To the Top

A.J.
Since it was A.J.'s last weekend here before he heads back home on Tuesday, we splurged a bit and did some ATVing on the Stockton dunes. What a kick! Our tour was through a Worimi aboriginal group so we got to zip around on restricted areas of Stockton beach. Our guides gave us lots of good training as we went along and we got to do some serious zipping up to the top and down some pretty seriously tall dunes. I was the only one of us who thought to check my speedometer when we were going flat out and we got up to 47 miles per hour!!! It was way cool and we were sorry when it was over. Eric thought it was so cool he was thinking he'd like to buy one of those quad bikes, but there's that issue of money. Dang! Of course maybe the next visitors will be interested in going so he can get another ATV fix!

Yesterday we went out to the Barrington Tops area which is a few hours away with gravel roads and streams to ford no less! We didn't exactly have our trip very well planned so we didn't manage the big hike, but we did a shorter hike to the Hidden Treasure Mine which has an abandoned gold mine and goes through a "dry rainforest" area. I'm not so sure how a dry rainforest makes any sense, but that's what the sign said it was so I'm sticking with it. There were some interesting plants there, but mostly it seemed like a regular Australian forest with a few seriously huge trees.

We noticed lots of signs about fire danger and reporting fires which wasn't surprising considering how dry it is here. What really didn't add up was the half dozen fires we saw that were obviously intentional. It appears to be standard practice in the spring to burn off fields and even some forested areas which was rather puzzling because it does seem like you'd be tempting fate with it getting out of hand.

Today we found out we live on a 'nudie' beach. Whoa! Okay, so they were all six years old or less, but it was still strange. For a while there we were afraid the next time we looked out our window we might see the parents in the same state. Fortunately for us, it was restricted to the kids. Whew! All beaches in Australia are essentially public so I'm sure we'll have more visitors as time goes on. Fine by me just so long as they're sporting their 'swimmers' as they call them.

We're getting settled into the place more, but are still missing some of the furniture we've ordered. After the "3 weeks" passed by since our order, Eric decided to stop in and check on the order status. Their reply? "It'll be here before you even know it." Huh? Like we said, "3 weeks" means they have no idea!

We just bought the tickets to come home at Christmas-time. I'm not looking forward to the Seattle weather, but I can't wait to see everyone. I guess we'll be back "before you even know it"!