We are currently whiling away a few hours of layover time. The airport is kind enough to have free wireless internet. So, we'll update you on our last few days.

On the 18th, we flew to Adelaide from Cairns. Wandered the city a bit and checked out their main shopping street, Rundle. Seemed to have a lot of US brands, even a Target and a Hungry Jack's (this is the Australian version of Burger King, we found the wikipedia's entry for Hungry Jack's entertaining).

The next day we walked through their Botanic Gardens (too early in spring for most of the flowers to be blooming) and more of the downtown area. We also went to the South Australian museum which had a lot of natural history displays. There was a video of a "Shark Caller" on an island nation who went out in a small canoe, called a shark to his boat, got the shark to swim into a lasso (using a fish on a stick) then fought the shark into his boat. They had an example shark rattle on display, but we did not get a good picture. The light was better on the display of aboriginal shields.

We also got stuck in the rain for a bit. Different weather than up north.

You'll notice we don't have a lot of pics from the city. It was nice, just not the best for pics. Matt did find this cool fountain though and had some fun with the reflections.

The next morning we went to the Central Market which claims to be "the largest produce market in the southern hemisphere." Which sounds impressive until you think about what it's competing with. It was nice, but suffered a bit for us from the buildup. :) And it was the wrong season to find mangosteens for Matt. Here's a pic of Lisa looking at the map, trying to find more to the market.

That afternoon we went for a tour of Haigh's chocolates (famous in Adelaide like See's is in the Bay Area). We learned that they do a lot more work by hand than we expected! We also bought some to have at intermission for a showing of Into the Woods at a local theatre that we had decided to buy tickets for the day before. Lisa looks a bit grumpy because the chocolates ended up melting a bit and the play was only so-so and it was the end of a long day (we didn't trouble you with a description of all our transportation difficulties). :)

*******************************************************************

On the 21st, we flew over to Kangaroo Island (so-named because there had been no aboriginal presence on the island for thousands of years, so when explorers came to it the kangaroos had no fear of them and actually waited curiously on the beach as they landed). Now its main business is tourism since it has a good collection of Australian wildlife in a small area.

Our first stop was at Seal Bay where you can see Australian Fur Seals (actually sea lions). There were a couple of cute cubs playing around and a few males trying to defend their territory. And just a whole bunch of sea lions lazing around.

Then our tour took us to Vivonne Bay for a lovely walk on the beach and lunch. The water there is like northern California, very cold, so no swimming. The shallow water was a beautiful shade of turquoise.

After lunch we walked around a bit more and explored a local jetty.

And Matt needed a funny picture with a good, rusty sign. :)

Then we were off to "Little Sahara" which is a bunch of dunes on the island, but about 5 miles inland...

We know, we've been in Australia for a few weeks and we have yet to show you pictures of kangaroos (wild ones anyhow) or koalas! Well, here our the 'roos. They're kind of like deer on the island. All over and eating people's gardens. :) And pretty tame because they haven't been exposed to hunting. We were walking and came upon a bachelor group of males and then later a solitary female, kindly posing for us in a field of daisies.


That night we went to see the Little Penguins returning to their colony. They go out fishing all during the day and only come back when it's dark. They are only about 12 inches tall and prefer temperate waters to the Antarctic.

The next morning we went to a New Zealand fur seal colony on a different part of the island. It's also the location of some cool rock formations including this Admiral Arch...

And the Remarkable Rocks which are a bunch of cool granite formations.

For the last stop of the day we went to the Hanson Sanctuary. We actually had been seeing koalas all over the island (you had to search for them and Lisa was pretty good at spotting them, even before the guide did), but this place is particularly favored by them and they have been growing new sugar gum (eucalyptus) trees, so it's easier to see the koalas in those because they're not as high. Enjoy the cute little koalas! :)

All right, now we're off to Broken Hill to ride some camels and then to Sydney. Take care, everyone.