The last from Oz: Port Macquarie

Right before our departure from the land down under, Clark, myself and our good friends Joanne and Ivan drove up the coast to Port Macquarie, which is about 5 hours from Sydney.  It was a total blast.  We had excellent weather and overall a wonderful time.  We miss our Joanne and Ivan sooooo much!

Rest stop near the coast, enjoying some pelican watching.

Laurieton Lookout right off of the scenic drive to Port Macquarie.

The other lookout on the mountain top, aka the Johnstone Lookout.

 Paraglider taking off from the Laurieton Lookout.

About 20 miles outside of Port Macquarie. Beautiful white sand beaches lined this coast for miles and miles.

Our awesome villa a street away from the water.  Oh, we love to live lavishly when we're not staying in hostels and eating cup-o-noodle ;)

Joanne giving the camera all that she's got!  Work it, girl!

walking down to a beach right before dusk.

Getting ready to hit the pool at night.  It's a shame the pool was closed even though we went before the official closing time.

The Koala Hospital was a short walk from our villa, so the next morning Joanne and I took a stroll down to see some koala feedings.

An awesome array of breakfast foods.

So, down at a dock, Joanne tried to shimmy around a wooden beam and would have definitely fallen in the water had Clark not helped her back to safety!

Painted rocks all along the walkway.  Dora is just adored world wide, I guess.

Running toward Joanne on a beach.  I love how animated Ivan is.

I laugh every time I look at this one.  Thanks for the photo bomb, Ivan.

Joanne and Clark following the spiral...not quite sure what this thing was for.

Joanne rolling down a hill.  If there is one thing I love about Joanne, it is her ability to be herself regardless of the situation.  She is so care-free and fun.  Seriously, I don't think anyone else could have convinced me to roll down that hill.

Tacking Point Lighthouse.  I. Love. Lighthouses. Period.

A 'So You Think You Can Dance' off with kelp.  We each had one minute to perform an interpretive dance with the kelp.

So graceful.  I tried to emulate Will Ferell's rhythmic gymnastics moves from the movie Old School.

Clark was the least animated.  He totally lost.  Ivan did not perform as he was wondering around taking pictures of sand or something.

That night we stayed with our good friends Jade and Levi in Nelson Bay, and enjoyed some awesome pizza down on the waterfront.  A game of Pictionary consumed the rest of our night, along with Mad Libs.  Mad Libs are unbelievably fun when 6 adults play.  Wish I would have taken some photos of the night's madness, but I didn't.

Fingal Bay on our last day.  Beautiful beach; would have loved to enjoy the water here but as you can see, no one has towels laying about on the sand here.  Just a little to cold for that sort of thing.

Clark and Ivan.

Joanne and myself trying to do a 'gummy' smile.

We had such a blast with Joanne and Ivan.  Wish the trip could have lasted days longer but unfortunately, Clark and I had to get back to Caringbah and pack up our apartment.  Joanne and Ivan, we miss you!  Let's meet up somewhere exotic down the line!  I would opt for somewhere Joanne hasn't been, but she's been pretty much everywhere...

The last from Oz: Sea Cliff Bridge and farewell dinner

I know, I know, we've been back from Australia for nearly two weeks and I'm still posting about our adventures.  But there's just so much to catch up on!  I'll keep these next couple posts concise, unlike my usual drawn out posts.

Before we left, Clark and I locked our love to the Sea Cliff Bridge...FOREVER!  Or at least until the lock oxidizes and falls off.

There were lots of locks at this end of the bridge, but even more at the other end.

Get the idea of why it's called the Sea Cliff Bridge?

This is 'the other end' of the bridge with tons of locks.

I just love this heart shaped lock.  If there was ever any engraving on the lock, it sure doesn't exist anymore!

Our awesome hand-engraved lock.  Most locks, we noticed, were professionally engraved. I realize why: trying to carve anything into a lock is kind of though.  Especially when the safest/sharpest object you have for engraving is a key.  Our lock reads C+R but you can hardly notice the fruits of my labor.

The other side of our lock reads USA.  Gotta represent!

Locking our love to the Sea Cliff Bridge.  What an epic moment.

Our lock is second from the right, all shiny and new.

After our Sea Cliff Bridge adventure we attended a farewell dinner that was held in our honor at a local Thai restaurant.  Our good friend Joanne organized the whole darn thing.  

Co-workers.

Ivan and Joanne.  We miss them so much!

Clark was presented with an official Australian Football League polo.  It is pretty awesome. Here he is with his co-worker Minju.  She liked him so much.  Not in that way, but she just really liked him and enjoyed working with him.  I love the peace sign she is flashing.    

My Pad Thai came covered in egg.  Is that an authentic way to serve it?  It was rather interesting.  I typically get Pad Thai because 1. it is hard to mess up and 2. I can never decide between curries, and this is the first time it has ever come covered in egg.

