"The Snake was going for my Face!"

This is my last post before we leave - headed north. Our original purpose was to avoid the August heat til cool weather hit, but now it's cool, so I'm not sure why - or where - just north. Be back in a couple of weeks. Or a month.

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The Snake was going for my Face!

     We stopped at the Tasman Sea. They advertised the “Whitest sand in the world.” Well, it was white, all right. But I had my doubts about their claim. I bottled some up, brought it home, and compared it with the sand at Destin, Florida. Turned our to be a pretty close match. As we walked the trails of a beautiful Rain Forest, we realized we had only four more days. Our four weeks were almost gone, and it only seemed like a few days!

     As we traveled on up to Naroomba, we spotted black Swans and black cockatoos. We found a nice little motel. Barbara was tired, and went on to our room. The nice lady at the office started telling me how much she appreciated me calling her ma'am, then started telling me why. She once had an American cowboy boyfriend, and he called her ma'am all the time. He broke her heart. She said, “I will do anything you want, as long as you call me ma'am.” I fled to our room.

     Early the next day, we stopped at Birdland Animal Park. Hundreds upon hundreds of variously bright colored birds were feeding there, free to come and go. Baby wombats were a big attraction for us.

     A very large snake was on display. After letting it wrap around me, and getting my picture made, a family with two boys walked up. The dad was trying to convince the oldest boy to hold the snake for a photo. The boy had grave doubts, but after his younger brother piped up, “Dad, I will!” the older boy was shamed into it. As the snake wrapped around him, the boy panicked and threw it off, shouting, “He was going for my face!”.Well, the snake handler was not happy about that, and when the younger boy still wanted to do it, he had doubts. Finally, he allowed the younger boy to pick it up, wrap it around himself, and he pranced around and around his embarrassed older brother.

     We moved on to Pebbly Beach, down six miles of gravel road, but well worth it. Dozens of lazy kangaroos lounged by the surf. We ate lunch off the back of our still-pretty red car. Pie shops are big in Australia, and they are inexpensive. In Allalulla that night, we stopped for supper that night at a Pie Shop, and ate beef, cheese, and bacon pies, Then the owner gave us a free curry pie, just to keep us around longer. They loved to hear us talk!

      The next morning, we priced a whale watching cruise, but finally scaled it down to a dolphin cruise, to save money. We saw lots of dolphins, and got a free bonus – three humpback whales.

     Our last night in Australia was upon us. Barbara spent hours clearing our stuff out of the car and packing. Our bags were really bulging now! The next day, we drove into Sydney, somewhat straight to the airport. We checked in at the Ibis Motel. Barb had to dial 36 numbers to do it, but she managed to check us in at a motel in Auckland, New Zealand, for the next night. I could just never have figured that all out. But for her, I would probably still be stranded on some Sheep Station, marking lambs for a living. As I have said before, Barb will just not let any task she starts defeat her.

  The next morning, October 15, we took the shuttle to the airport. We were both determined to go through this airport thing without a panic attack. We're world travelers now, time to act like it. Always, it seems, some little thing happens to us, like losing a passport, or a ticket, and it just sets us off.

     In the air, we circled out around Sydney, both with tears in our eyes. What a beautiful, wonderful place Australia is! We could just live there. We had hoped to travel half of it in 4 weeks, but only saw a small fraction of that. Oh well, just a good reason to come back some day, if our bonus miles would just build up before our time, or my back gives out. And, there's still a lot of this world we have not seen yet. Neither of us have ever been able to figure out why so many rich people just sit at home so much. Lying around in the house all day, every day, is very similar to lying around in your casket all day, but with no TV.

   It took only two hours and forty minutes to fly to Auckland, New Zealand. When we arrived and picked up our baggage, we went to look about rental car possibilities. We were studying the board when we were approached by a well dressed, fast talking man. He explained that he owned rental cars; he had an excess on the other (south) island, and would give us a really good deal if we would fly to Christ Church, pick one up from his brother there, tour with it, and return it to Auckland. Even factoring in the domestic flight cost,  we would still have only one ferry crossing fee, and his price was impressive. His brother would pick us up at Christ Church, put us up in his motel, then send us on our way with a hire car. We agreed, and he quickly (too quickly, it turned out,) booked us a flight for Sunday morning, leaving us a day to see Auckland.

      Auckland was impressive. We toured by bus. The  Sky Tower was fun. As we worked our way up, Barb decided not to go to the top. She was not feeling real well, and standing on the glass floor, and looking down through it, hundreds of feet of empty air to the ground was not appealing to her.

     When I reached the top, a tourist, again a young Japanese, was being buckled into a harness, lifted up by a crane, swung out over the edge. He was then dropped, hundreds of feet, then finally slowed down as he reached street level. I passed on this, our budget did not allow it. Or my fear factor.