Adventures in Australia...

Fun at the Races!!

This is me with Tash, Sarah, and Rebecca Stark (right to left!) I work with Sarah and get to see their family often because of our Rotary connections! This night, John took us, along with our partners, to the night races at Canterbury. Bill and I placed a few bets, but let's just say we 'aren't quitting our day job!' :) Apparently, there's more to betting on horses than just picking the prettiest jersey colours! ;) Anyway, we had a great night!! Thank you, Stark Family!!

So, this picture was one thing that I just HAD to do!! He was pretty cute - Kremlin (scary name, I know!) - but I think I prefer holding stuffed Koalas!! I kept trying to get him to kiss me, but instead he would just munch on the eculyptus! Apparently I wasn't too appealing to him! ;)

Last Friday, Bill and I made our second Farm Trip - this time to a farm near Brisbane. We departed Sydney at 6 am and spent the whole day in the Brisbane area (the farm was only 1.5 hours from the airport!), before returning home that night at 10:30! This farm is one of the largest producers of sweet corn in the country and have the packing process down to an art! It was a very interesting adventure! After we visited the farm, we hung out at the Southbanks area of Brisbane. You may already know this, but Brisbane is situated inland on a river. Therefore, they do not have any beaches in the city, unlike Sydney! So, they have created this area on the River that has sand and lagoon style pools - to look like a beach! It was pretty funny - and, lucky for us, I brought our cozzies!! :) This picture is from the beautiful Southbank area of Brisbane.

Bill is - as we speak - taking his last final of Grad School!! He studied hard for this final - I hope that he is doing well! And, I have my last day of work tomorrow! It's amazing how fast time is going! We are off to 10 days in Tasmania on Saturday, so we'll definitely have some good photos to share when we get back on the 27th!

Thanks for reading!

Friends in Australia

These are some of the friends we have made during our time in Sydney. The (only) guy in the picture is Sebastian, Bill's German friend from Uni. The girl on the far left is Alie, his girlfriend from Boston. We went to a free Australian Symphony show at Hyde Park to celebrate Alie's birthday - it was fantastic! We had a little picnic and enjoyed the music!

We were shocked.... I had heard that Australia Day was a very popular holiday, but I NEVER thought I would see this many Australian flags!! It was amazing! EVERYONE had a flag on them somehow - a tatoo, wearing the flag as a dress, flag teeshirts, etc. It was wild!

This is my book club. We meet once a month to discuss the books we have read. It has been great and I have really enjoyed it! I have read almost 20 books since we have been here -- more than I have read in the past 5 years combined! Some of my favourites include The Kite Runner, the Secret Life of Bees, and Mao's Last Dancer. In the picture are two of our 'Australian family' members - Glenis (standing wearing bright pink) and her daughter-in-law Julie Hayes (sitting wearing pink skirt). We always have a great time, and I hope to continue this when I get back home!! Thank you!

Moon family

Picture (left to right) front row- Josie, Cameron, second row - Sally, Bill, Cristin, David

Here we are with the family after a true Aussie meal - pumpkin soup, roasted lamb and baked pumpkin. Haha...There was more than that but they wanted to empahsize how to eat pumpkin other than in a pie!

Native animals

We could not help ourselves with this post. We have to take pictures every time we see kangaroos in the wild. We definitely saw our fair share on this trip.



We had never seen wild emus. Cristin's favorite.
I thought these “facilities” on the side of the road were classic.

Farm tour - Bruce and Jenny Longworth, Mungindi, NSW

On our Christmas break, Cristin and I toured a couple of Australian farms ( as you guessed it was my idea). We were put in touch with Bruce and Jenny Longworth through friends made at a Christmas party. They operate an enormous farm near the Mungindi, which is right on the New South Wales - Queensland border. Not knowing anthing other than that we showed up at their door after a couple of phone calls and they put us up in their house for 2 nights and took great care of us.
Their farm was around 20,000 acres!! Their main crops were cotton (above), wheat and chickpeas.
I was intrigued by the irragation system. They order water from the dam. It is then channeled to their storage ponds. They had 3 ponds that were 40, 60 and 80 acres. The water is then channeled to the fields like the 2 pictures above. It is then siphoned out using the 2 inch pipes, seen in the 2nd photo. All water that is not used is then channeled back to to the storage ponds.
On the second day, Bruce needed to move some cattle and by some he meant 400 head! He asked if I wanted to help. This would be my first chance to get dirty since being in Australia because it had been raining for a couple of days and was still raining that day. So of course I wanted to help! The orange clothes were for the rain and to make sure I did not get lost in the 1,800 acre field.
Here we are on our 4-wheelers/quad bikes after the mission was completed. Bruce was freezing cold, but I was nice and toasty in all my clothes. We both had mud all over us and it took lots of washing to get the quad bikes clean. I have to mention that there was a woman on a horse with a few cattle dogs helping us because we would probably still be chasing the cattle if she weren't there.

It made for an excellent memory. I doubt I will ever herd cattle in a field full of kangaroos again!

Coming home...

We have officially set our date for departing Australia. We have booked tickets for Friday, March 30th. This will put us in Tulsa at about 7pm that night.

We are excited to see our family and friends back home, but sad to be leaving Australia.

New Years Eve on the Harbour

On New Years Eve we had a once in a lifetime opportunity to watch the fireworks from a boat on the Harbour. Lloyd took us out his boat for this occasion. We were joined by other Rotarians Andy Britain and Martin Tabone, as well as Andy's wife Pam and Kathi, the Austrian exchange student.

