Sydney Olympic Park Aquatic Centre

This is Mike contributing for the first time to the blog. Expect poor grammar and misspellings. Daniel, Molly and I went to the Sydney Olympic Park where they held the 2000 Summer Olympics. There were a lot of things to see including the Olympic Stadium, the Olympic Aquatic Centre, the Archery area, the tennis facility, .... In the end, we spent the entire day at the Aquatic Center. On one end was the platform diving with its own pool area. Molly said that even Emma would not go off the 10m platform. Daniel said Emma would definitely do the 5m and maybe the 8m. The diving area had lessons/coaching going on so I was unable to show my world famous cannonball form. Instead, we spent our time in the waterpark area where Daniel and Molly really liked the rapid river below. The jets on the sides pushed everyone thru the river very quickly so it was quite fun.
In the Olympic size pool they had this blowup obstacle course that Molly and Daniel did twice. The first time, Daniel got all the way thru it. Molly and I went together and Molly made it thru as well. She really only needed help reaching the rope to swing across the water. The second time thru, Molly and Daniel went together. Daniel was able to reach the rope for Molly but was unable to push her hard enough to get her to swing far enough to get over the water. In the end, both Daniel and Molly did not get thru the rope part and landed in the pool. The picture below is Molly in the water - right after falling. It was so fun that we are thinking of heading back on Monday with Charlie. That should be interesting.

Darling Harbour and Paddy's Market

A couple of weeks ago we wandered by a playground under construction. We all pressed our noses up against the construction fence and wished for opening day. The grand opening was last Saturday, so we headed for it first thing on Wednesday. It's hard to tell the scale of this net structure, but this is about as high as Daniel and Molly were willing to go - the ropes got far apart and they were WAY off the ground. About an hour later, it was so jam packed with kids you could barely see the sky through the ropes!
The best part was this water park. Daniel and Molly are on their way up to the pumps at the top of the hill - that send the water through these trenches. It's filled with dams you can lift and gates to shift the water patterns and these random screws and wheels that send the water all different ways. I thought how easy it would be to have one of these in East Lansing, until I thought about the winter months...




The Chinese Garden is next to the playground, so we checked those out too. Free for kids during school holidays - bonus! They were cool to see in the middle of the city - with good explanations of the symbolism in the water, sculpture and rock formations. We first thought some of the resident lizards were sculptures...

Do the rocks look like sea dragons?

Finally, a few photos from Paddy's Market, where we almost feel like regulars. There are loads of cheap Australia souvenirs, of which we're now the proud owners. I was looking for some local sports jerseys and only happened upon a Steeler windbreaker and a complete assortment of NFL, NBA and NBA jerseys. Go figure.
On the food side, we found bananas for only $3.63/pound! So, we took a picture and dreamed of letting an entire bunch turn brown on our East Lansing counter!

Luna Park

Spring Break for South Coogee Public School!

Mike took Daniel and Molly to the Royal National Park yesterday for some rock scrambling, then to Clovelly beach for an introducton to snorkeling. The introduction was cut short because they were joined in the water by the bluies (bluebottle jellyfish), which are toxic. Daniel accused Mike of being irresponsible for allowing them to swim while he watched guard for the jellyfish - even though Mike got that advice from "an Australian guy there with his two kids."

There are no pictures from these events because Mike knew it would drive me crazy if he didn't take the camera. I think he thinks I need a break whether I want it or not.

Tuesday was my day and we took the bus+train to Luna Park in Sydney, just across the bridge. It has seen its ups and downs over time and I'm not sure if this is an up or a down, but the views are stunning in any time period.

Entrance:

From the Ferris Wheel:

From the Wild Mouse Roller Coaster (they attendant told me to hold onto my sunnies, which was no easy task while taking pictures from the sharp turns!):

There are only about 17 or 18 rides, but that was enough for the target audience. I was a fan of the rooster on the Carousel and the "rides" in Coney Island, where they had giant slides, moving floors to walk through, mirror mazes and a Barrel of Laughs, which did it job for me when Molly went through. I was not such a fan of the Flying Saucer (Round-up for those who know it by that name) because it had pads against your back that I kept sliding off of AND I, sadly, cannot stomach the spinning any more :-(.

By Luna Park rules, Molly needed an adult to accompany her on a few of the rides. This one, she didn't, so I was banished to the sideline.

