Day 20 - Our Second Day in Sydney, and Our First Day at the Zoo.

Blake

Today was our second day in Sydney. We first had pancakes, and then went to the zoo. At the end of the day we rode on a ferry and got to watch a light show.

We saw a koala bear.

We saw a Komodo dragon.

We saw a tiny frog.

We saw a python. It was big. 

We saw a bright yellow snake.

We saw this big dude. He is a chimp.

The tiger is letting out a quiet roar.

We saw meerkats that really liked to fight for their spot in the heat lamp.

This is a mammal.

This is also a mammal.

This is just a random picture. We got to ride on a bus that drove over that bridge to get to the zoo.

This is one of the big buildings that gets lit up each night.

This is just another picture of it.

This is my dad's favourite, as it looks like the guy is shooting at Venus.

This is my favourite picture on the building.

THE END.

Day 19 - Our First Day Exploring Sydney

Nate

Elly has already expressed that she would really like to be the first one to write about what this first day in Sydney was like, so I won't say too much, but my first day in Sydney was quite the event as well. There were components that remind me of NYC--an enormous coastal city with an extremely efficient transit system--and then parts that don't, such as the seemingly vacant parks and streets. It may just seem that way as it is "the middle of winter." 

We hope you enjoy seeing what our first day was like, and enjoy Elly's narrative of what this first day was like.

Elly

 This is us at the Sydney Opera House.

 It was nice outside, even though they call this winter.

 Hey! Get out of that water fountain! I'm thirsty!

 EW! Gross!

 WOW!! This is beautiful. It is called Bondi Beach. 

 Oops! Too big of a wave! We weren't ready for that!

 Good thing that the water was warm. Warm? In the winter?

 Cool!!!!!

Wow! Huge waves!

 Here are some more pictures.

We saw a slightly bigger wave coming in. So Blake started running.

 heHEHEHEHEHE! He got taken out by the wave!

I think he knows the ocean is bigger than him.

 Gymnastics by the ocean.

 Selfie of mom and her good friend Janelle.

Day 14 - The Tidbinbilla Sanctuary

Nate

Today was another adventure in which we got to see animals in the wild that we'd never yet seen. At the recommendation of our Australian partners, we went to the Tidbinbilla Sanctuary, which was just under an hour from where we live. Here's just a few of the animals we saw today.

The first of these I am quite confident is an emu. I don't believe there are very many birds in Australia that look similar to an emu:

As for the next one, it is clearly a rodent. This one may need some research. I called them the friendly rats, and there were certainly lots of them, and they were certainly not intimidated by humans.

Then we came upon wallabies, and for all I know, I've perhaps seen wallabies, and then just believe them to be young kangaroos, joeys. Now just to clarify, we were in a sanctuary with some rehabilitating food dispensers--wallabies don't just stumble upon oranges that are already cut up. 

Now Blake was almost as excited in his inquiry about these huge rocks that just seemed out of place as he was about the animals. He kept asking how they got here, and while I don't know a lot about how the last ice age affected Australia, I just pretended to be in Okotoks, and told him the story of glaciers and erratic rocks. 

Now comes the animals that entertained us for quite some time: the koalas. Elly loved that they moved nice and slow, and were never in much of a rush. She is clearly set on koalas now replacing sloths as her favourite animal in the whole world. 

This picture really does some justice as to just how calm this day was:

This picture is that of the black swan. Just when one is supposed to believe that they are a runt in a pack of cygnets (or is it spelt sygnets?), you learn that it is a recognized species; we saw quite a few of them. 

Day 13 - Climbing to the Peak (out our back door)

Nate

We have been looking out at Mt. Ainslie, which is literally out our back door, for almost two weeks now. We have walked along its base, but this afternoon we decided it was time to summit it. We had been to the top once already, as when Peter picked us up at the airport, it was the first place he took us. It was time to return. Here we are, roughly 200 metres out our back door:

It didn't take very long for this nice flat gradient to become a little bit steeper. 

We started out at about 3:00, and knew that sunset is about 5:30, so we weren't in too much of a rush, but we did realize that the kangaroos were snacking away together in these field, implying it was getting close to the sun setting. How many kangaroos can you see in this picture?

It was only about an ascent of a couple hundred metres up this mountain, and Jamie finally had to take Elly's skipping rope away. We were both wanting to get to the peak, and not walk home in the dark.

With the skipping rope out of the picture, Elly's speed doubled. 

Even though Blake was ready to throw in the towel with about 4-5 minutes to the peak, luckily we convinced him to keep going, and we made it to the top in just under an hour from when we stepped out our backdoor.

Here's a couple additional pictures from our quicker trip back down this Australian mountain:

I managed to get a picture of Elly's hair aflame. You can see in the picture below that I was removing part of this picture...

What do you do when your son has cold hands but no mitts? Give him a jacket you are wearing in which the sleeves completely cover his hands.

Day 9 - Learning to Drive Again

Nate

Today was my first day driving on the other side of the road. You can be crossing a road, or entering an intersection, it is incredible how instinctual it is for those of us raised in North America to always think of looking left, and then right. Full reversal here. Always look right and then left. 

On my first day out and about driving, my friend Greg (Cowan) figures I was batting about 0.500 with the signal lights vs. the windshield wipers. Greg remained calm throughout. It somewhat reminded me of the AMA driving trainer from a couple decades ago. This calm voice that is really shielding a fear like none other. By the end of the day, we figure I had got my signal light accuracy up to about 70%. 

It is worth noting that I do believe driving in Canberra to be much more fluid than in Alberta, where so much is stop-go-stop-go. I'll see if I can find the stats, but I'd almost guess that there are 2 or 3 roundabouts for every intersection with lights. 4-way stops? What's a 4-way stop?

Day 5 - Our First Day at School

Blake

Today we went to our school. Our new school. They have red uniforms. Everybody wears red. I was placed in a class. My teacher's name is Meredith.

Today we went on a walk. We saw lots of birds. I was scared when birds flew really close to me.