Adelaide Shores Caravan Park, Adleaide, South Australia. Total Oz km = 7555
The kids are in bed sleeping, the bags are packed, and we can’t believe two and a half months have passed by so fast. Australia was a warm friendly and inviting country, and it was not too hard for us to lapse into the easy going Aussie life. While we weren’t overwhelmed by gigantic mountains or deep canyons like some of the parks in the US, there were several things here that have made Australia special for us.
First and foremost, the wildlife. Culminating with Kangaroo island this past week, we have been able to see, in the wild, most of the unique celebrity fauna, including kangaroo, wallaby, koala, emu, platypus, dingo, several bird species, and various underwater creatures (Hemi’s dives). Regretfully missing from the above list are a wombat (too nocturnal for our family) and a cassowary (bad luck whilst in Northern Queensland). And the frequency of animal spotting was relatively high. Even this morning, while on the ferry back to the mainland from Kangaroo Island, we saw some dolphins swimming in front of the ships hull.
I asked everybody what their favorite part of Australia has been. Paola enjoyed Sydney and Melbourne, her parents with us for two weeks, the Great Ocean road (when it wasn’t raining), Remarkable Rocks, and spotting koalas. They are irresistibly cute and cuddly. Ron liked the new animals he encountered, collecting sea shells at the many beaches we visited, and the jumping pillows. Shir and Orr can’t speak for themselves yet, but it is safe to assume they enjoyed whatever their big brother was into. All three kids developed great motor skills at the various playgrounds we visited. And of course getting special care and presents from Raquel and Alfredo the grandparents.
As for me, Australia is beaches, outback, and wildlife. I enjoyed the dives at the Great Barrier Reef, the first encounter with each new animal, the rainforest meet beaches in northern Queensland, the wide open red expanses and animals of Flinders Ranges National Park, and the side streets of Melbourne lined with cafes and odd shops.
On the down side, we were not very impressed with restaurants we visited, and the meat grilling system in the campgrounds drove us mad (more like frying on a steel plate than BBQ). The wine was very good though J. The people here are very friendly and helpful, and the accent is no as bad as we anticipated. The roads for the most part are narrower and less laned than in the US, but that is the reality of just 20 million people in a country the size of the US (300 million). Most of the time the roads were pretty empty. We did not encounter a single traffic jam our entire visit.
Our last three months, if you include Fiji, have been at a slower pace than in the US. We wanted to relax more, to rest after running around all the parks back in America. We are heading off to New Zealand tomorrow for 2 months in a more compact country, jam packed with activities. I assume our tempo will once again pick up, but after 7 months of travel, I don’t think it will be the same as the first few weeks of the trip back in May. We will definitely hike more, now that the girls are showing more ability to walk.
Thus ends one more chapter in our travel book, and a new one opens…
Good night,
-Hemi
This entry was posted on Sunday, November 18th, 2007 at 3:59 am and is filed under Australia, Big Trip. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
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