"Aussie-aussie-aussie-Ohi-Ohi-Ohi"

Happy Australia Day! January 26th is Australia day (much like the 4th of July...except Australia never fought for their independence). The date commemorates the first fleet of ships to arrive in Sydney cove. Anyway there are certain thing you must do to celebrate Aussie day properly they are: (1) Go to the beach (2)Decorate Aussie (face paint, tattoo's, bikini's towels, car flags etc.... (3) play cricket--preferably on the beach (4) BBQ (5) Eat pavlova (6) watch Fireworks!

We only did #'s 2,4,5 & 6 this year but it was too hot to do anything more! Also I managed to not take any pix, but I have to say the fireworks over Olympic park were fantastic and I will be sure to stay up for the fireworks again!

A few tid-bits of information about Australia. First, The crest (pix above) is symbolic because the Emu and the Kangaroo cannot walk backwards, only forwards. The crest is on the $1 coin (the queen of England is on one side of all the money) and also used on government buildings and patriotic paraphernalia. I have really grown to love both the animals as they are pretty tame at most petting zoos and are hardly ever locked up. Seeing that they can't walk backwards and children are usually chasing them into corners, it is pretty amazing that these animals can always get away just by changing their direction (I guess we don't really need to be able to walk backwards)! Happy Australia Day!

Close calls!

So these past two days I have been reminded about all the "dangerous" things that live in Australia. I was hyper-sensitive two and a half years ago when we first moved here but now I am pretty passive about most things. This is because I have learned to identify what is dangerous and while most things look creepy they are harmless. Secondly, I have learned to put levels of danger in perspective. For instance, in the USA I was scared of great white sharks. Now, I am afraid of salt water crocks (they eat the great whites) and when I scuba dive and see sharks they are always sleeping. Also, people survive shark attacks ALL THE TIME...but they never survive crock attacks! So there you have it "perspective!"

Anyway, back to my dangerous things list. Australian Redback spiders and Australian Funnel-web spiders are the most venomous spiders in Australia (which puts them on a top 10 list for most poisonous in the world--#4 for the funnel-web). They will kill you in a matter of hours without anti-venom....which is funny b/c hardly anyone ever dies from a bite as anti-venom is widely available in Australia. Be prepared right?

So I noticed a little baby spider building a web next to our door buzzer (the one Thomas always wants to push even though we are the ones not home). Anyway, I noticed the web was funnel shaped but a lot of spiders build those webs right? Anyway, I didn't bother with the little guy and two months later it was a monster spider--I was only able to correctly identify it once it was the size of a baby mouse...Funnel-web! I showed it to an Aussie friend who came over just to check my suspicions and he said, wow--that is a Funnel-web and then he smashed it with a phone book! GO WAYNE. Good thing he didn't miss because Funnel-webs jump AND they stay alive under water with an air sack (so you can step on them in the swimming pools etc...) they just don't die (unless you smash it with a phone book apparently). Here is the wiki site: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_funnel-web_spider

So that was yesterday, then TODAY Thomas and I are swimming at Clovelly beach (over by Coogee Beach)

and we are wading knee deep in the ocean and I see a cute little bluebottle jelly fish (also known as the Portuguese man-o-war jelly). I grabbed Thomas's sand shovel and scooped it up and then started scouting for more while we got out of the water. Usually the rule of thumb is the longer the tentacles the more painful the sting. So a little jelly fish with really long tentacles will hurt more than those huge fat stubby jelly fish.
Tentacle length aside, bluebottle jellies, have a reputation of being one of the more painful stings with 2-3 days of continuous pain! here is the link and a nice picture to go with it, yes those are legs of someone who was stung by a blue bottle (clearly bigger though than the one we caught! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portuguese_Man_o'_War Nothing like close calls!!

Day Trips- Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park 1

The other day we made a day trip up to Ku-ring-gai Chase national park. Again it was about 45minutes north of us and something we have been meaning to see for a while. This park is famous for Aborigine cave paintings and engravings. We did a few hikes and then we explored most of the park via boat, which we rented for 2 hours. Here are some pictures of what we saw!

The marina

Our little rental boat

Olivia and her barbie sharing a life jacket

Mary helping daddy steer the boat

Man-o-war jelly fish...everywhere

Olivia hiding from the wind

Our cute boat...we called her the love boat!

Miss Mary

Thomas looking for crocs and talking non-stop about all the ones he saw (BTW there are no crocs in New South Wales, so don't worry - we were safe!)

participating in the "swim once around the boat club" with no cossie (swim siut)

Stan and thomas starting the once around the boat club....

Day Trips- Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park 2

After boating the Cowan creek we did some scenic look out points and a few hikes.

On our way to see Aboriginal rock engravings

I think this is a man traced

and a fish

Walking to a new look out point

The trail to the aboriginal red hand cave paintings...we never finished the hike due to the large amount of spiders everywhere.

Day Trips- Reptile Park

On the way to The Entrance we stopped by reptile park. I was impressed with the way the park was set up. It really felt like you were walking through the jungle to see some animals and everything was all natural.

Day Trips-The Entrance

We have ventured on another day trip with the family (we are shooting for every other day). This time we went to The Entrance (about 45 minutes north). The Entrance is located in the central coast and is known as the pelican capitol of the world. The name derives from the description. There is a small "entrance" where boats can come in from the ocean to trade goods etc... Below are some pictures of us stopping off at Tuggerah lake. There were docs everywhere with no none around and so we got some pictures. It was quite cloudy but very serene.

After stopping off at the lake we went to the actual entrance where the ocean meets the land and had pizza on the beach.

Stan used to drive up to Newcastle while consulting for a project and would pass through here. He always wanted to stop by so we finally got the opportunity!