his son wouldn’t take any money or beer, but just told us to tell others that “blokes from Queensland are really nice.”  🙂

 

From there, we headed north to Byron Bay, the eastern most point of Australia.  Aside from the gorgeous lighthouse, Byron Bay is nothing like the eastern most point of the United States–Lubec, Maine, where some of my family live.  While Lubec is a very sleepy and remote, small ocean community that picks up with tourism and a music camp in the summer, Byron Bay is a surfer/hippie/healthy/trendy endless summer kind of place.  We enjoyed a few days here stocking up on healthy food, getting Ella’s nose pierced, soaking in beautiful nature, and solving our car battery needs (a new solar panel charger!).

Next stop, west to Bald Rock National Park, beautiful adventures, lovely new friends, and cool creatures!