More Koalas!!

After the detour to tour the Sea Shepard, we were off to the Wildlife Museum.

This Wildlife Australia Center is next to the Aquarium in Darling Harbour. It takes you through all of the different natural environments in Australia.

The first stop on the tour is the Butterfly habitat!

One of many gorgeous butterflies flying around us. This was the only good photo I was able to get since they were all flying.

The we were off to see the Koalas!! Still my favorite!

Fun fact #1 - the Wildlife Center has three baby Koalas currently in the exhibit. We saw two of the three! This on was just hanging with mom.

You can tell this baby is much younger and still hanging in momma's pouch! Look closely above the leg and you can see her little head hanging out!

Fun Fact #2 - Koalas sleep 20 -23 hours a day since their food source is not very nutritious. Maybe this is why I love them so much - we both love to sleep!

Fun fact # 3 - The wildlife center has 5 male Koalas in a separate exhibit. You can tell the difference between males and female because the females have the pouch and the males have a tuft of fur on their chest called a "Scent patch". It smells like B.O. but it drives the lady Koalas crazy - hence the separation!

We learned a lot of these fun facts from the Koala talks we listened in on.

Then we headed to the outback area with the Kangaroos - they are always just relaxing!

One of the last animals we saw was this gigantic crocodile. The photo does not do him any justice - he was HUGE!

By the end of the weekend, Jeff squared off with another Crocodile and won. More details to come on that!

We can't get enough of the animals here in this country. I am sure we will be posting on them again soon, but for now we must wait.

Off to the North side of the Harbour!

The Sea Shepard!

This past weekend was super busy but one of the best so far. We packed in a FULL day Saturday, and did a fancy night on Sunday.

Saturday morning, we hopped the 9:30 ferry into Sydney where we were planning on just heading to the Wildlife center and Kirribilli (post to come later). But to our great luck, we saw this as we pulled into the harbor!

It is hard to read, but the side of the ship says Sea Shepard and free tours!

close up on the ship with Jeff!

A bit of back story if you are not familiar with the Sea Shepard organization. They are a group dedicated to saving marine live all over the world. There is a show on Animal Planet called Whale Wars that follows one of their teams. It documents the environmentalist who are battling the illegal Japanese Whaling that is taking place in the Antarctic. They spend 3 months every summer (Dec - Feb) doing all sorts of crazy things to make the Japanese unsuccessful at killing whales. Very entertaining!

Anyway- we got to tour one of their ships - the Bob Barker from the crew themselves.

Our tour guide - a crew member, showing us the boats they use to go out and attack!

The Sea Shepard symbol on the boat

Jeff in the equipment room

the lounge

We loved getting to see this and it was a great addition to our day. We did learn that the crew is fully volunteers and the operation runs completely on donations as well. We did make a donation after the tour!

Great start to the day!

TAB at the Pub

Another interesting fact that we have discovered while in Australia - Aussies LOVE to gamble.

Friday night we went to the local Irish pub from a recommendation of a co-worker of Jeff's. Everyone here loves this place. It's your basic pub with a great patio, upstairs for DJ's and downstairs has the stage for bands. The food there (they have restaurants and bars in the same place) is your basic Shepard's pie, etc.

TAB is the organization that monitors the betting here so if you see a sign that says "TAB" you can place bets on anything. Funny thing - you see "TAB" everywhere!

PJ'S Irish Pub

Here is Jeff watching the betting screens next to the TV's with the races on. Types of races they watch - your typical horse race, dog race and the very unusual horse and buggy race! This was hilarious!

They also have a room in the back with slot machines too.

Just a picture of the winnings for the race.

Crazy Aussies!

Cooking in Australia

This past week was our first week cooking dinner at our apartment. We went to the store and had everything planned for the week.

Monday - we were prepared to cook a pre-seasoned lamb, with a few sides.

Minor glitch - as we go to turn on the oven - it is not working. The house man comes in and says yup, it's broken. I will send the technician tomorrow.

We go out to the pub to eat.

Tuesday - oven is still broken - we decided to cook ground beef in pasta sauce. Really easy and can be done on the stove top.

Minor glitch - we bought ground veal - not beef.

It was better than the pub again.

Wednesday - we are still without an oven so we have chicken breast, rice and gravy with veggies on the side.

Minor glitch - no measuring cups so we eyeball the rice and water. Rice is mushy.

The gravy did save the meal and made the rice much better!

Thursday - still no oven and no date to fix in sight.

We bought a box kit for tacos and it was 100% a success. You have to love that Mexican food is our best meal of the week! My favorite!

Friday we ditched the cooking and went out. Here's hoping they fix the oven for next week!

An open letter.....

Dear Al Gore

Thank you for inventing the World Wide Web.

It can be called nothing less then miraculous when a TCU alumnus, far from home in a foreign land, can enter in the search term "Versus TV Channel," and find a random web site streaming the channel live. Even more miraculous is that the day the TCU fan found the web site, it was in the second half of a truly historic game with Boise State, on their horrid, horrid blue field.

To be able to see the final drive, and the courageous two point conversion while it was occurring and yet be so far away at the same time will go down in your list of accomplishments alongside the Nobel Peace Prize, the Oscar award, and winning the popular vote in the 2000 presidential elections. I am sure when Gary Patterson talks about the Frogs' 36-35 win he will include you in the list of names to receive a game ball.

SIDENOTE: Should anyone have information on the birthplace of the line judge that threw the flag on 4th and 10 for pass interference I would like to know. I have a feeling he grew up eating potatoes with every meal.

I will wear my purple with pride today, and eat chips (the Aussies' version of fries) with every meal this week. I can confidently support their only in-state industry knowing that we have crushed them where it matters most.

Al Gore, I recycle today in your honor sir.

Sincerely,

Jeff Harrell

Go Frogs!

A peaceful afternoon

On our journey to Paddington we passed by Hyde Park and I knew I needed to go!

If the park name sounds familiar, it is because the Australians aren't very creative on naming things and named it after the park in London...

I found a nice park bench and sat down for a bit of reading in the shade

It was so peaceful out there

I do need to point out, before I found my great bench, I found a long lost friend - Starbucks! But instead of getting a hot peppermint mocha, like I normally do in the fall/winter in Texas, I got and iced peppermint mocha. It is 85 here and while this is not quite the same, it did the job!

Joy!

After reading a bit, I took a walk around the area and discovered the St. James Church. Absolutely beautiful!

Now everyone knows where to find me, if I am out relaxing! Not to mention the very large David Jones is across the street!

Paddington

Sunday, after a quick run on the river, Jeff and I decided to go explore a new area of Sydney.

Paddington is just east of the Central Business District or the CBD as they call it here and it is a quaint little shopping area on the way to Bondi Beach.

Once off the bus filled with beach goers, we saw several cute little shops and cute row homes.

Cute row homes!

Loved this one!

The spring flowers are gorgeous right now!

One of the cute churches on the main street.

WE INTERRUPT THIS BLOG POST TO BRING YOU THE COLLEGE FOOTBALL SEASON!

After walking around and window shopping for a bit we found a sports bar and Jeff was thrilled! The LSU - Bama game was on and it was 9 minutes left in the 4th quarter.

This quickly ensued...

We embraced the situation and cheered the Tigers to victory! Gotta love my Cajun roots.

It was great weekend with wins all around - Geaux Tigers, Bears and Frogs!