The family lore prompted Daniel to remind me that not everyone in my family has a history of obeying signs like these. The story of my Grandpa Floyd getting us (cousin Shannon, me and him) kicked off of the double ferris wheel at Conneaut Lake, from his rocking has been passed down to the next generation.
The Rotor is another ride from the Conneaut Lake days, although there Shannon and I were just observers and brave cousin Robin was the rider. The circular room spins around and around and the floor under your feet falls about 3 feet so the force holds you against the fall. The attendant prepped the riders at Luna Park that going sideways was allowed, but not upside down. My stomach and I could barely watch, but Daniel and Molly went twice.

This was Daniel's favorite modern ride - he's in there somewhere...

Smash Mouth Cover

For some reason, the "All Star" song by Smash Mouth has gained popularity in our household. We really only know the first few lines, but that includes the line "I ain't the sharpest tool in the shed." Turns out our rental place in Kangaroo Valley was called "The Shed". It might have been in a beautifully remote location, if it weren't for the fog and rain. We woke up in the Shed to pouring rain again on Sunday morning. We stalled by watching "Lilo and Stitch", a library rental. We expanded our Disney movie knowledge but ended with the rain still pouring. We filmed our own music video and headed back to Sydney. You can't win 'em all.

Kangaroo Valley and Flatrocks

We set off on Saturday morning for one of the hikes in our book. We stopped to check out the famous bridge in Kangaroo Valley in the daylight, which is under construction so not so picturesque as usual. We did happen upon a kangaroo skeleton, which was...interesting.

The drive out to the walk at Flatrocks along Upper River Road included some obstacles. We think this sign meant fording was your only option, but Mike got out of the car to see if it was worth the effort.
We engaged in much fording and ended up along an unmarked path along the Kangaroo River.
The fording had its downside:

We seem to have attracted some people eating worms (I cannot even write the word leeches, it’s too gross) so 3/5 of us had bloody feet that we discovered we we got back to our place to change out of our damp (in Daniel, Molly and Charlie's cases soaked) clothes – and I actually had one of the little critters still on my foot . A google search under "leeches and Kangaroo River" turned up the following: "Strangely enough, not everyone likes nettles and leeches." Yep, a few of us had our first nettles experience too. I'm not sure I'd call this a success, on the whole.
We spent the afternoon browsing in the cute shops of Kangaroo Valley, talking to the shop owners, who were as disappointed as us at the rainy weather outside. Everyone was refreshed by the hot chocolate that came with a piece of fudge on the side. We took the advice of those shop owners and went to the Kangaroo Valley Bowling Club for dinner. Surprisingly, Daniel passed on the "crumbed lamb brains" at the top of the special's menu and chose nachos instead.

My favorite conversation of the day:

“Oh look, scat!” says Daniel. “Maybe it is wombat! “ exclaims Molly. “Oh, let me look, I know Wombat scat,” replies Charlie. Then, the others moved out of the way so the expert could inspect the scat in question.

Back to the fields that night for more wombat searching!

Weekend with Wombats

With our weekends in Australia dwindling, we embarked on the last of two driving trips. We headed south for this one to Kangaroo Valley (pop. 847) about two hours from here, according to Google Maps. Google maps didn't know about the terrible accident on Rt 5, so 2 turned into 3. We had some HUNGRY, HUNGRY kids when we arrived and many of the restaurants don't start serving until 6, so we went to the local take away for some burgers and chips (I chose the 1/4 of a chicken, which was very yummy). The locals pointed us to Bendeela Campground for some Wombat spotting. Our torches (yep, that's what I asked for in Kmart earlier in the week, I'm practically fluent) had fully loaded batteries and Charlie was especially anxious to see him a wombat!

Daniel is still in school uniform as we head off through the paddock that the campground attendant pointed us to. It was 82 degrees when we left Sydney and mid-50 when we arrived in Kangaroo Valley, which explains the other mix of summer/spring attire.

Got one in his sights!

Up close and personal! This is just using the regular zoom on my camera, so we were able to get within a few feet of them. I don't really know how to get my camera to just snap a picture without being in perfect focus, so there were missed shots, but we were happy to get a few sweet ones.

Wombat facts: Wombats grow about 3 feel long and between 40 and 70 pounds. They are marsupials, but their pouches face backwards so that when they dig their elaborate underground tunnel systems they don't throw dirt on the baby wombats. "Wombat Stew" is a favorite book in our household. Don't worry, in the end the "clever" dingo gets tricked into NOT eating the wombat. Wikipedia tells us that "When attacked, wombats dive into a nearby tunnel, using their rump to block a pursuing attacker," which sounds like Mike's strategy on the basketball court.

Our fearless trackers!

The poor kangaroos we saw hardly got the time of day/night. Oh well, this was the Wombat's night.

Public Speaking

There is a great deal of emphasis on public speaking in the schools here. All grades have topics they can speak on every week. Molly somehow missed the memo that gave the topics, so she went in with a few off the wall ones: KenKens, for one! One topic was "workers in the community". Because of the aforementioned missed memo, she didn't know she couldn't do that topic in the last week, she had to do one she'd done before (which, of course, we no longer had and confirmed that after digging through the dinner party garbage bags - lovely). Anyway, here's her workers in the community "speech" that Mrs. Monkhouse's first grade missed out on.

Wednesday is Library Day

Daniel, Molly and I have made a habit of taking the bus to the Randwick Public Library on Wednesday afternoons. Today we needed 2 big backpacks to return our supply of books and DVDs. Molly helps slide them through the return, while Daniel cannot help but run into the library to gather his new stack. He's discovered National Geographic Magazine, some very badly written Star Wars Books and a few new authors that I track down and put on his pile while he reads the Star Wars books! Molly goes for the GoGirls Books with pink covers. I'm trying out some Australian authors (Tim Winton and Craig Silvey) and raiding the travel guide books on the Blue Mountains and New Zealand. We scored on the kids' movies this week, after returning Season 1 of Get Smart: Toy Story 2 and Disney's Robin Hood.
Our meeting spot in the center of the library - waiting for our driver to come pick us up. We're only allowed 20 items at one time, so Daniel tries to read as many books as he can there. :-)
We've been meaning to bring the camera for weeks - self-check out at the library!! So cool. We all gather 'round for the occasion. You can renew, print a receipt, anything you can dream of! If, however, you owe a fine (hypothetically speaking), you must go to the circulation desk and pay before you can proceed.

Entertaining

On Sunday night we opened the patio window and moved the table outside for a dinner party. We had two families over that we knew from the States and work with here. We had stunning weather and loved having the living room open to the outside. The challenge with dinner parties is the actual dinner. These photos aren't from the night of the party, but they show the extent of our kitchen. Daniel is in front of our fridge. To be fair, there is a small fridge in our garage on the lower floor and we used them both creatively. We were grateful for no leftovers!
Here's our dishwasher...


The lack of equipment (pans, measuring utensils, etc.) and storage space lead us to make the decision not to really do any baking here. We haven't bought flour in 2 1/2 months since we arrived and our small bag of chocolate chips has lasted weeks and weeks. I don't know if that was the right choice or not. Turns out, we miss that habit. The local bakery and grocery store biscuits are satisfying our sweet tooths, but maybe we'll start Christmas cookie baking early this year in East Lansing! That said, the chocolate mousse cake we had for dessert this night from the South Coogee Bakery was very, very yummy and we did have fresh whipped cream courtesy of Daniel.

Bridge Run

The Sydney Marathon was Sunday the 18th. Thousands of crazy fools ran it, or so I read :-). It is part of a "Festival of Races" and I meant to sign up for the half marathon, but by the time I realized the weekend was free for us, it was full, so I signed up for the 9km Bridge Run. The cool things about the Bridge Run, are that you get to run over the Bridge, and, it started at 9AM, instead of 6:20AM like the half marathon. Buses don't run from South Coogee that early on Sundays, so I trekked over to Coogee, caught a bus to the train station and a train to the start of the race at Milson's point, just over the Harbour Bridge. I didn't really have to know what I was doing because the bus and train were packed with runners, so I just followed along.


There is nothing flattering about a self photo, but you can see the Opera House and the Bridge in the background.
I made a friend at the start, Mark, a high school PE teacher who bought a 1971 TransAm from Pontiac, MI AND, more importantly, was willing to take a picture of me during the race running over the bridge! Once again, not very flattering, maybe it wasn't the "self" part of the previous photo...but the bridge is still in the background!

After running in mighty warm weather (close to 70F/20C), I spotted the cheering section just as I neared the finish line at the Opera House - taking pictures of me taking pictures of them taking....


This is the first time we got up close to the Opera House, so we savored it for a bit!
For our post-race party, we took one more trip up the Sydney Sky Tower - Daniel's first time. To get to the elevator to the Sky Tower, you go through a really fancy mall - with pretty darn good window shopping.