Featherdale, etc...

Last day in Sydney (for a week)  Today's primary goal was Featherdale Wildlife park, and their liberal policies about feeding the wallabys.  Featherdale  is about half an hour North West of Sydney proper.  Checkout from the hotel was 10:00AM. We packed cleaned, loaded the car, signed out and paid for our stay.  The air was colder than the previous morning, although we could see steam rising from the cars as the sun started to breach the parking-lot.  

In order to prevent yesterdays navigation fiasco, Ariel stayed up last night and saved every conceivable route as separate PDF files on my netbook's desktop. This new navigation system worked much better, and got us from our hotel in North Ryde to the the Wildlife Park without mishap. 

After a brief jaunt through the gift shop, we entered the park and encountered our first batch of Australian large fuzzy mammals.  We fed lots of kangaroos and took many, many more pictures than anyone sane person should ever have to suffer through. For your viewing pleasure, I have culled out all the blurry shots, and have only lightly interspersed the "us" shots with animal cameos to maintain the 'zoo' feel. If you are yearning for an up-close shot of a cassowary, a skink, penguin, or an inland taipan, just ask, or wait till we're back... We have plenty.  We've also shot some fun videos, but I'm currently figuring out how best to post them.

Anyway, about 100 yards in, past the cassowaries and blue billed ducks, we noticed that the zoo keepers had left a lone Koala unsupervised in the photo-op area, so we got some nice up close shots with him.  Immediately thereafter we entered the kangaroo/wallaby feeding area, which, as I mentioned earlier, was about the only thing on Ariel's 'must-do' list.  We bought our ice cream cones filled with grain and roo-feed, and commenced distributing the organic wealth.  There were thirty or so takers, and we quickly found a mama wallaby (with very large) baby-in-pouch.  We attempted several pictures of her and the roo, but the sun was casting really hard shadows, and with all the people standing around, a clear shot was next to impossible.  We noticed the wombat cage was nowhere near as crowded, and discovered that wombats aren't at all opposed to consuming kangaroo snacks, so we did get some nice shots with them. 

The park had a token crocodile, but he wasn't much fun. (Not a problem since there are at least two croc farms near Cairns where we will spend the rest of the week.)  Henry took a great shot of a Dingo pup (which I still insist are just another breed of dog), a tawny frogmouth bird, and of Ariel getting nose kisses through the bars from an overly friendly albino wallaroo.  I just got nipped at by an antisocial penguin (no pictures of that event.)

We ate lunch at the park, which was worse (both taste-wise, and probably nutritionally), than the airline food.  In retrospect  we might have been better off had we just eaten the roo-feed.   There were about 20 ibis birds and a few peacocks wandering the picnic area who were glad to help us kill off the fries.  After lunch, we returned to the feeding area for one last round of kangaroo petting, and then headed back to Sydney around 2:00.

Ariel's PDF collection got us within sight of Sydney, but the netbook batteries were getting low, and we navigated the rest of the way into the city by a combination of maps, instinct and good fortune. We found a spot to park up in the north-west corner of Sydney proper where I managed my first parallel parking job in an Australian vehicle.  This area is called "the Rocks", which is host to a nice older neightborhood, the south end of the Sydney Bridge, and since we were there on a weekend, the "Market", a giant weekly street fair.  Henry bought some Kangaroo Jerky, and Ariel got some earrings. We headed towards Circular Quay, (the ferry terminals) and were treated to some nice aboriginal didgeridoo music, and a street performer who did a back-flip off a ladder through a flaming hoop. We perused a few gift shops, and learned some new Australian slang from the t-shirts and shot-glasses within.

On the far side of the Quay, we climbed the steps to the opera house.  Although it was only 4:00, the sun was already low in the sky. We took the requisite photos, and turned back, and after stopping for lattes, returned to the car, and headed for the the domestic terminal of the Sydney Airport. 

As we approached the airport, were almost out of time, but the van still needed gas. We circled twice, and the second time, found what looked like a petrol station. A man ambled from behind the register and told us he wasn't open to the public, but that five blocks east there was a public station.  Thankful for the directions, we headed there for the top-off.  The car drop-off was quicker than expected, and we got our luggage checked with about an hour to kill.  Ariel didn't need to dump her water this time because on domestic flights within the country, the Australian flight authorities are surprisingly un-terrified of bottled water.  Unfortunately, we didn't learn this until we got to the gate, and she had already preemptively thrown away another full bottle.

We (foolishly) bought airport pizza, which was almost as expensive as the previous nights dinner, while simultaneously being as disgusting as the airline's sponge-chicken on the flight over. JP was spared this agony, having wisely chosen the Chinese noodle soup from next stall over. 

This leg of the trip was on Virgin Australia, (same as Virgin Blue, but the planes are red, and have scantily dressed women waving the Aussie flag painted on each side of the nose cones) The Cairns plane was much smaller, arrived only a few minutes later than scheduled. Fortunately this time, we had to switch gates only once before boarding, and as soon as we sat down, we could tell this would be better than the United flight.  The seats were less cramped, the stewardesses were all smiles, and we were all able to sleep through most of the flight.

We landed in Cairns around 10:30PM, and a Virgin employee pushed a white ladder/ramp thing up to the side of the plane. The captain had said it was 22 degrees, which turned out to be very agreeable temperature.

We rented another van through Budget. This time they did have GPS devices in stock, but when I asked for one, the woman behind the counter asked "why would you need one?", as it's very difficult to get lost in and around Cairns. Ahh, the country... We departed the terminal GPS-less, and found our rental for the week. It began to rain, which greatly expedited our loading process. Getting out of the airport required a GPS, but we finally found the outlet to Cook Highway, and headed North towards Palm Cove.

We stopped at a mini-mart along the way, and Ariel bought milk, and some Rolaids to counteract the pizza incident. I bought a small jar of Vegimite, and some bread. When checking out, I was smiling broadly at my Vegimite jar. The lady behind the the counter looked puzzled, and asked point blank, "Have you actually TRIED Vegemite?" Undeterred, I continued my purchase, and we drove on.

Cook Highway is riddled with roundabouts. We passed the turnoffs for the Kuranda Skyrail, and AJ Hacket's Bungee adventures and the Outback Opal Mine.  Somewhere along the way, it stopped raining.  After our tenth roundabout, JP said he thought that they were a stupid idea, but Ariel pointed out that because of them, we had never had to stop, and he quickly revised his opinion.

We easily found Palm Cove, and then our hotel, and drove down into the hotels underground parking garage. The entire region may as well have been deserted. We found the lock-box where the concierge had left us a key, and we found our home for the next 5 days. The room had a nice TV, but the queen bed was in the boys room and the twins were in the master bedroom. Ariel set to rearranging, and I fired up the laptop and joyfully discovered the hotel had wireless access.  Henry found the in-room hot tub, which was off, and ice cold.  In the process of figuring out how to turn in on, JP disturbed a giant cockroach which brought the whole hot-tub turning-on process to a complete standstill until I shooed it outside. (Sorry no pictures)

After dispatching the vile beast, I made myself a Vegemite sandwich, and forgetting it's potency, smeared the thick black substance on my bread like peanut butter. 

The rest of the sandwich went into the rubbish bin, and I frantically downed a liter of water to get the taste out of my mouth.  We all went to sleep shortly after, grateful  that the next five days would not involve plane rides or airports. Plan for tomorrow: Sleep in.