Next up: our final trip up the coast with Joanne and Ivan.

Australian Reptile Park, minus Big Red

 Back in March our wonderful friends Jade and Levi took us to the Symbio Wildlife Park so that Clark and I could experience some native Australian animals first hand.  It was unbelievable.  There was a huge grassy area where you could pet and feed grey kangaroos, and kangaroos were in abundance.  We were also able to pet a cuddly koala.  Unfortunately, the park didn't have any red kangaroos (these are the massive kangaroos) and the wombats the park did have were burrowing in their hollowed tree stumps and chose not to make an appearance.  

About a month after that experience, Clark and our two other wonderful friends, Joanne and Ivan, went to the Reptile Park (Not Symbio.  This was a totally different park North of Sydney)--without me!  Due to my work schedule at the time, I was sleeping and decided to rest instead of make the trip to the Reptile Park with them.  And I missed out big time!  They all got to pet a red kangaroo AND wombats!  I was so bummed out and told Clark that we would have to go back to that exact park before we left Australia. 

So at the end of July, we did.  We set out with our friends Graeme and Jade, looking forward to seeing and petting a red kangaroo and wombats.  When we first got inside the park, we didn't see any kangaroos.  There was a rest area (aka kangaroo sanctuary) for the kangaroos, so we checked out that area, and there they all were.  Resting where no humans were supposed to cross the single barred fence to annoy and touch them.  We didn't see Big Red (the red kangaroo we had nicknamed prior to our entrance into the park) but assumed he would be around somewhere.  We walked through the park, viewing alligators (Yes, American alligators.  The park only had one crocodile and he was mostly submerged in water and hard to view.), tasmanian devils, emus, grey kangaroos, bats and birds, koalas, wallabees, a massive tortoise and WOMBATS!  I don't think I've ever been as excited to see any animal as I was when I saw the wombats.  Well, kangaroos are pretty exciting too, but wombats... my goodness, they are just too cute.  I can't imagine that they can get that aggressive in the wild, but supposedly it happens.

After our afternoon snack of meat pies and fries, we asked a park employee where the red kangaroo might be hiding out.  And the dude hit us with devastating news: Big Red died a couple of months ago and the park is currently awaiting the autopsy. DAMN.  I even asked the employee who sold us our tickets if the park had a red kangaroo and she responded in the affirmative!  Clark was lucky, he must have seen Big Red right before his death.

I have to admit, I was pretty devastated.  We drove all that way to see a red kangaroo and wombats.  At least we did see the wombats!  I guess this just means Clark and I will have to travel back to Oz in the future and work in the Outback, where red kangaroos are often roadkill due to their overabundance.

Now for your viewing pleasure:

Outside the gate to the park!

 The artificial crocodile was pretty intimidating and hostile.

The slowest turtle I have ever seen.  And largest.

Fruit bats.  These guys are so awesome and massive.  I've never seen such huge bats before coming to Australia.  These are the same bats we saw back at the Sydney Botanical Gardens.

Look at him hang on to the wire with his....hand?  Foot?

A little Joey getting all cuddled by the momma koala!

An American alligator.  Clark and I were shocked to learn that the park only had one crocodile and several American alligators.

More gators.

Turtles lovin' on each other.

Our friends, Jade and Graeme.

Clark appearing less than enthused in this photo.

The kangaroos at Symbio were better in my opinion.  These kangaroos were so disheveled and dirty...and lazy.  Unless you shook a bag of food in front of them, they didn't socialize at all.

Yes, we shook the bag of food in front of this fellow, and he got up for us!

As if the kangaroos weren't getting enough to eat, one snatched an empty paper bag from an unsuspecting person and started to eat it.

An exhausted dingo.

An echidna.

Common sense.

Tasmanian Devil.

We couldn't really manage a picture of a platypus since they live in dark water and require that habitat and such. So I figured a picture of Clarkman and the sign would do.

And last but definitely not least, the WOMBATS!!

I just love how they lay on one another like kittens do.

Hello, cutie.

He's smiling in this one :)

Ohhhh, look at that adorable face!  Wombats actually get much, much larger than these guys.  Typically adult male wombats weigh 50 kilograms or approximately 110 pounds.  These guys are only young teenagers.

Petting and feeding the wombats.  Their teeth are actually very strong and they can eat through just about anything but steel or an equivalent type of metal.

I could not get enough of these wombats!  I kind of want to blow this picture up into a poster and put it in my room when we get settled.  Kind of like the popular kitten posters that people used to put up on their walls in the 90's.  You know you remember that.

I know what I want to be for Halloween this year.  A wombat. I wonder if I could fit my body into this child's costume?

  So even though we didn't see a red kangaroo, it was still a successful day and I came to the decision that if we do go back to Australia to work in the future, I will strive to become a wombat carer.