"A special welcome to all Qantas Club and Qantas Frequent Flyer members...."

"The rest of you should just be grateful you're allowed on board."

David here. I've been flying a lot on Qantas the last few weeks, Nhulunbuy, Brisbane, and most recently Canberra. Qantas is a really nice airline, but I've noticed that only their Club and Frequent flyer member get that special welcome, and the rest of us just get a welcome. Seems unfair.

Regardless, this entry isn't about Qantas, but about my recent trip to Canberra. I went their for a conference. The day after the conference I was able to walk around Canberra. Canberra is a completely designed city. It looks beautiful, and it's sort of like if Washington D.C. was relocated to the Foothills of Colorado. Unfortunately, it is a very confusing city to walk around. I decided that since I had only a few hours to kill, I would go to a book store. I think I've, inadvertently, made it my goal to visit a book store in every place we visit, even more so since Darwin doesn't have any good book stores. Perhaps book lovers will sympathize... I found one that was located a few kilometres away from the hotel, and to get there I had to go through most of city which allowed me to see some of the sites. With the walking directions from Google Maps written down, I set out with the confidence that only Google Maps can provide. Two and half hours later I reached my destination, thanks to a handful of errors in the directions. It wasn't till I headed back that I threw out the directions completely and made it back in half the time. What makes it confusing is that Canberra is a round-about. It's one big circle. Here is my "mental map" of the journey, inspired by the family circus. If you couldn't tell, as the day went on I got a little more loopy. Hope you enjoy. Click on the map to make it bigger.

It sort of trails off at the end where I just took the same route back. On the way, I looked up and a Kangaroo came jumping out into the middle of the street, got in the left hand turn lane, and turned left. Without using indicators! I actually haven't seen a kangaroo in full sprint before, and they are very impressive. I guess they are a bit of pest in Canberra though (as well as elsewhere in Australia).

Crossing this to get on the footpath was not fun at 8:30 am.

Black Swans

Old Parliament HouseAboriginal Tent Embassy
Canberra's Forrest?
Parliament's Private Ski Slope?

New Parliament

Brisbane

Jenni and David went to Brisbane last weekend. Jenni had a conference there so David went out to meet her. It was a good excuse to visit our friend Chris, Fiona, and Clare who moved there recently from Darwin. We had a good time visiting the city and everybody. Brisbane is a nice city, although it sounds like it grew to fast for its own good and now is suffering from bad traffic problems. Here are a few photos:

David got a new toy?

Can you guess what it is?





This is what the rain is like when it really gets going. The noise is impressive.

It's that time of year again...

Not the time of year where Christmas/Holiday decorations go up before Halloween or Thanksgiving is done. Which by the way, they don't have here, so Christmas/Holiday treats are already unashamedly in the stores. Nope, it's election time. Tonight we are off to watch the election results roll in live at the Holiday Inn with the Australian American Association of the Northern Territory (AAANT). Yes that is a Kangaroo shaking the talon of an eagle.

It's amazing how much media attention there is on the elections here. An Australian news channel is even planning on bringing live coverage as the "results roll in." I don't know if their elections got this much coverage. Of course, because of the parliamentary system the emphasis is more on the party not on the prime minister. That's pretty different from the sort of cult of personality America has for its candidates. From what we heard, its changing here and the last election was focused heavily on Kevin Rudd and John Howard.

Anyway, should be fun to watch from afar. Let the political pundit wars begin!

Humidity must be good for something...

The build-up is in full swing as we transition from the dry to the wet. The days are about 30 degrees Celsius with 70% humidity, and nights are about the same. Our new k-mart brand weather station hasn't changed positions since we got it...but it is a "k-mart brand weather station."

We picked up an Irwin mango from the Nightcliff market this morning. As the shopkeeper said, "You have to eat it in a bath." Because it is so juicy, not because we needed tp romance it before eating it. It was a good excuse for David to try food photography. You never know when you'll be walking down the street and someone will run up to you in a panic shouting "Do you know how to take pictures of Mangoes?!?!!??!?!?!?!?" To which you calmly reply - "Yes, yes I do."


Typically, we ride our bikes to work every day along the beach. We won't really be able to do this during the wet, although by the time we roll up to work we are drenched. There are a number of birds that reside along the bike path, and they are really used to humans so are easy to take snapshots of. Don't worry, Jenni won't let David turn this into a blog of entirely bird photographs, but here are a few.

Magpie Lark building a nest.

Galahs feeding.
Masked Lapwing. These are very protective of their nests and if you get within 20 feet of it they take off into the air and divebomb you.
Little Corella. These are noisy birds, but beautiful bright colors.
Rainbow Bee-eater. These shimmer blue in the sun.
Hopefully we got the species right...

Visa Update

Our guest reapplied for her visa through the U.S. Embassy, and requested an appointment because apparently you need to apply in person. The earliest appointment wasn't for another 2 weeks. So she sent an email requesting a rush. This was all on Friday. Yesterday (Tuesday) she received an email saying the request had been approved and her appointment was for today (Wednesday). She was in Darwin at the time, and the embassy is in Sydney. Well, the good folks at Qantas managed to get her to Sydney with a red-eye flight that is supposed to arrive at 6:15am Wed. morning, with her appointment at 10am. They also said it "could" take up to a week to process the application...Her original flight home is on Friday.

