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Most likely I'll post some pics as part of whatever update I give, and given that there is no way all three of my daughters will think that they look good in the same photo at the same time, pics will likely be pulled and right there is your incentive to check back every day to see how things actually went before something gets taken down.This section will contain the running commentary from the trip, in regards to the most recent country we have been in. But once I'm able to start the next country, I'll put the historical posts in the "Old Updates - XYZ" tab above. This all assumes I (or one of my kids) will be able to figure out how to make this website work.

If you want to read about the first 28 days and our time in Italy, then click here.

If you want to read about our time in Turkiye, then click here.

If you want to read about our safari in Kenya, then click here.

If you want to read about our beach vacation in Tanzania, then click here.

If you want to read about our amusement park/desert experience in the U.A.E, then click here.

If you want to read about our desert/beach experience in Oman, then click here.

If you want to read about our jungle ruins experience in Cambodia, then click here.

If you want to read about our elephant/beach experience in Thailand, then click here.

The Journey Continues - Australia

Koh Chang to Sydney

Sydney to Uluru

To jump directly to one of our days in Australia, click here:

DAY 120

DAY 147

Uluru to Tasmania

DAY 114

We were leaving Koh Chang, and Megan, Keira and I were sad to see it go (Liam is always sad to see anyplace go, so I didn’t include him, while Lily and Elenna didn’t spend enough time outside of their room to appreciate it). The good news is that the day before we did get to see Simon again and play one more game of tag.

Our first English speaking friend, who was, of course, from Switzerland.

We left the hotel, retracing our steps of van to ferry to van to the airport. On our way down, our driver essentially just cut everyone in line to get on the ferry, so it was quick and painless. On the way back to the airport, we waited in line for about an hour and the whole thing took about 3 hours (vs 1 hour 20 minutes to get to the hotel). Luckily, the hotel had warned us that it could take a while, so we still were at the airport almost 2 hours before takeoff.

This was a good thing because the check in took a little while, and then as we got to the security line, the person who checked us in ran up to us and said we had to go to the baggage check in again. This was pretty confusing and it took a few minutes to determine that not all of us had to go, it could be just me. Unfortunately, we were halfway through putting our stuff through the scanners, and my phone and wallet were going through the scanners, but I did have my boarding pass and passport to get me back through security.

He directed me to a security room where some people were going through another passenger’s luggage. We had to stand outside the room and there was a window with a small gate you could reach through but mostly you just watched as they went through your bag. Since I didn’t have a phone to occupy my time, I was fully aware of the episode unfolding in front of me in the line. The two people in front of me had a couple of bags and the security people were taking out their portable chargers. It wasn’t clear that they were the ion batteries they don’t want on the plane, but the security people said they couldn’t take them.

I felt kind of bad for them, but it was taking awhile, so I just wanted things resolved. And then the security people pulled out this big white, square device about an 10 inch square and 6 inch tall box. It has a number of bumps at the the top and on the side I could see USB ports. The guys, who spoke English, but not as their first language, talking to the security people who spoke English, but not as their first language, are trying to explain that its a charger with a built-in router. Maybe it’s because I had just watched “Carry-on” but I immediately converted that into “bomb”. But ostensibly, it was something used for taking pictures.

They went back and forth, and then started talking about how much electrical current was allowed on a plane, and the guy said, “Yeah, I know how much is in there, I built it myself.” Now normally, I root for the passenger in these situations, because I’ve lost things I would think I should be able to take on a plane, but the only thing worse than taking a device that you can signal wirelessly onto a plane, is to take one onto a plane that you built yourself. Luckily for my piece of mind, the security people agreed and it wasn't allowed on the plane.

They finally got to me and pulled out my aerosol hairspray bottle. I figured that this was what had held me up, since I saw a bunch of aerosol spray cans in their bin. They looked at it for a little while, then looked up at me and asked me what it was. I said “Hairspray” and pantomimed spraying my hair, and they were like “Oh, ok, that’s fine.” I can’t help wondering what a wrong answer would have been (what kind of aerosols can’t you take on, if you can take on hairspray?), but I felt like I probably benefited from everyone being discombobulated from the “bomb” episode in front of my, that an aerosol can likely felt like a non-threat to them. So now you all know that the strictest airport security in the world is in the Trat, Thailand airport. By the way, the Trat airport is so small, that when I went to arrange a van to take us to the airport, they asked me which of the two flights out of Trat I was on.

Our last sunset in Thailand, from the airport. Luckily security let through most of the colors in the sunset.

Our flight was delayed about 15 minutes, which wasn’t a huge deal, except that it had already been delayed 30 minutes a few days earlier and we had a connection to make. Even with the delay, we still had a little over 2 hours, but we had to get our bags, check our bags and then go through customs to fly to Sydney.

With the flight delays, Liam had time to catch some Pokemon.

Keira and Lily’s bag came off the carousel quickly, but then the rest of our bags didn’t come off. And then another flight’s bags starting showing up on the carousel. There is a digital sign that said our flight was still unloading, even as it said that two other flights were also unloading. After 10 minutes, the second flight’s bags were done. None of our bags were coming, but the light was still on saying that our bags were still in progress. But then about 5 minutes later, our flight disappears from the monitor. I walk over to the baggage issue desk, and they say “Trat, right? The bags should be here in 10 minutes.”

Eventually, Elenna remembered that Megan put airtags in our bags and can track them. A few seconds later, we were able to see that they are all there (except Elenna’s who were last seen in Trat, before the flight took off). After another 10 minutes, all of the rest of our bags (including Elenna's) come off and we are able to leave.

But now we have about 80 minutes to get to the checkin and through customs. On this flight, Megan and I got upgraded to Business class tickets, but the kids didn’t, so we were able to go to the business check in and fast pass security, so the process was relatively quick, but we had about 10 minutes until boarding started to get to our gate which was 10 minutes away. We weren’t sure if they would serve the kids food on the plane, so we quickly stopped at a cafe and got them something and then got to the gate.

But when we got to the stairs to go down to the gate, there was a long line of people, as the airport screeners were going through people’s bags. On pretty much every flight out of BKK, we had to put our carryon bags through the metal detectors to get into the airport, then do it again as we approached the gate. This meant that if you bought a drink in the food court, you had to drink it before getting onto the plane.

What was even more weird was that there were no metal detector here, so they were opening up everyone’s bags and searching them by hand. This was probably why the line was long. Like any such security, some screeners took a long time and others took more cursory examinations. I had a quick check, but they took everything out of Keira’s bags. We felt bad for the people who brought just a carryon suitcase, and everything was taken out and people’s underwear etcetera was out for everyone to see.

We finally got down to the gate and boarding started about 10 minutes later (pone of the few times we were thankful for delays. We all boarded together (the kids would have boarded later if by themselves given their economy tickets, but this gave them more time to get their bags stowed). Megan said that she overheard someone judging us for being in business class when our kids weren’t, but what were going to do? Pay $15k so our kids could join us, or not fly Business class to have solidarity with our kids? Not on a 9 hour red eye flight.

One of my pet peeves about red eye flights happened here. They served us dinner, but waited an hour to do it, and it took forever. Then, they woke us up almost 2 hours before landing for breakfast (waking me up even though I had the “Do not disturb” light on). So you would think you have time to sleep on the plane, but all of a sudden, the 9 hour flight is really 5 hours. Throw in the innumerable announcements from the flight attendants and the captain, and you can’t get any sleep, even if the seats are comfortable. But of course, they don’t call them the red eye flights for nothing.

DAY 115

We landed in Sydney and as we exited the baggage area, I saw a currency exchange which had become a running joke with our family.I have gone to about 10 currency exchanges in the past two months and none have been willing to change my Omani money. Every once in a while, one will say they can convert a 5 or 10 Omani Real bill, but not the 100s. So I finally got to an exchange and they said that they could convert the 1 Real bill, but not the 100s. So I asked why, as I realized that we were in Australia, and this was the first exchange where both they and I spoke English. They noted that the 100s were not Reals, but their equivalent of cents, so instead of having about $500, I had about $5, which made me feel much less annoyed about not benign able to convert them. Meanwhile, no one would exchange any amount of the Cambodian money, so if I you are planning to visit Cambodia, I would just bring dollars, which they probably like more anyways.

We got to the hotel and one of our two rooms was ready, so we deposited our bags and then met up with Marge and Andrew (Megan’s step mom and brother) and got some lunch.

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Liam was using Andrew's forehead as a train track for the Thomas the Tank Engine toy that Marge bought him.

Our hotel is right off of the harbor and Marge can see the Sydney Opera House from her room. The rooms themselves weren’t great - especially since our last Marriott we went to in Bangkok was one of the nicer ones around, the difference was a bit jarring - but we booked it for the location, which is perfect for New Years.

Then we went for a walk around the harbor. Then the girls went to get their nails done, while Liam and I walked around the town searching for Pokemon. I was a bit on the fence if this was a good idea - given the difficulty sleeping on the plane, I was assuming that by walking around the city, Liam was probably going to fall asleep during dinner, but it seemed like a fun thing to do to pass the time, and we were trying to catch some rare Pokemon for my brother. Meanwhile, according to Keira, on the flight, she put on Detective Pikachu and he fell asleep in under 10 minutes, so maybe he got some sleep on the plane.

As we walked around, I saw a rooftop-ish restaurant that looked neat (from the street) and when we were trying to figure out somewhere to go to eat, I recommended we go there. The place looked very nice and the food was actually pretty good, although the music was a bit loud (or I’m a bit old) making conversation a little difficult. As expected, Liam fell asleep during dinner.

Everyone enjoyed the restaurant, even Liam who slept through it.

At this point, almost everyone was ready to go to sleep, so we went back to the hotel. Of course, after his dinner nap, Liam was now awake, but he was sleeping in the girl’s room, so he was their problem. The following night, out of nowhere, Liam said, “I went to bed at 9 but I actually went to bed at 10,” essentially telling on his sisters for letting him stay up late. The girls all said, "If our parents don’t ask, then don’t bring up when you went to sleep," and they were all offended that he broke the sibling code. I told them it was karma, for all the times I let them get away with stuff and told them not to tell mom, but then the first thing they say when they saw her, was that they did whatever I told them not to talk about.

Day 116

We slept late and then went out to brunch at a crepe place I found on-line around the corner from our hotel. We all met up with Katie (Megan’s sister) and Trisha (her girlfriend) and had a great brunch (nutella and strawberry crepes with vanilla ice cream for me). Then we went to the Sidney Opera house to see a show and get some culture.

Who doesn't want pancakes and ice cream for breakfast?

We had a little bit of time to kill so we walked towards the Botanical Gardens, and ran into a wedding - the third wedding we had seen in the past week - which had a great backdrop of the Sydney Opera House and the Sydney Harbor Bridge.

We sent to get some culture at the Sydney Opera House.

And then we got to the Opera House to watch the performance - and by that I mean we went to see “Dungeons & Dragons: The 20 Sided Tavern”. It is an audience interactive play where the actors essentially play a game of Dungeons & Dragons (getting characters, rolling dice, using cards, etc) while the audience helps them decide which direction to take using our cell phones to record our choices. The play won’t win any awards, but we all had a good time, and even Liam was engaged throughout.

The stage was pretty neat.

After that, we had an early dinner on the pier with a beautiful view of the Sydney Harbor Bridge. Then we went back to the hotel for a little, and then the 6 of us and Andrew went out to an escape room. Our family loves escape rooms and we are quite good at them, and Andrew fit right in. We solved the room in under 30 minutes and the person at the desk said that he thought it was the record for that room.

The girls had been talking about frozen yogurt for a while, so we saw a place across the street from the escape room and went over. Andrew wasn’t interested and walked back. After the frozen yogurt, we walked back to the room and went through a few pedestrian streets that were lighted up for Xmas, some of which were playing Xmas songs. There was also a large Xmas try that was reminiscent of Rockefeller Center, except that every hour on the hour, the lights did a bit of a light show to music.

Not quite Rockefeller Center, but in some ways (the lights) it was better.

Day 117

The next day we had signed up for surfing lessons at Bondi Beach. Our friends Jess (Nate’s mom) and Nate (Keira’s friend) arrived and we were planning on meeting up with them at the beach. It wasn’t clear if they would arrive in time, or be in any kind of shape to do surfing lessons, so Keira, Lily, Elenna, Andrew, Marge and I were signed up for lessons, but Marge was hoping Nate would show and take her place.

Luckily for Marge, they did, and we went over for lessons. As someone who is 6’4 and not naturally coordinated, I had low expectations for these surfing lessons. A few days earlier I had taken out a paddle board in Koh Chang on the bay where the water was essentially as flat as our lake and when I stood up, I almost gave myself a round of applause. So needless to say, I did not expect to surf well.

We had read that there could be jelly fish in the water, and this kind of scared Megan away from participating and we didn’t want to tell the kids about the risk, because we were sure that it would scare them away. Especially because the jellyfish in Australia are pretty venomous. I felt a little better about the whole thing when we all got into our wetsuits and went to the beach.

The beach was pretty crowded, even at 9:30am, and we did some stretching on the beach and practiced getting onto the board, and then practiced the first step of getting up, which was essentially lying on the board and pushing your chest up, kind of like being in a yoga position. After doing that a few times in the water, riding in waves we practiced (on the sand) getting onto the board, and then tried it out in the water.

One of these people can surf.

Nate is a snowboarder and we all expected him to be really good. Unfortunately, he really was and put us all to shame. In fact, while we were still practicing the yoga position on the board out in the water, and before the instructor told us how to get onto a board, Nate decided to get on the board, and surfed all the way in. Over the 2 hour class, he said that he fell off once, but we think he was just being polite. It was hard to keep track because instead of waiting with the instructor who would push our boards when waves came like the rest of us, he would be on his own searching out waves and riding them in without help.

Luckily, a little bit of camera tricks and trick photography and it looks like I can surf a little.

Catch a wave and you're sittin' on top of the world.

But the reality is that most of the time, I looked like this.

I'm not sure how Megan caught the first pic, but there were plenty of chances to catch me doing this.

Andrew and Keira battled it out for who was second best - no one consistently surfed the waves, but they each did it a couple of times. After that, Elenna was probably next best. Lily and I battled it out for last. Its a little hard to know who was worse, but I wouldn’t be surprised if I ended up losing. I ended up joking that I didn’t fall off once the whole time, because technically you have to get up in order to fall off. I wasn’t quite that bad, but it was close.

But the good thing was that you didn’t have to actually surf to have fun. I just kind of thought about it like boogie boarding combined with jumping into the ocean.

After that, we walked over to the pool club, where Katie, Tricia and Marge were hanging out, to get some lunch. The rest of us were all looking forward to a little shade, since the sun was bearing down on us, and most of us were a bit red. We ate at a restaurant where we had to go to the bar to order food, and we got a buzzer to have us go pick up the food. It was a bit strange since the restaurant otherwise looked fancy. This seems to be a thing in Sydney, since our dinner the night before also was something where we ordered it at the bar and brought most of the drinks to the table - at least at that restaurant, they did bring the food.

After lunch we came back to the hotel to shower and then the 6 of us + Nate and Jess went to a board game cafe. They had about 50 games or more and we ended up playing Codenames, One Night Werewolf and Articulate. Liam was bored, so I played Jenga with him for the first ⅓ of the time. But it was neat because they had a guy there would explain any game you wanted him to (he explained the Werewolf game to us) and I wondered if he really knew how to play all of the games.

Articulate was largely like Taboo, which was fine by me.

We left the game room and a woman got into the elevator with us and as we went down the elevator got stuck on the 1st floor. Everyone started freaking out (but trying to hold it in). This was the third time I've been stuck in an elevator, and since we had gotten down to the 1st floor, and the odds of getting seriously hurt were low, I was pretty calm. We pushed the alarm button and got an automated notification that the signal was received, but there was no indication when someone might come. So we called the number in the elevator and the guy said, “OK no worries. I’ll head over there right now.” Megan asked how long it would take and he said about 90 minutes since he was the only one on call because everyone was off for the holidays. So Megan googled the phone number of the game cafe and told them we were stuck and he called the building manager and he said it would be 40 minutes.

As time dragged on, it got more and more uncomfortably hot and we played some games (20 questions) to pass the time. Megan called the games place again for an update about 10 minutes in and they still said it would be 30-40 minutes and he asked for a number to call us back. He couldn’t call a US line, but luckily the woman in the elevator with us had an Australian number and he talked to her in Chinese and then she translated for us. So we made a new friend in Joyce, who was from China but studying in Sydney.

Every time Nate (who was by the door) would bump into the wall or Liam would kick or tap on the wall for fun, we thought someone was there to rescue us, but no luck. About 30 minutes in we were debating calling the police to see if they could come since the official elevator people said 90 minutes and we didn’t know if the building manager knew anything, and it was getting hotter and hotter. So we ended up calling the emergency number and they said that they would contact the “fire brigade” which I though was a great name for the fire department. Lily said that she had visions of people putting out fires by creating a line and passing buckets to each other until it moved up to the fire. It was at this point that I decided that we needed a selfie in the elevator. Joyce asked me to send it to her.

Our group + Joyce had a little bit of an escape room experience in the elevator.

About 15 minutes later, or about 55 minutes into the whole experience, the fire brigade showed up and rescued us. They were shy and didn’t want to be on camera, so I only have this shot.

They didn't want a selfie, so this was all I got.

Although Lily got a video of them opening the door.

I'm glad Lily was paying attention and got the video.

Meanwhile, we had been texting Marge, Katie, Andrew and Trisha because we missed our reservation. They ended up waiting for us, and although we were an hour late, the restaurant was able to seat our group of 12. The service was bad - the food took a long time to come, Marge ordered the squid ink pasta and instead of telling her they were out of it, they just brought her the pasta of the day instead, which had shrimp in it. I’m not sure that I’ve ever seen that type of substitution before. But at least they sat us. Dinner was over around 10, so we all went back to the hotel and got ready for bed.

DAY 118

The next day was New Year’s Eve and we went to the Sydney Tower Eye, which gave a panoramic view of the city. By now we had been on some pretty tall buildings, and this building was less than half the size of the Burj Khalifa, so from a height perspective, it wasn’t much. But it definitely had a better view than the Burg Khalifa, as the Sydney Harbor is really pretty.

A great view of the harbor and broader Sydney.

We also got a good view of the people queueing up to find a place to watch the NYE fireworks, with a huge line by 9:30am. I was glad that we weren’t going that route.

People lining up for the fireworks. You can't see where the line ends.

After that, we went to lunch and then I took Lily to the Apple Store to try to get her laptop fixed - the mousepad wasn’t working. They said that they could send it out to be repaired and it would be back in 7 days, which wouldn’t work for us, but I googled it and there is one in Perth, and that seems like our best bet to get it fixed and returned, since we will be in Perth for a few days, and then swing back and fly out of Perth on our way to Tasmania.

After that, we split up - Liam and I went to get our hair cut, while the rest went out shopping. I got my haircut first and I could tell that the guy wasn’t great, so I kind of erred on the side of cutting too little (especially for Liam), figuring that we would be in English speaking countries for the next 2 months, and would have ample time to get a closer cut.

Before, during and after pictures of the haircuts.

Then we went back to the rooms and rested for a little bit before going out for New Year’s Eve. We were going on a “tall ship” and they were serving passed hors d'oeuvres, but most of us wouldn’t eat most of the food, so I got us some food before the cruise.

We brought the stroller, mostly because we thought Liam would fall asleep by the end - the cruise wasn’t going to get back to the dock until around 1:30am, and we didn’t want to carry him home. Unfortunately, as we were leaving the room, Liam got his finger stuck in the door and was in a lot of pain. We went down to the lobby and I got him some ice from the bar. But within a minute of leaving the hotel, he was passed out.

Liam passed out in the stroller even earlier than we thought. Still holding the ice pack on his hand.

Our hotel was ideally situated for everything we were doing, but especially for the NYE cruise. The landing was a 10 minute walk from the room, but we weren’t sure how long it would take on NYE. Most of the entrances were blocked by 6pm but since we had tickets, they opened the gate that was most direct for us. Luckily, they were keeping the paths relatively open and I was able to navigate the stroller through the paths. It was was somehow very crowded and not that bad at the same time, and I kept thinking how in NYC, probably people would be standing in the lane and blocking traffic.

A view of the crowds we passed through.

We got to the ship and it looked like a Pirate ship. It had two sails, but we weren’t going to be sailing, it would be going under motor power.

Its always fun to be on a pirate ship.

We got onto the boat at 7 and slowly did circles around the harbor passing the Sydney Opera House and then turning around until the Sydney Harbor Bridge and back again. In Sydney they have two firework shows - one a 9 and one at midnight. We got Liam on board the ship without waking him and stashed him in the side of the ship near where we were standing, and hoped that the parking brake on the stroller would hold.

Not pictured is Liam who is still sleeping at this point.

One of the activities that they had on the ship was to allow you to climb up the rigging to the top of the mast. A couple of us were interested in it, and as soon as we left the harbor I went to check it out. But there were already a dozen people in front of me, and by the time I texted everyone, another 10 or so got in line before Andrew, Megan and Nate got there. I gave up my spot in line and waited with them, but the whole time I was wondering if I made a mistake and if it would be dark by the time I got a chance to climb. Andrew got tired of waiting and worried it would be too dark to climb, so he left and went to the bar.

Nate went first.

You could climb up from either side of the boat, and Megan and I timed it so we could both be on the ropes at the same time. When the guy on my side came down, I went up, but as I started to climb, I noticed that the women he went up with was still coming down - and she was doing so very slowly. In part this was because she was wearing a fancy party dress. So I was going up slowly so that they could get a picture of me and Megan, but didn’t want to wait too long and hold up the entire line.

At the very top of the ship, there was a crow’s nest, but it was very precarious to get up there. You did have a carabinier to secure you, but the rope ladder got more and more narrow at the top to the point where my foot could barely fit on the step. Then there was a large gap up to the crow’s nest, and two metal bars were supports to the deck, but they were in the way to get to the opening, forcing you to wriggle through a narrow opening while pulling yourself onto the platform.

Since I was waiting for Megan, I decided to try, and after a little pause to evaluate the situation, I managed to pull myself onto the platform, and I sat there, feeling like getting to a standing position was going to require a bit more maneuvering that I wasn’t quite ready to do. I was going to happily sit there until Megan climbed up, but then Keira yelled up at me to stand up so she could get a better picture. Well, I’m a sucker for a better picture, so I managed to stand up.

And I still haven't seen that picture, but I’m glad that she convinced me to stand. Standing up there, on top of the ship, in the fading light of the sunset, going past the Sydney Opera House was one of the coolest experiences of my life. I was high enough that people on the second and third levels of the Opera House could see me easily, and some of them waved and I waved back feeling like some important sailor. I was wishing that we found a way to pack my Captain Morgan outfit for the boat trip.

It took a while for the other woman to come down, and then Megan had to get her gear, so by the time Megan started climbing up, I was already up there a while and felt like I should be getting down to let the next person go. I timed it so that we met up around the midway.

This was surprising one of the coolest things I've done on this trip.

Part of the reason that I wanted to be one of the first to climb the rope ladder was that they wouldn’t let you go up if you had been drinking, so when I got down, my first order of business was to get a beer and get Megan a Persecco when she got down (they only offered beer and wine, or those wouldn’t have been our choices).

Seating was initially at a premium and we didn’t have a place to sit, so we stood towards the stern, but after a little while, everyone got up and got drinks and seats started to open up. There was never a place for 12 people to sit, but Lily and Elenna sat on the floor playing Bit Life the whole night, and Liam slept in the stroller for a good part of the cruise. A few people, who will remain nameless had a bit more to drink than they should, but it was overall a great boat cruise.

Then the fireworks started and they were great. To be honest, I’m not really a fireworks person, so there is a limit to how good I will ever think they will be, but they were about as good as fireworks can be. And to be on the water, with the Sydney Harbor skyline in the back, I’m not sure that I can imagine a better place in the world to celebrate New Years. I said to a person from Sydney that they don’t know how good they have it, to have New Years in the Summer, when you can be out and on the water. In NYC you would have to be standing for 8 hours in 30 degree weather and see something no where near as pretty.

The fireworks were pretty cool for fireworks.

We kept sailing back and forth along the harbor, and all of the boats in the harbor had Xmas lights on them, and they were all synced to change to the same color, and would cycle through, throughout the night. Not quite a “must see” but a nice addition to the night.

Such a great place to watch the fireworks. Liam did eventually wake up.

So what did we do on the boat for 6 hours besides drink and eat? Well, there was a live band on the boat as entertainment. And I use the term “live band,” only because that is what they called it in the brochure. What it was was an accordion/singer and a trumpeter. Megan couldn’t stop laughing when she realized what the entertainment actually was.

A picture of the live band.

The band had a wide range of songs, but they were basically oldies like “Country Road” and “Sweet Caroline” and “Living on a Prayer”. You haven’t lived until you heard “Living on a Prayer” on an accordion, the way God intended. The crowd was pretty international - we met Aussies, but also people from the UK and Russia, and the band played some songs in Spanish, French and Italian. However, this wide array of songs, actually wasn’t a benefit - it meant that they could play the songs, but didn’t always know all the words, or didn’t have the timing quite down, making singing along a bit difficult.

Then the clock struck midnight and we saw the second round of fireworks. It was neat because they shot fireworks on both ends of the harbor, and then would have fireworks come off of the bridge as well. You almost didn’t know where to turn to see them.

Fireworks were everywhere.

Then we turned back to the dock, but there was a bit of a line to dock, so we didn’t dock until after 1 and got back to the hotel around 1:45, before going to bed.

DAY 119

Despite the late night, we got up “early” (around 9:45) and went to the zoo. Marge had gotten the four of them tickets to the giraffe encounter, but our kids had encountered enough giraffes that we skipped it. But we all went to the koala encounter.

I had googled “Sydney Zoo” the night before to see how far away it was, and it said it was a 40 minute drive. Luckily, since Marge was going early, it became clear to us that we were actually going to the Toranga Zoo, which was a 15 minute ferry ride from our hotel. We met up with Marge, Andrew, Katie and Tricia and headed over.

There had been a lot of discussion the night before about how there is a large prevalence of chlamydia among koalas, so despite really liking koalas, I wasn’t sure how close I actually wanted to get. But I shouldn't have worried. Koalas sleep for 18-20 hours, and so we essentially walked up a few feet away from a koala that was sleeping in a tree. Here is a fun fact for you - our guide called the baby koala a “joey,” which I had only heard in the context of kangaroos, but he said that they call all marsupial babies “joeys.”

The koala encounter wasn't all that close, but I guess that was fine by us.

There was a kangaroo area you could walk through and one jumped right across the path in front of us.

You were allowed to walk through the area, and got so close you could run into a kangaroo.

After that, we went to the sea lion show, after that elderly couple on our River Kwai tour recommended it. It was neat, but it was also a sea lion show, so there was a limit to how good it could have been.

These giant seals were pretty neat to watch.

Then we grabbed lunch and went over to a kids play area, where Liam played for a little before we went back to the hotel where we rested for a couple of hours.

The views from the zoo were actually amazing. Meanwhile, Liam and I earned our "tree hugger" bona fides.

We went out to dinner at a Mexican restaurant which was a bit painful because Megan, Keira, Lily, Nate, Jess and I were going to climb the Sydney Harbor Bridge after dinner, which meant that we couldn’t drink margaritas - they warned us that they would do a breathalyzer test before getting on the bridge and wouldn’t be able to go if our blood alcohol level was above 0.05.

The Mexican place was pretty good, although we don't know how the margaritas tasted.

So the 6 of us headed over, while the rest went back to the hotel. Lily is afraid of heights, and won’t do the ropes courses that we do at Adventure Guides, so the fact that she was signed up for this was a bit surprising. Meanwhile, Jess is also very afraid of heights, and was the most visibility nervous as we got closer and closer to the time to leave for the climb. I found this strange since she is a pilot and is often is much higher in the air than this, but she maintains that it is a different type of height.

We got to the place and they had a wall of famous people who climbed the bridge, so we were about to join the ranks of people such as Hugh Jackman, the Modern Family cast, Oprah Winfrey and Cookie Monster.

They had us go into a room for a briefing on what we were going to do. We couldn’t take cameras or any loose articles with us. Keira read somewhere that it was because of “National Security”, which might have a bit of truth to it, but I assume its because otherwise all sorts of things would be dropped on pedestrians and cars. They would let you take up hats and sunglasses, but they had to be affixed to the jump suit that they made us wear which has a few hooks on it.

Then they had us take breathalyzers - I’ve never done this before, and we all weren’t sure if they were going to actually make us do it or if it was just something they say to scare us into not drinking. But it was real

Hopefully the last time Keira is asked to do a breathalyzer test.

As we got into our harnesses, all of a sudden Jess said something and then left. After a minute or two I turned to Nate to see where she went and he hadn't noticed she left. We were wondering where she went and if she just decided that she wasn’t going to climb, but we figured that if that was true, she would have been more obvious in leaving. Then the person who was standing next to her said Jess needed to get sneakers - they had sneakers you could borrow.. We all got into harnesses and then practiced going up and down ladders and while in the harness. Jess still hadn’t come back but one of the women who worked there came by and said to our guide that she needed socks. But I was a bit worried because I figured that the person who was most scared of heights probably wanted the full safety briefing.

I felt like we were dressed to go to space, rather than the top of a bridge.

The training was generally pretty straightforward, but there were a number of places where the cord you were strapped into was held in place against the wall, and the hook on your harness sometimes got caught, and you just had to work it out for a second to keep going. After about half the group had gone up, Jess arrived and another instructor walked her through the briefing while the rest of practiced and then she got to practice.

I’ve mentioned a number of times that we weren’t sure if we could physically do the bridge climb, it was 1,300 steps and 135 meters high - so that was more Megan’s and my concern. But we started off - my daughters didn’t want to go in the front of our group, so I went first, then Megan, then Lily and Keira and Nate and Jess.

The first portion was largely a catwalk, walking underneath the bridge about 50 feet up, but still over land. Then we walked up a couple of flights of stairs and down another catwalk. It was a pretty cool, and we got a decent view of the Sydney Opera house. Then came the ladders - it was about 4-5 flights of stairs in ladder form, so it wasn’t too bad. Then we walked though some flat parts. All the while, the guide would have us stop periodically and point out some building or tell some story about the construction of the bridge.

The view from the top of the bridge was amazing.

We were now on top of the bridge, walking up the arched metal part, but it was a gradual climb and with the guide stopping periodically, it wasn’t really strenuous at all. We weren’t allowed to bring a camera, but the guide took our picture at a few stops so it was all I needed. That said, getting in line for a picture took a little bit of work since we couldn't unhook up there, and I was first, then Megan, Lily, Keira, Nate and Jess, we were a lot more twisted together than we look in that picture.

Great views, and the climb itself wasn't that bad. But the fact that we were still harnessed in meant Jess and Nate were weirdly in the back of this picture.

Lily and Jess were doing well - a bit scared but no panic attacks. The area you stood on felt more solid and was a few feet away from the very edge of the bridge so you didn’t quite feel like you would fall off.

For me, the view was amazing. I have to admit that I’ve seen the Sydney Opera House a few times in person (this was my third time in Sydney) and a bunch of times on TV, and always thought it was kind of neat, but not really amazing. But at one point I said to my family that the more I looked at the Opera House on the trip, the more I thought that it was really cool.

There was a more strenuous climb that we could have signed up for that would have been another 30 minutes, but it required going almost all the way across the bridge and then back up again. Our climb was to the top, only going half way across, then moving to the other side of the bridge and back. At the top of the bridge there are two flags - Australia and the Indigenous flag, both about the size of a double decker bus.

Megan and I at the top.

The climb back down wasn’t that bad. Going down always has the potential to be a bit more scary because you have to look down, but you are so focused on making sure that your feet are on the steps, that you don’t have time to look anywhere else. The only thing that was different was that we descended in between some rail road tracks (the bridge has 6 lanes of traffic, 2 rail road tracks and a pedestrian walkway). The view on the other side of the bridge isn’t as pretty, so we moved back along that side a bit more quickly.

Another picture on the way down.

When we were done, we all agreed that it wasn’t that bad - either from a height perspective or from a strenuous perspective. That said, when our guide said that we burned 700 calories, that seemed like a perfect excuse to get some gelato. When we were done it was 11pm, but a nearby gelato place was still open and we got some before heading back. Unfortunately, it was 11:30 when we got back and we still hadn’t packed. We wanted to be out of the room by 6:30am, so we all got less than 5 hours of sleep.

Day 120

I had just reached platinum status on Marriott, so I wanted to get the free breakfast, and we went down and grabbed some quick food, with the plan to get the Uber at 7. Unfortunately, it took a little while, and although we ordered an Uber XL, there was clearly no way it could seat us and our luggage. Luckily, Jess and Nate were headed to the airport at the same time (we were all going to Uluru, but just planned to meet at the airport, so it was just happenstance), and we threw a couple of people into their car. So I guess the wait worked out in the end.

We got to the airport with plenty of time to spare, and had to self check our bags which was annoying, but we did it. When we boarded, we had seats at the back of the plane, which is often the bumpiest, which put Megan into a bad mood.

The flight was largely uneventful, but there was turbulence at the end. At this point, I remembered a flight 21 years earlier into the Outback, a flight that I believe is the origin story to Megan not liking flying (she maintains that it was actually a flight about 3 years later to San Fran, but after this flight, I noticed she was a little more wary, but I guess she would know better than me). But that flight stuck out to me because it was VERY bumpy on our decent, and then all of a sudden the overhead music comes on, which was weird because that wasn't supposed to happen, and “Bright Lights” by Matchbox 20 came on. And it came on mid-song, maybe they were playing music as we boarded and then it picked up where it left off. But relatively soon after the song came on, it got to the point where Rob Thomas sang/yelled “For god’s sakes turn around!” which seemed like a pretty ill omen to me. Spoiler alert, we landed safely on that flight 21 years ago.

This flight’s turbulence was much more muted, but still probably more than Megan wanted. But we landed safely and got our bags. I rented a car for our stay, since we weren’t sure if we were going to want to see the sunrise at Uluru or something and this was my first time driving on the left side of the road. It was definitely disconcerting sitting on the right side of the care while driving and the gear shift being to my left. Then the blinker and windshield wiper where reversed from where I expected, so the first several turns, I ended up putting on the windshield wipers. I said to Megan that its a good thing I’m practicing out in the Outback, where there are no other cars, because I’m going to be driving on the left for the next 60 days.

We got to the hotel without much trouble (and our windshield was extra clean), and then we got some lunch with Jess and Nate. Everyone was pretty tired, so the girls just wanted to go back to their rooms, Elenna had homework to do, and I decided to do some laundry. This hotel is all “cashless” but then it said that the laundry was coin operated. Jess and I went to scope it out, and it turns out that the laundry was actually free - but there were only 2 washers and 2 dryers for the whole resort. So I grabbed some quick laundry from everyone and put a load in. Then went back and grabbed a second round of clothes for another load and then sat in the laundry room to stake out the washer for my second load.

There was a couple doing laundry in the room, and then one of them points out a giant spider on the wall. So I make sure that the backpack I was carrying is completely zipped up and then I would look back and forth between my computer and the wall to keep an eye on the spider. Australia has all sorts of poisonous spiders and snakes and such, so I didn’t want to have anything that big sneak up on me. He was about two inches long and 3 inches wide if you measured him by his legs.

This guy added a level of excitement to doing the laundry that I'm not accustomed to.

So I moved my chair so I could follow him as he moved along the wall. There were two smaller spiders next to him, and every once in a while a smaller spider would move towards it and then it would scamper away. Then he camped out above the door and I wondered if I would be able to leave the room. People would come in and out and I would feel bad that I couldn’t really warn them about the spider until they had walked right under it or by it.

This guy didn't seem to want me to leave.

Eventually a worker came in and I pointed out the spider to him and he said the giant spider isn’t a problem but there were two smaller spiders “redbacks” that he was more worried about (one of these is the one that the huntsman kept running away from). So he sprayed those and didn’t spray the huntsman, because he said it would eat a bunch of other bugs. Then he told me to google this, which would make me more comfortable about the huntsman and how it wouldn’t hurt me: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RwJe8KfPCEQ

I am actually writing this post right now with one eye on the huntsman, because its still freaky and one eye on the redbacks. One clearly died and the other one looks like it likely has died as well. I made sure that my backpack was zipped up tight and when the laundry came out of the dryer, I didn’t fold it there, I just took the clothes back to the room to fold. I later googled the redback spider, and the little spiders didn’t look quite like that, so I’m not sure if they really were the bad spider, unless they were babies. But the fact that the much larger spider ran away from them, is probably a sign that I should stay away.

After doing two loads of laundry I went back to the room and did a little reading. Then we met up with the kids who were playing cards in the lobby. I was talking to Jess who noted that Nate would generally also prefer to be in the hotel room, which made me feel a bit better about our kids (that they weren’t any worse than normal). We went to dinner and Liam fell asleep, so Lily and I took turns carrying him home.

DAY 121

In case you missed it, I added a flight movie to Uluru up at the top of the page.

The temperature at Uluru was set to go up to 103 degrees, so we planned to go to the rock early in the morning, which worked well because there was a free tour at 8am. After a buffet breakfast, we drove over. I did a much better job on the drive there - only putting on the windshield wiper once when I meant to put on the blinker.

We got to the parking lot about 15 minutes early and it was already starting to get hot. The sun was rising behind the rock, causing the shadow to move pretty quickly. The guide came up and gave a bit of an introduction, and I was already looking forward to the part where we would be walking in the shade.

We got to tour around Uluru.

It was interesting because as you drive to Uluru it looks pretty small, but then the closer you get the bigger it gets and its pretty impressive. It is actually the largest monolith (single rock) in the world, and goes down underground a couple of kilometers in addition to what you can see.

You can no longer climb Uluru, so this was mostly about walking around it and seeing it.We got to see a number of cave drawings on the walls. The guide told us a bunch of stories, basically about how people suck - how people would climb Uluru and then leave garbage up there, or go to the bathroom up there, and then eventually it would rain and all the junk up there would run down the rock and poison the watering holes. Or how people would walk into the caves, where there were cave drawings that were 5,000 years old, and then add their own graffiti to it. Even guides decades ago would throw water on the cave drawings, because it made it easier for the tour groups to see them, but slowing eroding them. This is why we can’t have nice things.

Liam gave the cave drawings two thumbs up.

We also heard some stories about how great spirits came to world and formed the world (made the rivers, knocked over trees, formed the mountains). There was also a story of the Mala people who were performing a ceremony on top of Uluru but then were invited to join another tribe’s ceremony. You can’t stop a ceremony once it starts, so they declined, but the other tribe took offense and summoned a spirit who attacked the Malas, killing some, but forcing the rest to flee.

Uluru was beautiful, but sometimes hard to capture in pictures.

After the tour, which was about ⅓ the way around Uluru, we drove around the rest of it. The kids were tired and would have been happy to go home, but there was a sign to see a watering hole, and the guide had said we should check it out, so we did. Our kids would have stayed in the car, saying it was too far to walk (was a 6 minute walk) but I told them that they would never be closer to it than they are now. So we went over.

We walked a few minutes to get to the watering hole, but I agreed to carry Liam there.

I have to say that it wasn’t that impressive, and the heat was now over 90 degrees. But we did get to see a watering hole that was right at the side of the rock, and there was still water trickling down into it. Uluru is in a desert, but there is a period where it rains and the vegetation was actually pretty lush, much more so than I remember it being when Megan and I were there 21 years ago.

Interesting to see water there when there wasn't any water anywhere around, but probably not worth the stop.

We went back to the car and then went to the visitor center. It was somewhat underwhelming and we moved on, going back to the hotel for lunch. At this point, I was falling asleep, so Liam and I went on a Pokemon walk, went to the post office to send some postcards and then went back to the room where I took a nap. Then we went to the lobby and played “President” until the bus arrived to take us on a tour.

We were going back to Uluru to see the sunset and then to see a light show. They had some tasty rum/gin/apple juice drink and then passed hors d'oeuvres. I ate everything just to try it, but the vegetarian stuff wasn’t great. Then they brought out a cucumber with gin and some ants on it. Obviously, I had to try that. You couldn’t really taste the ants or the gin.

Liam wasn't as impressed by how cool the sky looked as we were.

Then we sat down on the stage seats and were given bags with our food it in. The kids meals came with echidna puppets which they liked.

Not only did we see a light show, but we saw an echidna puppet show as well.

Meanwhile, the adult meals came with some kangaroo and emu meat, which I tried but wasn’t terribly impressed with because it was cold - more like cold cuts, or cured meat. Then for dessert, they had a key lime kind of thing, and in the green layer on top they had ants again. That tasted pretty good.

A close up of the appetizer cucumber with ants on top.

Then the light show started, and it told the story of the Mala people that I mentioned before (which is why I mentioned it before). It didn’t do quite as good a job as the guide did of telling the story, but the special effects were neat. The performance cost a bit of money, and we couldn’t decide if it was worth it or not, but since it was a pretty neat experience, we decided to ignore that and focus on the fun night.

Day 122

Everyone was a bit tired so we decided to sleep in, then get some breakfast and watch “Red Dog” which was playing at the hotel at 10am. We walked over and it was already brutally hot. We got there just as the movie was starting. It was a story about a dog that was adopted by a mining community in Western Australia, who brings the people together and when its owner dies, it travels around Northwestern Australia looking for him and becomes famous in the process. He returns to the community in the end and everyone reminisces about how Red Dog changed their lives. Its a sweet movie and there is a spoiler alert, in case you want to watch it. No really, just skip to the next paragraph if you don’t want to know. Ok, I warned you, here it is. He dies in the end of the movie - its based on a true story from the 1970s, so we should have assumed he would die but Liam was bawling when it happened. Keira pointed out later that 90% of dog movies, the dog dies in the end, so we probably shouldn’t have brought Liam.

After the movie we stopped at a local art gallery that was attached to our hotel complex. Maybe a word on the hotel complex - it was actually 4 different hotels, ranging from tents/campers to a motel/hotel place (where we were). They were all connected and we would walk from one to another to go to a restaurant. But in their center, there was a grocery store, post office, small theater, and small art gallery. The art work was all done by indigenous people and was pretty interesting. I kind of wish I had won the lottery and could buy things along the way and ship them home, it would have been nice to have a few pieces of artwork from our travels.

After that, we went back to the hotel and I did a couple more loads of laundry - you never know when you will be able to do laundry and since this was free, it made sense to go when there wasn’t much going on. My friend was there, but I think he was dead.

Laundry is always a little interesting in Australia.

The kids wrote some postcards and then went to the post office then everyone met up at the pool. By now, it was stifling hot and the pool offered a little bit of respite, but shade was at a premium. Luckily, the laundry area was air conditioned, so it wasn’t too bad.

I went to see everyone at the pool, and Megan asked where Liam’s Bluey water bottle was. We had already lost his Bluey water bottle once - in the airport or on a plane, we aren’t sure, and Jess brought a new one to him in Sydney. So we had this bottle for a total of 7 days and now we couldn’t find it. So Liam and retraced our steps back to the theater, since that was the last place that we remembered seeing it.

The pool was necessary in the 105 degree weather.

I mentioned that the resort is a sprawling area, and the theater is at the other end of the resort, and now it was 104 degrees. But if you hand Liam a phone and let him play Pokemon Go, he will barely register the world surrounding him. A different movie was now playing in the theater, so I checked the back two rows, where we were sitting, but I couldn’t check more because there were a couple of people watching the movie. So I knocked on the projectionist door and asked if he saw the water bottle, but he hadn’t, but said he would check again in 40 minutes when the movies was over. Then we went to the gallery and they hadn’t seen it.

At least we weren't walking around in the 107 degree weather.

So we went to the check in counter for that side of the resort, and they hadn’t seen it. So we walked back across the resort to our hotel and the dining area where we had breakfast. No luck there or at our check in desk. So we walked back to the theater, and the movie was over and we looked all around the theater and the projectionist also had looked, but to no avail. So we went back to the girl’s room and looked around and still no luck, so at this point, it seemed lost.

I gave Liam a shower, and took one myself after walking nearly 2 miles in 104 degree weather, then we went to dinner. It was a buffet, which is my kids' favorite - especially because it had a desert bar with a chocolate fountain. I asked again about the water bottle, but no luck.

We decided that the next morning we would get up and see the sunrise - which was at 6am, so we planned to leave at 5:10. We let Elenna stay back with Liam and sleep, but since the rest of us had to get up early, we went back to our rooms to go to bed. Keira and Nate went out for a drink first, enjoying the 18 year old drinking age.

Day 123

Today we were going to our next destination, so if you didn't notice at the top of the page, I added a new flight map.

We got up at 5, and were at the lobby at 5:15, and as we exited the hotel, we noticed that the sun was already lighting the sky somewhat. This is something that we always forget - that the weather apps tell you when the sun goes above the horizon, but the sky starts to light up about an hour before (kind of like how the sky is often more pretty 30 minutes after the sun has actually set than it is when it crosses the horizon). So we drove to the viewing area which was about 30 minutes away, in part because there were twisting roads, rather than a direct shot to the viewing area. The design of the roadway was a bit circuitous, but it was mostly a giant ring around Uluru, making it difficult to get lost, but not the best for speed.

The light was already coming up and everyone except me got a decent look at the sky. In the movie we had seen the day before, someone gets into an accident hitting a kangaroo in the street - Megan had read that we shouldn’t drive from Perth to Busselton at night because the kangaroo jump into the highway and are attracted to the lights - kind of like deer in the US. So I was paying attention to the road - luckily there were no animals to be seen.

We got to the viewing platform at about 5:45, but it was already quite light out. The sunrise did look beautiful, but the sunrise viewing area appeared to be set up to watch how the rising sun lights up Uluru, rather than to see the sunset rise behind Uluru. So it was a little weird situation where you had to look at the sunrise, then turn around to look at Uluru, and keep turning back and forth. So this is what Uluru looked like at 5:45, about 15 minutes BEFORE "sunrise".

Liam and Elenna missed a good sunrise. But I'm not sure that they really minded.

But if you turn around, then this was the sunrise behind us.

It almost was like night and day - how well lit Uluru was vs the horizon where the sun was rising.

After a few pictures, we drove back to the hotel and went to sleep again.

Our last picture of us with Uluru.

We got up and went to breakfast, they still hadn’t found the water bottle, and then said our goodbyes to Jess and Nate, who were flying back to Sydney to meet up with Rafael, their husband/dad respectively. It has been great having other people to talk to for the past 10 days, and anyone reading this should meet up with us somewhere in the future.

We went back to the room to finish packing and then Megan found the water bottle in her backpack. So now Robin doesn’t have to bring one to us in New Zealand (at least not yet). Then we loaded up the luggage in the car and went to the post office to mail some post cards, but it was closed so Keira couldn’t send hers.

We had a little time to kill, so we stopped at a camel farm. It was decorated like the wild west, and I assume Australia had its own wild west period out there.

The Australian wild west. Or wild midwest.

There was no one working there, so we walked up to the pens holding goats, camels, kangaroos, and cows. However, it was 104 degrees, and we quickly lost our enthusiasm, and went back to the car.

We had the farm to ourselves.

We returned the rental car and got to the airport 2 hours and 10 minutes before the flight. But the ticket counter wasn’t open, so we stood there for about 30 minutes before someone came and loaded the bags. This flight had an option to bid for an upgrade, and it was a 3 hour flight to Melbourne, then a 1 hour flight to Launceston, Tasmania, so I bid on the 3 hour portion, with the lowest bid that they would permit. We won the upgrade. The only rub was that Keira was not on our reservation because she had a friend who was from Australia (Raf, who was an exchange student at Kinnelon for a semester and was in the play Puffs with her). So she was getting off at Melbourne for a couple of days, and then meeting us in Tasmania. So she had to sit in economy.

We started to board, and Keira wanted to go through the bag check process on her own, so she stood in the economy bag check, while we went through the priority lane. She joined up with us without a problem about 15 minutes after we got through.

We boarded the plane, and the business class seats were generally larger than normal seats, but nothing too fancy. But it was nice to have space and the drinks/snacks. The biggest perk of the upgrade was one that Megan found when she googled it, which was that Virgin Australia let you use the business lounge when you landed (most only let you use it when you take off. We tried to get into a lounge on this trip after we landed with Air Oman, but it didn’t work). This came in handy since we weren't business class on the second leg. So we said goodbye to Keira and then went to the lounge for the three hours until our next flight. Keira called me asking what baggage carousel the bags would be at, and I told her it should be in the app, and since I was checking into the lounge, so I asked the woman there, and she said that there would be a screen showing the flights at each carousel. Keira said, “OK.” but with little confidence, but I assume that she got her bag because we didn’t get any more calls from her, and her phone tracked into Melbourne.

The lounge was ok. Food wasn’t great, but it was free. The highlight for Elenna (and me, if I’m honest) was that they had a bowl of Doritos. As we were leaving Uluru, we kind of realized that we didn’t have anything planned for Tasmania, so while we waited we did some googling of things to do and sketched out a plan.

We went to our gate and I realized that I didn’t know the boarding process for Virgin Australia flights - they seemed to have premium boarding (which we did last time since we had business class) and then just one area for economy (most airlines call you up by zone, so it isn't a mad rush for the gate). So I went up and asked, and sure enough, there was just going to be a big mess of people trying to board at the same time after the premium line boarded. This was a bit worrisome since we had the stroller, and we had some other things that we wanted to get into the overhead. As I looked at the tickets on my phone, they weren’t red the way that they were when I first downloaded the first flight, before I won the upgrade, and my family's tickets were purple (the color of the priority lane, and the color they were when they were business class) and my ticket was dark gray. But there wasn't any other indication in the app that we were priority. So I went to the gate again, and asked how we would know if we were premium (the airline is a partner to United, so there was a chance the status would transfer), and they looked at my ticket and said I was platinum, but my seats weren’t, so they upgraded us to the “economy plus” section - a little bit bigger seats, but not quite business class and no stewardess service, but row 5 instead of row 17. And we got to board right away, making it easy to put our bags up and quick to leave when we landed.

The Launceston airport was small, and as we waited for our bags, I walked outside to see the taxi stand and there were only a couple of cars. We had rented a car for our stay in Tasmania, but since we were landing so late, I was going to have to go back to the airport in the morning to pick it up and we needed to taxi/Uber to the apartment we rented. By the time we got our bags, the taxis were taken, so we got two Ubers to bring us.

Since it was an apartment complex, there was just a digital code to get into the building and the apartment. The rooms were pretty bare and a little worn. It was all a little sketchy, but we were assuming it would look better in the daylight.

DAY 124

I got up at 10am to go rent a car. I rented an Uber to take me back to the airport. Unfortunately, our apartment had a limited amount of parking and we weren’t able to get a spot, so I asked the driver about parking and there was a public parking spot next door that we could use.

The airport was small, so it was pretty easy to get the car. The issue was that this was the first time I had driven on city streets on the left side of the street, and there was no one in the car to remind me to stay on the left. I had done well at Uluru, but there was one time when I pulled into a parking lot and Keira told me I was on the wrong side of the street from the back of the car before Megan or I noticed. So I was a little on edge but didn’t have any issues. The “city” was pretty small (population of 77,000) and there wasn’t much traffic. It also seemed a little run down, not quite sketchy, but not entirely clean either. So it looked a little better in the day light, but not fully.

I took a shower and then we went out to a planetarium at the Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery. Megan made fun of me when we were on the top of the Sydney Harbor Bridge and I asked the Australians in front of us what the stars were. The stars looked to me like Orion, but I didn’t think we could see it from the Southern Hemisphere. They had no idea, guessing the Southern Cross, which was also my guess, but it didn’t seem quite right. And I suppose that if they asked me about a constellation in the US, odds are I wouldn’t know. So, when we saw the planetarium on a list of things to do for kids, the biggest kid in our group thought it was a good idea; particularly because it was part of a broader museum.

We got there a bit before the movie was to start, so we went to a book exhibit which had a room where kids could color in pictures and then put them on the walls.

I loved these chairs. I think we need some for our house, if we ever get a black and white room.

We went over and watched a movie at the Planetarium about black holes. It was pretty interesting actually - I think that as a kid, the idea of a hole that sucked in everything and you couldn’t escape from was pretty cool, but I never really tried to learn more about it. Did you know that there are an estimated 12 million black holes out there? And that there is one at the center of our universe? Neither did I.

No photos in the planetarium, but this is the next best thing.

After the movie, they showed us the night sky on the ceiling of the planetarium and it turns out that what looked to my like Orion, might actually have been Orion (they can see Orion during our Winter months). Then they showed the Southern Cross, which I couldn’t see very well because the projector was in the middle of the screen and it blocked my view, but I think that I can find it. The problem is that we are so far south that sunset happens around 9pm at night, so I might not get a chance for a while to look.

They asked if anyone had any questions and Liam asked 3 questions (all pretty good - What about solar eclipses? Does the Sun revolve around something (it does - the black hole in the middle of the universe)? How was the moon created (a planet crashed into the earth, and some of the debris bounced up into the air)? Then we had to stop him from asking questions so everyone could leave. When we left he asked the guy another question on the way out (How were all the planets formed? - Gravity.)

Liam cornered the astronomer because he had more questions after the planetarium.

After that, we went to the train section of the museum, which showed how trains were a big part of the early economy in Tasmania, helping carry the timber to the ports. Roads didn’t fully connect the island as late as the 1960s, so trains would carry cars from one side of the island to the other.

Liam will always be excited to see a train.

There was a little play area with blocks and train tracks, and I couldn’t turn Liam down when he asked to play train tracks (a favorite pastime at home). Even though there were no trains, we got to build a nice track.

It had been about 4 months since we played train tracks..

Then we walked over to the dinosaur area, but stopped at a playground area on the way with a cool area where you whisper into a giant yellow disk and the sound transfers 25 yards away much louder.

Then we went to the blacksmith area and it looked like an old horror movie set with rusted machinery everywhere. Then we went to the dino area and walked around a bit. Liam wanted to go because his friend Quinnie loved dinosaurs. Then we went back to our hotel.

Lily wanted to rewatch Stranger Things before the new season comes out this summer, so we convinced Elenna to watch it with us until we went out to dinner at a steak place. We chose a steak place in part because we heard Australian beef was good, and in part because Keira wasn’t here so it was a good time to out for steak. Steak was solid, but it was a bit more pub than steak restaurant so we will have to try again I'm sure.

After dinner we stopped at Woolworths, which is a supermarket, to get some food for breakfast. Looked pretty much like an American store, although they called Rice Crispies “Rice Bubbles”. On the way back Megan spotted a Target, and she stopped there, but it was closed. I think that she was going through withdrawal.

We watched another episode of Stranger Things and then Liam and I watched the first Sonic the Hedgehog movie, since I am the only one in the family who would watch it with him. Unfortunately, because we are parking in outside parking garages, I have to get up at 8am tomorrow to feed the meter. We do have to check out at 10am, so probably not the end of the world, but every minute of sleep counts.

DAY 125

Today was a transition day, we were heading to Devonport later in the day, but since we had a car we went over to the Cataract Gorge (cataract means waterfall in Latin, and that is where the gorge got its name). We took a chairlift across the gorge and got a great view of the area.

Chair lift is the best way to travel.

My kids hate time lapse. But as you can see, its great.

If you don't think that was a great video, then imagine if it was 5x longer.

On the other side there was a playground and Liam ran around for a while. There were also peacocks running around the the whole place, including some baby peacocks.

'

Liam made a friend on the stagecoach.

Then we took a walk on a path along the river. The view was beautiful, with the river flowing through the rocks. Some of the local kids were jumping off of the walls into the river, at a place I guess they knew, but l wouldn’t have jumped in from that high. Particularly because there was a public swimming pool nearby.

I love running water. There is something about it. I think I need to live next to water the rest of my life.

Then we walked back and had lunch. You can walk back to the parking lot across a suspension bridge, and Lily and Elenna were afraid it would be a rope-type bridge that would sway too much, and so we bought return tickets on the chairlift for them. But when Liam enjoyed the chairlift so much, when we got to the other side, Lily gave him her ticket. So Elenna and Liam went back on the chairlift while Megan, Lily and I walked back.

The bridge was a suspension bridge, and it did swing a little bit, but Lily got across the river without an issue.

The bridge turned out to be not that scary.

Meanwhile, the line for the chairlift was long, so it was a little while before they got across.

I was a little surprised that they let Elenna and Liam go by themselves (the lap bar restraint was incredibly easy to remove). I'm equally surprised that one of them didn't push the other one overboard.

Liam played on the playground on the other side for a little while and then we got in the car and drove to Devonport. We drove down a one lane highway on an hour’s drive. It was mostly green forest that turned into farmland. We went through a valley and it reminded me a little bit of the farmland we pass through on our way to apple picking.

We got to the bed and breakfast in Devonport and checked in, then watched Stranger Things for a couple more hours. Then we went out to an Italian restaurant for dinner. Supposedly it was the best pizza in Tasmania. And maybe it was, but we are from NJ so...

DAY 126

Keira was going to be flying in today from Melbourne, so we thought we would do a couple of things that she wouldn’t be interested in before she got here. So we went to the Don River Railway Museum. They had a bunch of old railway cars in the yard that we could go out and climb on. They even had one of those circular railroad things, where the train drives on, then it turns the train around so it is facing out instead of in (I had only seen those in the toy train tracks and Thomas episodes).

This is the thing that turns the train around.

Then we went on a short train ride in an old train.

Only thing better than a train you can climb on is a train that you can ride on.

After that we went to the Bass Strait Maritime Museum. We quickly found a sailing simulation game where you had to steer a boat around a harbor and reach certain checkpoints. We played it a number of times and spent most of our allotted time on that before we had to go (I am convinced that you can't reach all of the anchors in the alotted time). We were generally OK with that, but I wish I had a little more time to look at some of the exhibits. It seemed like Tasmania was “discovered” around 1798.

Not quite the "captain" I was looking for, but it was great time.

Then we went to pick up Keira from the airport, and she got there safe and sound. And we were very surprised that my mom didn’t text us about why Keira wasn’t with us for the past three days, given that she usually stalks us on Find My Friends.

Then we went to a chocolate factory to have some lunch - most of us got waffles and chocolate with ice cream, as well as either a white chocolate milkshake or a hot chocolate. There was a little viewing area where you can watch them actually make the chocolate. Liam’s favorite part was the playground that was attached to it.

Liam is always up for a photo.

Then we went back to the room. Keira wasn’t feeling well, so the girls all just stayed in the room while Liam and I walked around the city hunting Pokemon. We came back at dinner time, but Keira still wasn’t feeling well (no fever, just a cold) and so the 5 of us went out to dinner. We ate at a bar, and were in a big, but private room with a large group celebrating a birthday party (there were maybe 2 other tables in there that weren’t with the party). We all sang Happy Birthday, and afterwards, they gave us some cake.

We had heard that there was a light show every night at 8:30, 9, 9:30 and 10, so we walked over to the area to see the 9pm show. On the way there we saw some trains in motion.

Doesn't get any better than trains.

However, sundown was so late, that it was still pretty light, and we probably only about 80% of it was visible. It was mostly within a dome and it started with an aboriginal creation story and some lights, then played music and videos along the columns (so that the screens were about 8 inches wide, but 8 feet tall, so you saw slices of a picture). There was a kid in a wheel chair across the rotunda from us and the mom started racing him around, so then Liam took that cue and he started racing around and dancing.

Liam loves running in circles and dancing. And after that, he loves saying that he is tired and asking you to carry him home.

After that, Megan and I went to the store to get some gatorade for Keira (who is always on the verge of dehydration, especially when she is sick and taking medicine), while the other three walked home. It was about a 10-15 minute walk at 9:30 at night but we felt like they were perfectly safe to do that. And they were.

DAY 127

Today we went to the Village of Lower Crackpot. When Megan first suggested we go there, I thought that it was just one of those Australian words that don’t mean what it means in the US. But it was actually an area that held “Tasmazia” the largest area of mazes in the world. Beyond that, I didn’t really know what to expect.

But we went inside and there was an area that had all the embassies of the world. There was a little building representing each country in the world and it was decorated to match it. It basically wasn’t PC - some were funny - like an area that had a bunch of poles for Poland. But some were borderline racist. They type of thing that would have just been totally acceptable years ago. In fact, there was one area that said it was the grave of political correctness - so I guess they realized who they were. And with a name like Lower Crackpot, we should have known too.

The US was next Mexico, complete with Trump's wall. Also, notice that the Statue of Liberty had air buds.

But if you walked through with a good attitude and didn’t take it too seriously, it was pretty fun. Every once in a while, you would run into something that shouldn’t have been there - like in the “follow the yellow brick road” kids maze, one of the buildings was a “Scandal House”, which appears to be Australian for whorehouse.

I didn't take a picture of Liam next to the Scandal House. I figured it would come back to haunt him if he had his trademark "two thumbs up sign" next to a Scandal House.

As advertised, there were a lot of mazes, which our kids have a love of, every since we started doing corn mazes as part of our annual apple picking trips. Hedge mazes, balance mazes, fence mazes, etc.

There were a bunch of different types of mazes, all of which were fun.

The best maze was the largest one, which had little areas within it - like the corrections area with stocks, a rack, a guillotine, and some nooses that someone was smart enough to cut the nose part off of. Not quite kid friendly, but a good way to deal with kids who misbehave. Or the little town area with the three little pigs, but also a haunted house.

You have to behave yourself at Tazmazia.

Throughout the maze were a bunch of signs with puns and jokes on them and as a dad, I thought they were great.

One of the few things that Liam doesn't give 2 thumbs up to.

Outside the maze, there was also a little play area that Liam really enjoyed.

The kids area was fun, but it could be dangerous.

We spent about 3-4 hours there walking around and the kids wanted a break before dinner, but we had passed a brewery for Spreytons Cider on the way there, and Megan had had some hard cider the night before from there, so we stopped there on the way back. Megan and Keira tried a tasting of 6 different ciders (then they got a free glass of their favorite for free) while the kids did a tasting of 4 different non-alcoholic ciders. There was a playground there, and Liam played there for a while, but since most of the equipment there were swings, he needed me over there to push him.

Its always genius when there is drinking and playgrounds combined.

It was a beautiful day, and Megan and Keira could have stayed there all day (but they were drinking and not on the playground), so we went back to the rooms. Liam and I walked around and did some Pokemon hunting as I wanted to go to a store and get a new screen protector.

Then we went to dinner at a place about 15 minutes away. From there we drove to a penguin viewing area. At dusk, the penguins would come out of the ocean and then walk onto land to their nests during mating season (which it was). The thing is that sundown is around 9pm, so we got there around 8:40, and there weren’t many parking spots left. However, the sign on the gate said that the day prior, the first penguin came out at 9:40, and they saw 91 penguins that night.

We went to the viewing platform and the areas near the water were largely taken, so we set up by a side of the platform that looked promising. There were already some penguins standing around near the platform who either never went swimming that day, or were the babies that were waiting for their parents to come home and feed them. At this point in the season, the babies were about as big as the parents.

There were 3 guides there who had red flashlights that they would use to search the beach for penguins to come on shore. The cool thing about doing this is that you see the penguins in the wild, in their natural habitat. The problem with doing this is that there are no guarantees you see any penguins. So we waited the hour, and around 9:40 there were 1 or two penguins that came up to shore, usually far away from the deck.

The red lights were kind of good to highlight the penguins, but it also kind of made it hard to take pictures of them.

Slowly people started to leave, as 1 or 2 more would come up. This thinned out the viewing area, and we got a better view. Over the next 30 minutes probably 10 more came up in 1s and 2s. So it wasn’t quite the wave of penguins that I remember seeing when Megan and I did this in Australia 21 years ago, but it is always neat to see penguins.

So around 10:30 or so we went home and then went to bed.

DAY 128

We ate breakfast and handed some laundry over to the inn keeper (who had been doing a few loads of laundry for us while we there for free. This was great, although it seemed that he used the sensor drying mode, because half of the clothes came back a little damp. Or he didn’t want to do the laundry for us, so he purposefully took it out early. He was soooo nice that it was probably the former, but if I were him, it would have been the latter.)

Then we drove to the Cradle Mountain to do some hiking. It was about an hour and 15 minutes away, along narrow winding roads, often on the side of mountains. Megan already thought that I was driving too close to the left side of the road as it was (but if you don't like the way I drive, then stay off the sidewalk!), so she was on edge the whole ride.

We got there and went to a Tasmanian Devil encounter. We were a little early and walked around the zoo and saw some Tasmanian Devils as well as some quolls. First off, the Tasmanian Devils don’t look anything like the Looney Tunes character, and they don’t move in a whirlwind. But they are relatively fierce, and their jaws are the strongest in the world relative to their size. Although they only grow to be 8-10 kilos, they can take down animals 3x their weight, including a kangaroo.

But we were seeing baby ones and got to pet them. The handler had her finger in their mouths to avoid us being bit, and we all got to pet them.

He doesn't look too ferocious, does he?

At first Liam was scared to pet them. But we were standing in a horseshoe shape with the kids on one side and Megan and I on the other, and by the end, Liam would stand with the kids to pet them as the animal came by, and then come over to us and do it again.

Once again, our daughters weren’t too excited to encounter any animals. But they did an ok job faking it with the camera rolling.

After that, we went over the hiking trails. The inn keeper said that the trail is marked 2 hours, but usually it takes people 3 hours - it was 6 kilometers long with some steps. He gave us some good advice to walk counter clockwise around, since the directions say to walk clockwise. He said that it saved some steps (you kind of have to climb the same height no matter which direction, but I guess this direction was more about gradual climbs than actual steps), but the real benefit, in my view, is that you didn’t get stuck behind a slow group or feel pressured by a fast group behind you. The one issue is that you passed other groups going the right way, so you probably annoyed them a lot, but it was clearly the better way to go.

It was a picturesque place to do a hike.

My favorite part of the hike was when we went through a forest area around the lake. In part because it was shaded and flat, but it kind of reminded me of the forest moon of Endor. It also reminded me of the hikes we did around Acadia National Park.

Australia is full of strange animals, but no Ewoks were to be found.

Our kids didn’t complain about the hike directly, but clearly wanted to do it as quickly as possible to get it over with. So every once in a while Liam wanted to stop (more so because it thought it was fun to sit on a bench rather than because he was actually tired), and the girls kept moving him along. So it turned into more of a forced march and less of an enjoyment of nature that maybe it should have been. But we did the round in 1 hour and 52 minutes so I guess there was that. Liam had no problem doing the hike, going up the stairs like a pro, and he didn’t stop talking the whole time.

After the hike we drove home (along the same narrow windy roads) and had a little time to decompress before dinner.

Day 130

We left Devonport around 10am, giving us time to stop at a creamery at 11 when it opened and still get to the airport on time. Apparently, Tasmania was doing a cross the island tour of food and drinks with about 30 stops, and we randomly stopped at 3 of them (so I guess we did a pretty good job of seeing the sights given that we weren't touring the whole island, and weren't even trying to see these sights). We got to the airport and started the first leg of the trip.

With 6 people (four kids) and all of our bags, we tried to fly direct whenever possible, but we couldn’t fly to Perth directly, so we had to stop in Adelaide before moving on. There was a 2 hour break where we ate McDonalds (they say that you make bad choices when you are tired and hungry, but we were still able to decide to eat at McDonalds, so we must be above average people at making decisions). After a brief period where Lily couldn’t find her pocket book and airpods (someone found them and gave them to a desk), we got on the second flight.

My United status let us board early, but there were no upgrades, and as we walked through the business class cabin, Liam complained, “Why don’t we always fly business class?” which made one of the women sitting in business class laugh our loud.

There was a bit of excitement on this flight as a woman was sitting with a baby in her lap and her young son (maybe 5 or 6). The son was screaming at the mom and making a scene for about 1/3 of the flight. They were sitting next to a woman, who at one point offered to hold the baby to give the mom a break, but then the mom went off, yelling that the woman was trying to steal her baby. Then while the plane was landing, the woman was standing in the aisle, holding her baby, despite the flight attendant repeatedly telling her to sit down. When we landed, they wouldn’t let us off the plane right away, and then when they did, we realized that the delay was that they had called security in to deal with the woman. We didn't wait to see how it ended, we got our bags and then went to the hotel. We were all exhausted, and decided to sleep in and go out to lunch at noon.

I knew that I wouldn’t be able to last until noon to eat food, and Liam would almost certainly get up earlier, so he and I went downstairs a little before 10 to eat breakfast. Then we hunted some Pokemon before coming back up and getting ready to go to lunch. We didn’t have anything planned, so I decided we should go bowling since we told Elenna we would in Launceston (but didn’t) and then in Devonport (and didn’t). I found a pizza place with good reviews on the way there (pizza was great).

Bowling is something that should be easier than it is and every time I bowl, I think of myself as someone who should bowl a 120 and never bowl below 100. But for the last 15 years or so, I haven’t bowled much but I usually flirt with that 100 low bar. Luckily, I beat 100 both time (101 in game 1). No one bowled well, but it was a good time.

Keira had more success than most (and celebrated more), but I was the only one to crack 100.

Meanwhile, Liam had his own unique way of bowling. For him, we had bumpers set up, and a ramp that he could push the ball down. But he found that it didn't go very fast if he just pushed the ball.

Its not clear that the running start helped, but it was cute.

There was also an arcade next to it, and they gave us $50 of arcade tickets as part of the bowling, so we did that for a little while. We won enough tickets to buy a little bit of candy for everyone. There was a brief concern when Elenna lost her phone, but it was brought to the front desk, so all's well that ends well.

Elena and Keira participated in a dance revolution, while Lily and I saved the world from space invaders.

Then I took Lily and Elenna to the Apple Store. Lily’s computer was having issues with the track pad, and Elenna bought a stylus to use on her iPad at the Sydney store, but didn't check to see if it was compatible with her iPad, and it turns out that it wasn’t. She was able to get it replaced with one that worked with her iPad ($20 more expensive, but we were surprised they would exchange it all, so that was good). They told Lily that they had to send out the computer to get fixed, and it should take a week, but might take two. We will be back in Perth in 17 days, so hopefully it should be fixed by then. If not, we will have to figure something out with MKA (its actually the school’s computer on loan to her).

We went out to eat at a Mexican place which was very good (liam ate a bowl and half of guacamole), and noticed that there was a rooftop movie theater, so we made plans to go there in a few nights when "The Incredibles" was playing (did I mention that we are Disney people?). We were trying to eat better, so I restrained myself and we didn’t go to the Churro place we passed.

DAY 131

We went to the Caversham Wildlife Park because we read that they let you feed kangaroos and hold koalas. Lily had to stay home and do work, and Keira said that she had encountered enough animals that she wanted to stay home and plan our last month of the trip - Greece. Megan is tired of planning things, so that was the one excuse that she would give in to.

But the other four of us were excited to go, although Elenna, on the cusp of being a teenager, wasn’t excited about about getting up before 10am. We ubered over to the park, bought our tickets and went inside.

We first went to the kangaroo feeding area, which was great. In the US, they would make you pay for the pellets to feed the animals, but here it was all free. There were kangaroos everywhere, so it wasn’t hard to find your own to feed. They were all so cute and gentle, it was a great experience.

You were able to get up close and personal with the kangaroos. They were so gentle.

Then we saw one kangaroo with her joey in her pouch. We walked around a little bit, and when we came back, we saw the joey come out of the pouch and then climb back in. Liam asked if we just saw a kangaroo being born, which it kind of looked like, but a lot less painful for the mom.

A momma kangaroo and her baby. That guy still fit into her pouch!

Then we went over to the farm show. I told Megan that I wasn’t really excited to see farm animals, but she pointed out that it would be a “show” so it could be interesting. And it actually was. They showed how they used dogs to herd the sheep to the pens. Then they sheared a sheep in front of us, which was a little uncomfortable to be honest. You felt bad for the sheep, but it just sat there quietly, while the guy flipped her around and cut off all the wool. It was pretty impressive to shave it off so that it was all just one giant fleece.

I'm not a huge fan of farm animals, but some are cute.

Then they asked for kid volunteers and Liam came up and they gave the three kid volunteers baby bottles of milk, and said it would be a race to see who could finish their bottles first. I was a little bit scared for a second, since Liam isn't a big milk drinker, but then three little lambs came out and they gave the milk to the lambs. It was very cute. Liam was upset because he came in last, but it was a lot of fun. Then they let us pet the sheep and the lambs.

Liam got to feed a baby sheep.

Liam had been complaining that he was hot and wanted us to poor some water on his head, but since we didn’t really have extra water, we kind of ignored him. We had some more time to kill so we went over to the wombat section and got our picture taken with the wombat. I felt a little bad about it, since it was just kind splayed out there in the handler’s lap, but he was very calm, and seemed to be comfortable. We read a little about the wombat, and it said “Some people think I’m grumpy because of the expression on my face. I’m not, but its the only face I have.” So I kind sympathized with him, given my RBF.

I felt kind of bad for the wombat, who was all splayed out like that.

After that, we went over to the koalas and did the koala encounter. They gave us special fleeces to wear while we held the koalas. The handler was wearing a shirt with all sorts of holes in it, that was created by the koalas over the days - nothing aggressive, just them holding onto the person.

Its hard to tell which one of them is cuter.

Koalas were my favorite animal growing up because they just looked like teddy bears, and this one was especially cute. It was really neat to hold one, even knowing that many koalas have chlamydia (we figured that they wouldn’t give contagious koalas to visitors to hold).

We might need a koala as our next pet. If it has had its shots...

After that, we started walking around the zoo, but Liam was complaining about how itchy he was, and he had a rash all around his neck. Given his history with allergies we were a bit on edge. We thought it might be a heat rash, or maybe an allergic reaction to one of the animals, but we weren’t sure. We went to the first aid area, and they gave him something topical, but wouldn’t give him Benadryl or medicine, so we googled a pharmacy 5 minutes away to go to if things got worse. Megan emailed the allergist back home, because Liam is slightly allergic to cats. It was probably one of the weirdest emails the doctor has received - "Our son had an allergic reaction after coming into contact with an animal - he could be allergic to kangaroos, sheep, wombat or koalas. What should we do?" However, given the time zone change, they weren't open.

We decided to just sit down a little and get some cold drinks since that would help it if it was heat stroke, but also, heat makes general rashes worse anyway, so either way, it would be good to cool him down. Slowly the hives went away, and we went back to wandering around to see the animals. Australia has all sorts of weird animals, all of which would be great for scrabble - quolls, quokkas, quendas - but they also have a bilby and a flying fox. I thought that the flying fox was going to look like a flying squirrel, but instead it looked like a vampire bat, but with a slightly cuter face.

There was a playground outside of the wild life center, and Liam wanted to play on it, so we ordered some food and he played for a while. Then we ubered back to the hotel and looked at the planning that Keira did for Greece for a little bit. Then we walked to a bookstore, because our kids have read a lot on their kindles, but haven’t had physical books in their hands and wanted that feeling (I guess we did a good job raising some nerds). The store didn’t sell children’s books, so Liam and walked around hunting Pokemon.

.

DAY 132

We got up and went to the buffet for breakfast, then headed to Rottnest Island. Rottnest is famous for its Quokka - little kangaroo type animals called quokkas that Elenna has been obsessed with.

We boarded the ferry to the island and pretty quickly the sea got rough. As the boat continued to bounce up and down, Liam started to move around and lie down and get back up. I could tell that he wasn’t feeling well, and then someone who worked there came by with barf bags. I took a couple. And about 2 minutes later, Liam started to throw up. He did a great job getting it into the bag and not making a mess or complaining. About 20 minutes later we made it to the island, and over half the family was starting to dread getting back on the boat on the way home.

We rented bikes to bike around the island, and the hope was to see some quokka as we biked around. We tried to rent a trailer for Liam but he was too large, so instead we had a child bike seat that was attached to the main bike, which had its own wheel and pedal, and it was much less stable. The problem was that my knees hurt and as a result, I don’t really like to ride bikes, much less pull trailers. So Megan had to do it (Even though Keira is probably the best at bike riding, none of my kids were willing to do it when I pointed out that they were probably better at riding bikes than us).

We looked pretty athletic in our bike gear.

It took us a little while to figure out where to go, since they give you a map of the island that doesn’t have all of the streets, and they give you 4 different trail options, none of which are marked. But we eventually found our way. I quickly proved that I am not a bike rider, as I struggled to find the right gear to ride in, and went from leading the group, to following it.

Us at one of our many stops.

We went counter the way that they recommend, cutting through the island and then coming back along the beach, figuring that we would find a beach to relax at a little past the halfway point. We also hoped to see some quokka. However, the way we went was a lot of uphill biking and we had to walk our bikes a number of times. Up the steeper hills, I would switch with Megan and walk her bike (and Liam attached) up the hill. I should point out that it was hard for us, but there were plenty of people biking past us as we walked our bikes, so either we are all out of shape (a real possibility) or Australians are in better than average shape (also possible).

Since there were no markings on the map that gave street names, I was navigating us on Google Maps to the light house that was near the trail. Everyone was so focused on just getting up the hill, that no one wanted to stop at the lighthouse, and no one had the energy to look for quokka.

A picturesque lighthouse. But we will never know what it looked like up close.

Eventually, we started biking past the beach and it was beautiful - white sand, clear water and high dunes.

The beaches were beautiful. Clear water, dunes, and rock formations.

We found a place that we wanted to stop (a little over half way along the 8km bike ride) and went down and lay out on the beach. Everyone brought books to read except me, because I often find that I am the one who has to entertain Liam. We played some Pokemon Go for a little while, under the overhang of a rock formation, and then we went for a walk along the shore.

The rock formations added a cool element to the beach.

We ate some snacks that we brought, but we were all a bit hungry (Elenna didn’t even bring water). So when we left for the dock at 3:30, we decided to get some food. We have had some bad experiences with getting served quickly, and we had a ferry to catch, but we tried it anyway. You had to order the food at one location and drinks at another, and they would bring the food to your table. Either the service was faster than normal here, or we were getting better at figuring out how to get seated and served, but the food was good and came out relatively quickly.

One surprise was that we had some guests join us for lunch. We hadn’t really seen any quokkas on our trip until the very end we saw one on the road near a house. But there were 4 of them at the restaurant. One in particular seemed to like Keira (the feeling wasn’t mutual) and it spent a good deal of the time at lunch under our table while we ate.

This guy joined our lunch for most of the time.

I had asked the bartender about them, and she said that they were harmless and you could shoo them away and they won’t bite you, or if they do it won’t hurt.

He was very friendly, but also a little bit too close if you ask me.

But these guys really weren’t scared of humans, so shooing them didn’t work. We more or less had to wait for them to lose interest and go to another table. That said, they were very cute.

Megan found some dramamine in her backpack, so we were more prepared for our boat ride back, and luckily it was much less rocky. We got on the ferry a bit late, so Liam and I sat together, and since my phone was dying after playing so much Pokemon, we played 7 card poker for the entire 45 minute ferry ride.

We Ubered home and got ready for a rooftop movie showing of The Incredibles. Keira and Lily had eaten at an acai place for lunch the day before, so we ordered from there. I’m not a big fan of these things and it was better than normal, but not great (they ran out of bananas, so they just gave Liam and me our bowls without bananas. Liam always says he will eat acai bowls, but never does, and this was no exception, so I was a little worried about him.

We walked over to the theater and went up to the rooftop. We were there about 40 minutes before 8pm, but the place was already packed.

The rooftop seats were very cozy.

We found some bean bag chairs by the back, which were actually some pretty good seats. They had popcorn and a couple types of candy as well as hot food like burgers as well as alcoholic drinks. I bought some mozzarella sticks for Liam since he didn’t eat any dinner and some chicken fingers for me because I don’t believe that fruit is an appropriate dinner.

A pretty cool backdrop for the movie.

They played about 10 minutes of commercials before they started to play the coming attractions. The 8pm movie started at 8:18. The Incredibles is always a good movie, even after seeing it a dozen times. And the ambience with the sky scrapers in the back made it extra special.

Day 133

We slept late, which meant that Liam and I got up around 9:30 to eat breakfast and then hunt Pokemon, while everyone else slept in until about 11. Then we went out to eat lunch at a brewery that Megan had read about.

We don’t really drink beer, outside of the beer olympics, so a brewery is a little bit of a strange decision, but the reviews were good and there was a playground attached to it, and we have increasingly become fans of the restaurant/playground combo.

The spot was right on the water and had a cool nautical feel to it. It was right across the river from a huge packaging/transport hub, so huge shipping containers came down the river, with containers stacked in towers, which hurt the vibe a little, but somehow didn’t ruin it. Like most restaurants we had been going to, you found your own table and used a QR code to order. Then you had to separately go to the bar to order drinks. There was a little snafu, as we went to a table that was partially in the sun, and started an order, then saw a table open up completely in the shade and moved there and started a new order, so we got double of some of the things we ordered. But the food was good, and the drinks were good too, and we overall enjoyed it.

The plan was to go to an online scavenger hunt that was about a 15 minute walk from the brewery, but we decided to let Liam play on the playground for a while. We had warned the girls to bring books so Liam could play (Lily didn’t get the email in time, but was able to read something on her phone), so they read while Megan and I watched Liam plan on the playground.

Apparently you don't need fancy slides and swings to have a playground.

The playground was unlike anything I had ever seen before. Essentially it was a big sandy area with an old abandoned car on it - with all of the windows removed and a couple of the doors. They put in some wood platforms inside the care and some metal platforms on the car, so the kids could climb all over it. It felt like a lawsuit asking to happen, but those types of things are kids’ favorite things to climb on.

Next to that was a large ship, with two floors - it also looked like it could have been an actual ship that was gutted and put there. There was one slide that came off of the ship. That was it, no swings or anything. But there were probably 20 kids swarming the area, and Liam was soooo excited to be there. He was bouncing around and running everywhere and picked up friends along the way. We wondered how long Liam would play there if he could. And we wondered if it was a longer or shorter period than our girls could read books.

We eventually called the girls over to the table we moved to in order to watch Liam and they all said that they wanted to read longer, so Liam ended up being at the playground for slightly over 2 hours before we left. Liam is generally a cautious kid, but after two hours of watching kids jump off of the car, he called Megan over and said he had something to show her. So he climbed on the car and then jumped off of the roof. Then he said, "That was my thrid time!" So I guess we hadn't been watching him as closely at the brewery as we thought. Upon hearing that he had jumped off of the car three times, I (like any responsible father), told him to do it again so I could get a picture.

A picture of apparently the 4th time he jumped off of the car.

We walked over to where the scavenger hunt started. Overall, we would say that we were slightly underwhelmed by it. We felt like there should have been a little more information on the things that we were seeing. And about 10% of the questions they asked didn’t have answers you could figure out from the material in front of us (for instance, if we saw a statue of a soldier, there might be a plaque that described what he did, but it might not have the answer to the question, so you had to guess). The other problem was that our kids were a bit tired and treated the scavenger hunt like something to complete and move on, rather than to explore and see the town. So we finished it quickly and went back to the hotel.

A picture of "Hunter Street" our scavenger hunt team.

Megan had read about a pub crawl, so we all went out to eat and then Megan, Keira and I started out for the pub crawl. I had some reservations about it because I was supposed to drive us for 2+ hours the next day down to Busselton.

The bar crawl got off to a slow start as we went to the area where the app said to start, standing next to the picture it had for the location. But it wouldn’t tell us the name of the bar to go to. So Keira tried a public bar crawl list and we couldn’t find the first bar for that either. So eventually we just gave up and went to a bar that was nearby. By now it was 9pm and we realized that it was a Wednesday night and many of the bars were closing at 10pm. So we went to another bar for our second drink. Both bars were rooftop type bars with good atmospheres.

It didn't go smoothly, but it was still a good time.

The last place we went to was very hard to get to because there was construction going on, but after a circuitous walk, we eventually found it (and we walked past the bar the Keira’s app tried to have us go to but it was closing). The bar we went to was supposed to be open until midnight, but even it was winding down at 10pm and wasn’t serving cocktails anymore, just wine and beer. So we ordered, as as we did, they announced last call, and kind of shooed us out by 10:40. Despite the difficulty in finding the places, they were all pretty good and it was great to spend some one on one with Keira, which was a big part of the whole trip anyway.

DAY 135

We slept in on our last day in Perth and overall, we really like Perth. Its a city, but pretty small and manageable. There are bookstores, breweries and playgrounds. It felt safe (although I did notice a couple of homeless people). It’s on the water, so there are plenty of beaches to visit, and of course there are quokkas.

I originally scheduled to pick up the rental car from the airport, but in our walks around town collecting Pokemon, I noticed that there was a rental agency one block from our hotel and switched it. The upside of the bars closing at 10pm was that I wasn’t feeling any ill effects from the bar crawl. That said, I was pretty tired, since I hadn’t slept well for the past few nights. Megan and I were sharing a full-sized bed with Liam sleeping in the other bed in the room, and I woke up every 30 minutes as either I was uncomfortable and had to move, or Megan was and had to move, and woke me up. Then I would get up around 9 or so with Liam to feed him (and me, if I’m honest).

So I wasn’t in great shape for the nearly 3 hour ride to Busselton. We stopped about 2 hours in to go to a Target to buy some things. It turned out that the Target was basically a Marshalls - pretty much all clothes, with a little bit of other things in some departments. The car that I rented was an SUV, and it was nice, but it barely fit us and our luggage, and only did so with our bags in our laps. I had hoped to buy some groceries there to last us for a little, and give us some time before we had to find a grocery store in Busselton, but the lack of space made that a virtual impossibility. I did buy a loaf of bread and some Nutella at the Coles next door, because I believe that a fed Liam is a good thing for the family. When we finally got to the resort, I was wiped out.

The resort we were at had a camp ground feel to it - with the little villas feeling more like a cabin than a “resort”. Our kids were less than impressed, but Megan and I were happy as the place was spacious and clean. And it had a washer and a dryer in the unit, so I was set. That first night we went out to eat, and there was a playground nearby, so I watched Liam there while we waited for the food. He was so excited just watching a group of kids playing tag - jumping up and down and pointing at things they were doing. Eventually he got the courage to join them.

The next day we planned on being a logistics day. Megan and I went to the store to get groceries and some chairs and shade. Since our place was a bit more campsite than resort, there wasn’t any place to rent chairs, etc, so we had to buy our own. I saw this giant, comfortable camping chair and I bought it even though it was somewhat heavy and I knew that Liam was going to want to take it as his own - but it was on sale, and I am my mother’s son.

We had to go to three different stores to find chairs and a tent that were good enough to use, but cheap enough that we didn’t mind getting rid of them after two weeks of use (at a Kmart no less!). When I saw the Spiderman chair, I immediately said we had to get it for Liam, both because I thought that he would like it, but also because I hoped that he would like it enough that he wouldn’t steal my chair.

The grocery store was like any store that we would see in the US. After over a month of eating out, the plan was to eat more healthily, so we passed all sorts of weird looking snacks that I wanted to try but knew that Megan would veto. But after losing 20 pounds by the time we were in Cambodia, I’m pretty sure I’ve regained all that weight, so I couldn’t really argue against the logic of eating healthily for a little bit.

We didn’t get much logistics done - we found a couple of hotels for the stay in Greece, but didn’t book anything. Its all a Jenga puzzle, with small changes moving everything around - we can’t book flights until we know where we will stay, but we can’t book where we will stay until we know if we can fly there in a reasonable amount of time. It turns out that there aren’t a lot of flights from Quito to Athens, so we are going to be spending a minimum of 22 hours traveling that day, and some of the flights that I Google, have 50 hour itineraries as an option.

DAY 139

We had a lazy day in the room as the temperature went up to 106. Keira and Megan watched Grey’s Anatomy for 8 hours. Meanwhile, I took Liam and Elenna to see Sonic the Hedgehog 3. Liam has been obsessed with Sonic for a little while, asking questions like “Who is faster? The Flash or Sonic?” I told him it was me. So we had been watching the first two movies in the past week, because I was sure that I would be lost if we just jumped right into Sonic 3. The movie theater was like any other small movie theater in the US, But they played a bunch of commercials and then only 1 actual coming attraction.

The next day Megan, Keira and I went on a wine tasting tour - a bit strange because we don’t drink wine, but this region is famous for its wine, so we went. Before we went, Keira asked who we thought would be on the trip - her guess was that there would be a bunch of people Megan and my age and older. Megan and I said people 35-45, but we all agreed she would be, by far the youngest.

We had to get up and out on the street by 9:45am. We got into the van and a newlywed couple from Perth on their honeymoon, who seemed to be around 30. Then we picked up another couple that seemed in their mid 30s - wife from Perth, husband from Ohio and they lived in Denver. We got to the first winery and met with 5 other people (2 older women from NW australia and a couple from Sydney and a friend from New Zealand who lived in Sydney and that they met traveling in Africa - if you followed that).

The guy at the winery told us a bit about grapes and the wines, and it was interesting. There was a sheet with the four wines we were tasting on it and we could rate them and potentially buy them. I felt bad because I knew we weren’t buying anything. I was already starting to feel the wine, but I was a little bummed because we were only trying white wines and I prefer reds. Then he had us flip over the sheet of paper, and there were 4 reds there and I started to worry because our tour guide said we were going to 5 places and I wouldn’t be able to do this 4 more times.

After that winery we went to a brewery and I got a little worried about mixing beer and wine, but I was already in. We ate some lunch which helped. I had a beer and the girls had ginger beer/ciders. After that we went to another winery where the woman was very nice, but didn’t do a great job of explaining the wines or types. The good news is that I wouldn’t remember anyway.

Then we went to a chocolate factory - and ended at another brewery/distillery. That last brewery had a rum punch on tap, which was hard to pass up. Overall, it was a great day, The driver/guide was really nice and the van was full of really nice (and eventually drunk) people.

We got home and after dinner watched Stranger Things.

DAY 137

The next day, Lily had to do homework, so the rest of us carried our stuff to the beach. We quickly learned why the tent we bought at K-mart only cost $40 when the one at the camping store cost $130. After about 10 minutes of setup, we got the shade that we were looking for.

Liam gave two thumbs up to the beach. But I guess he gives two thumbs up for everything.

The beach is beautiful, white sand and the water is crystal clear. We sat reading for a while, then Liam and I went into the water. As we did, we saw a family looking at something in the water. I went over and asked what it was, and they pointed at the sand, about 1 foot underwater. A little girl said that it looked like two eyes from a stingray. We all looked at it for a while, trying to figure out if it was an animal or just some seaweed, with the gentle waves making it a little hard to see. Then a boy with a paddle dug up the sand around it and a stingray uncovered itself and started to swim away. It was very neat - a little bigger than my hand and the color of sand, it was perfectly camouflaged - I’m still not sure how she saw it.

Although it was cool, I was then a bit worried about stepping on something else the rest of the time in the water. After a few hours, flies started coming in and we went back to the room. We cooked dinner and then we watched “The Hobbit” so the kids would know what Hobbiton would look like when we visit it next month. Overall, the kids were underwhelmed by the movie, and I doubt that we will be watching more of them.

The next day we slept in and Megan, Liam and I went for a walk, with none of the other kids willing to go out. Liam was, of course, hunting Pokemon, but Megan and I looked around and saw the beautiful forests and beaches. We went back and then all (except Lily) went to the pool. The pool was like a sauna it was so hot, so only Liam and I went in and played.

We bought a Bluey ball that was a hit in the pool.

After that we ate dinner and we watched The Boys (Lily had read something online about how Saturday was “For the Boys” so we try to watch The Boys on Saturdays.”

DAY 139

We had a lazy day in the room as the temperature went up to 106. Keira and Megan watched Grey’s Anatomy for 8 hours. Meanwhile, I took Liam and Elenna to see Sonic the Hedgehog 3. Liam has been obsessed with Sonic for a little while, asking questions like “Who is faster? The Flash or Sonic?” I told him it was me. So we had been watching the first two movies in the past week, because I was sure that I would be lost if we just jumped right into Sonic 3. The movie theater was like any other small movie theater in the US, But they played a bunch of commercials and then only 1 actual coming attraction.

The next day Megan, Keira and I went on a wine tasting tour - a bit strange because we don’t drink wine, but this region is famous for its wine, so we went. Before we went, Keira asked who we thought would be on the trip - her guess was that there would be a bunch of people Megan and my age and older. Megan and I said people 35-45, but we all agreed she would be, by far the youngest.

We had to get up and out on the street by 9:45am. We got into the van and a newlywed couple from Perth on their honeymoon, who seemed to be around 30. