Sydney's Big E

We happened to be in Sydney during the Royal Easter Show which is a giant state fair for New South Wales.  Since we love the Big E we had to check it out and a prepurchased ticket gives you free public transportation there from the center of Sydney which is a sweet deal.  It didn't disappoint.  

Along with the booths of interesting as seen on TV type products that sound cool, but that you probably don't actually need, most booths had something called a showbag.  It's basically a bag specially put together for the fair full of that booth's products.  There is also a showbag hall where you can buy bags of a specific candy or toy or sports team.  I feel like each state at the Big E could have a showbag and they would probably do well.

There are competitions for just about everything imaginable.  Above are hats and quilling, and there are competitions for lots (heaps if you will) of different animals.  We saw rabbits and goats being judged the day we were there.  That's just the tip of the iceberg as there are competitions for everything from bookbinding to flowers to frogs & reptiles and rats & mice.

Any good fair needs to have some delicious food.  While there weren't the number of deep fried options we are accustomed to in the US, we did get to eat some tasty traditional Australian meat pies.

There are so many animals at the show to see.  This is a goose, but they also had every farm animal you could think of.  My favorite were all the crazy breeds of chickens.  Some chickens look really weird.

Of course you can also feed the goats and sheep.  This goat got a little excited.

The most famous event at the show, however, is the woodchopping and sawing competition.  It is an international competition, but woodchopping and sawing as a sport was started in Australia so they (and New Zealand) are the best at it.  It's all a lot of fun to watch, but the most awesome competition was the Australia vs. New Zealand relay.  Australia was a bit ahead for most of it but the last New Zealand competitor absolutely demolished his log and the Kiwis took the narrow victory.  It was really exciting.  Oddly enough this was also the only competition we saw in Australia that started with the national anthem.

We finished our day with a motorcross show and a pretty impressive fireworks display in the main stadium of the fair.  All in all, we ended up spending about 9 hours (way longer than we figured we would) at the Sydney Royal Easter Show and had a great time.

White Whale, Holy Grail

We were able to go see Mastodon (one of my favorite bands) in Sydney so I managed to go to a metal show with my unruly (for me, anyway) beard which feels like a good thing to say I've done.

Special thanks to the Merrigans and to Darren from the Mastodon crew for hooking us up with tickets.

The Blue Mountains

Near Sydney are the Blue Mountains,  a national park named as such reportedly because of the blue haze created by the sun interacting  with the the oils in the eucalyptus trees. I've read conflicting  accounts of whether  or not that's actually  why they're  blue,  but really, who cares, nature is beautiful and awesome .

To kick things off, here's Jim modeling his face biscuit. To be clear, this is a cookie, but here you can have a sweet biscuit  (cookie), or a savory biscuit  (cracker).

Here's the view  from the top of our trek down Wentworth falls. It was cloudy, but that's better than rain, and really, it's still quite beautiful. See  the blue?

At the top of the falls

The trek leads you through some pretty awesome paths under these rock shelves

Small falls

Peeling eucalyptus bark. Like snakes, these trees actually shed their outer coat. I have no idea why, and neither did our guide.

Looking up at Wentworth falls

This formation is called the 3 sisters.  A sacred holy site  for the native Aboriginal  peoples.

Byron Bay

We left Queensland for Byron Bay in New South Wales (I have a way better sense of Australian geography at this point than probably anywhere else we've been) but the scenery was still much the same.  That is gorgeous beaches and beautiful sunny landscapes.  It's supposed to have the best surf in Australia and Chrissy took a surfing lesson here.

Looking down the beach.

There's a cool lighthouse in Byron Bay that is a really nice walk from the center of town.

We didn't get any shots of them really, but there are lots of turtles and dolphins swimming around the coast.  In a few months all the whales will be easily visible migrating.

Byron Bay is also the most Easterly point in Australia so here is the requisite shot.

Chrissy enjoying the landscape.

I totally forget the name of this mountain, but this is a nice shot.

A shot of the beach where we spent most of our time hanging out.  You can also see the lighthouse in the distance on the right.  The beach really was awesome with good, fun, surf and soft sand.  Oh yeah, and topless sunbathing was not an uncommon sight.  So, it all adds up to one of the best (if not the best) beaches of the trip.  Chrissy (who is basically a fish) already misses it.

Brizzie

Brisbane, aka Brizzie, capital of the state of Queensland. It pretty much rained the whole time we were in the city with the exception of the time we were at the rugby game. Still, we managed to get out, even if we did get wet.

Fun with public art

Jim, sporting his hipster lumberjack look

More fun with statues

When it rains, you go to museums. On display at the Queensland Maritime Museum (which is huge btw, several ships, a naval frigate in dry dock, the stained glass windows from the Maheno  wreck on Fraser Island), several fresnel lighthouse lanterns.

The retired naval frigate, the HMAS Diamantia,  is in permanent  dry dock and as part of your museum experience you can explore the ship, and you can touch everything, crawl on the furniture, even reposition the guns on deck. We decided the officers lounge made an excellent location  for a cribbage game. Jim won.

Here's  Jim, sporting his pirate look.

How to Speak Australian

While they speak English here in Australia there are a few phrases that you probably won't hear back in the States:

"How you going?" - This doesn't mean "How are you transporting yourself?" but rather "How's it going?" or "How are you doing?"  It's really confusing the first few times you hear it.  "How am I going? I just got here!"

"Heaps" - This is more simple, Australians don't use the word "lots" to describe something.  So, if you are enjoying yourself you are having heaps of fun.

"No worries" - The response you will almost certainly get to saying "Thank You."

"_______ as" - This is my favorite, probably.  Australians will put the word as after an adjective but then nothing else.  Examples:

"The store is having a sale, everything is cheap as."

"Did you send the end of that game?  It was sweet as!"

It's funny because at first you think they are saying "ass" then you realize they aren't and your head wants to add an expletive after the as because that seems like it would make more sense.

Happy Easter!

Fraser Island

One of our many excursions off the Queensland coast included an adventure  to Fraser Island. The island is made completely  of sand, and vegetation only grows because of a type of fungus that allows the sand to hold nutrients. In addition,  there are  several  perched lakes, lakes of freshwater fed by an underground aquifer, pushed up by the different density  of the surrounding sea water. Makes for some pretty fun territory to explore.

Here at Lake McKenzie, the pH of the water is slightly  acidic  which means not much lives in or grows in the lake, so it's incredibly  clear for several meters 

Lake Wabby, another perched lake, is in danger of being completely  filled in by this sand blow, a massive moving dune.

This stretch of beach, called 75 mile beach, is designated as a national highway.  You can drive on the island with 4wd  vehicles  only. Beach speed limit is 80kph 

The is the shipwreck of the Maheno. At least another 10 meters of boat is underneath the sand. She was a retired navy vessel being towed to Japan when a cyclone hit and blew her ashore. All salvage efforts  failed, and so here she still lies.

Check out the Champagne pools, essentially  tide pools big enough for swimming.

Ohh, and Fraser Island is home to one of the only beach runways in the world.  Whén else would we have the opportunity  to fly in a Cesna,  while taking off from, and landing on the beach. BTW,the runway is that highway I mentioned earlier, so sometimes the pilots have to swing around twice to avoid oncoming 4WDS.  This was our pilot  Fabian, doesn't  he have the best socks?

View of 75 mile beach from the air

Lastly, we ended our Fraser tour with a relaxing float down Eli creek.  Fraser was one of the trip's highlights  for Jim,  you know, all derivations  of beach potato,  lake potato and creek potato.