At least, the embassy is trying to help. Hopefully they can just issue a temporary visa so she can catch her flight on Friday.

Update***
The embassy has been very helpful to Deni, and hope to have the visa by tomorrow or Friday at the latest.

Stupidheads

On the morning of October 1st, we were broken into. The thief(s) ripped off the the screen to one of the windows, and probably using a broom handle, managed to take a reusable grocery bag. The bag contained the personal items and wallets of our guest from Mexico (Deni) and her friend. The thief(s) must have seen the items on the couch or had been watching the house. Besides the difficulty of the credit cards, Deni's U.S. visa was in the wallet. We actually found the personal items and bag a few houses down, but the wallets are gone. Deni only has a 3 hour layover in Los Angeles on her way to Mexico, and the U.S. Immigration require her to have a visa for this time. This wasn't a problem because her visa was actually a 10 year travel visa. She contacted the U.S. consulate in Australia, and was informed they could not replace it and she needed to completely reapply for a new visa. This is all pretty ridiculous, so she is scrambling trying to get a visa for 3 hours. We've been to LAX, they should be paying her to spend three hours in that airport. Needless to say, there are some people who are helpful and sympathetic, others are bureaucratic and authoritarian. We hope it all works out for her, and are pretty upset with our government.

Fogg Dam The Dry

Last weekend we headed to Fogg Dam again. David drove so that he could take all his camera equipment, and Jenni rode her bike with our friend Nick. Nick happens to be Scottish and this has no bearing on the blog, but we just want you to have all the details. They had to be careful while riding as there was not much of a shoulder. The occasional road train makes it dangerous as well. Not to mention the jerks who don't move over and try and run people off the road because somehow they see people getting physical exercise as a threat.

Here are some photos from Fogg Dam. It's the end of the dry, starting the build-up yet there was still quite a bit of wildlife and water.

Egrets.

Lotus Bird

"I wish I could swim..."

"Exotic Life of Danger and Mystery"

We arrived safely in Darwin after 20 some hours on the plane. The booking for the plane was done through an agency, and whoever set it it up didn't give much time in between flights. For international you need a minimum of 2 hours. It was partially our fault because we didn't catch it when we reviewed the itinerary. It didn't help that our flight from Denver to Los Angeles was delayed. We were left with 20 minutes to catch our flight to Sydney, and miraculously we made it by running. The actual destination of our flight was to Melbourne, so we had to go through customs there, and didn't find out till then if our bags had made it. Luckily they did. Then it was off to Darwin with a four hour flight. After waiting at the taxi stand for an hour, we finally made it home. The cats were very excited to see as evident with the photo.


The next day we went to the Nightcliff market, where David's brother's theory that there is a Peruvian pan flute player in every city received more empirical evidence.


From there we headed to the Darwin Cat show. We're not sure what this guy is doing. There were a lot of beautiful cats there.


Then Jenni took over the camera, where she documented our domestic lives in Darwin. This will probably shatter your visions of us as international spies living an exoctic life of danger and mystery....then again that's probably just David's imagination.

Grocery Shopping at Woolies (Woolworths).

Our Book Exchange.

Newsstand.

Our bakery.

Brand awareness.

And the coup de grace - we finally have a photo of the little man shorts. All attempts have been made to protect this person's identity. As have been stated, they clearly go above mid-thigh. It is possible that this person was a CEO with shorts like that.

Well....We Like the Climate

We really enjoyed seeing all are friends and family back in the states. Strangely enough we were also happy to come back to Darwin. While we were in the states it was mentioned a few times that, because of the tongue and cheek nature of the blog, sometimes it difficult to know what's true and not true. To help with this here are a few fact and fiction to help you out:

Fact:
We live in Darwin.
Fiction:
Darwin is where evolution stopped.

Fact:
David did get sick in a pool while learning to kayak.
Fiction:
He should be made fun of for this.

Fact:
Darwin has a "territory" lifestyle (drinking outside, possibly while fishing).
Fiction:
Everyone goes out hunting kangaroos and crocodiles.

Fact:
David hit a Wallaby with the car.
Fiction:
He did this because the Wallaby insulted his honor.

Fact:
It wasn't till the mid to late 1990's that they introduced speed limits for areas outside the city (130 km/h, 80 mi/h). Some people are still upset by these restrictions "on their freedom."
Fiction:
People drive the speed limit.

Fact:
We went on a 5 day backpacking trip.
Fiction:
Martin ate his shoe.

Fact:
David played the 12th Man on a cricket team.
Fiction:
Cricket is a fictional sport.

Fact:
Cricket does have a tea break.
Fiction:
They drink tea during the tea break.

Fact:
Australians sometimes wear very short shorts.
Fiction:
This is somehow connected to their position in society.

Anyway, hopefully that helps with interpreting our blog entry. Here are some photos from the trip. Sorry to all the people we didn't get to see, and wish we would have gotten photos of/with everyone we did see.

Hiking up Horsetooth Rock with Eric and Lisa.

Lamb Family at Mueller State Park.

David and Family went on a hike while Jenni climbed Pike's Peak

"Who are you again?"

John and David went to Victor Colorado to look at the old mines. John posed as the Marlboro man.

From Mueller we went to Winter Park for Richard's wedding. They rented cabins for the whole wedding party. Jenni was a groomsman. David was a guest.

Jenni and Julie.

"You want me to dance?"

Pine Beetle devastation in Winter Park.