We ventured out for the harbour early in the morning and toured around all of Sydney from the ocean. We then settled in at our spot near Taronga zoo for the fireworks around 2 o'clock. After a good Australian barbecue we were ready for the fireworks. There were 6 barges (I think) full of fireworks and they were lined up down the Harbour. So we were very close to the action! They also set off fireworks from the top of buildings on both the north and south side of the harbour. After the fireworks were finished we drove to a calm area and slept on the boat for the rest of the night.

Cristin and I had a great time. I am sure that we will never forget our 2007 New Year celebration.

New Address... and MERRY CHRISTMAS!

The view from our window!

Our New Address is:

1 Lugano Avenue

Burraneer, NSW 2230

Australia

Merry Christmas Everyone!

We hope you all have a very Merry Christmas! And, may God bless your 2007!

Phil, Glenis, Rick, Peggy and us!

It was fun introducing our 'Australian Family' to part of our American family! Thank you, Phil and Glenis, for your extreme generosity to us and our family! We love you!

We're hoping for a New Year's Eve celebration on Lloyd's boat, so stay tuned for more pics!!

Only the 2nd most deadly snake in the world.....

By far the best story from mom and dad's trip to Australia has to be dad's showering experience in the desert by Ayers rock. So dad has been warning me for over a year that Australia has 10 of the worlds most deadly snakes, but I hadn't seen a single snake until he arrived. After the 109 F/43 C weather we were all looking forward to a nice shower to cool off and to wash off the red dirt. Dad went first. As you can see this a community style shower. After dad had already been in the shower for a few minutes I walked in to take mine. As I walked in I saw dad's head pop out of the shower and he was saying "snake!! snake!!". I looked down and the snake slithered out of his shower and past my feet. I couldn't help but start laughing once the snake was not in striking distance. The snake went to the corner of the bathroom and stopped. Unfortunately, there was a guy from Mexico in the last shower! He said "did you say snake? oh.......". We expected for him to get out but he took another 10 minutes before he got out. Then the Japanese guy at the front got out of his shower looking quite confused said "spider?" Management then called up their local snake catchers to take care of the problem. They identified the snake as the Western Brown snake.....only the 2nd most deadly snake in the whole world!!!!!!!!! Needless to say dad didn't quite get a full shower and it took a long time before the rest of us got up the nerve (and came up with evacuation plans from the shower) before we went back in.

The bathroom where it all happened. Dad was in one of the middle stalls when it went straight through his shower!!
If you look closely you can see the snake behind the pipes. I would say it was about 1 ft. to 1.5 ft long.......no matter what dad says!

The proud sideways snake catchers. Scary thing is we don't know where they let the snake go!

The Shelby's in Oz!

Pictures from Ayers Rock, aka Uluru, in central Australia. It was about 109 F/ 43 C, definitely hot! We were told to take a picture of the rock every 5 minutes during sunrise to see the changing colors of the rock. As you can see by our pictures the shade of the rock is always changing.

The Shelby's in Oz!

All pictures are of Ayers Rock in central Australia.

The Shelby's in Oz!

Rick and Peggy in front of the Harbour Bridge Mr. Howard

After getting into Sydney at 7pm on Sunday night, Cristin and I thought it would be nice to take my parents for a nice breakfast in Canberra (3 hours away!) at 7am the next morning! We took them to the National Prayer Breakfast at Parliment. They got to see and hear the Prime Minister of Australia, John Howard. After some quick touring and meat pies we went back to Sydney to catch the Rotary meeting - so much for a relaxing vacation!!

Bondi Beach
Bondi Beach

Bondi on a typical weekday....look at all of those people!

Crikey, one of our favorite True Blue Australians!!

The Shelby's in Oz!

Mother-in-law / daughter-in-law interaction
Cristin and Mom enjoying a matinee at the opera house while dad and I are out on the ocean with Lloyd.

Matthew McConahey (sound it out)

While in Port Douglas, Matthew and Kate Hudson were filming a movie called “Fool’s Gold.” The movie was set in Florida, but they were filming in North East Australia. We watched them film this scene about 10 times.
Bananas!!!!!
We had our first bananas since Cyclone Larry wiped out the entire crop.
Daintree Rainforest
We visited this world heritage site near Port Douglas. We also went snorkeling on the Great Barrier Reef for Thanksgiving and my birthday. We celebrated later with a fresh seafood dinner.
Cronulla Beach

Mom and I on the esplanade by cronulla beach

The Shelby's in Oz!

Australia National Zoo outside of Brisbane my parents petting a kangaroo at Steve Irwin’s zoo.
Watson’s Bay in SydneyOur 1st night of the holiday
This is our ocean view from our apartment in Caloundra. Mom and dad were definitely impressed. We quickly brought them back to reality with the accommodation in Brisbane. The only good thing about it was that it was next to Albion Park – home of Australia’s best greyhound racing.

Sydney University
My parents inside the quadrangle of the Great Hall

Mom and the Sergeant
In the weekly fine session, the sergeant tried to make my dad stand up and sing “Oklahoma” in front of the entire Rotary club (about 50 people). Luckily for all of us, we got mom to fill in and I think she surprised the Sergeant with her effort. For once, he was speechless. They later announced that the fine session earned an extra $40, because of mom’s singing. Good on ya, mom.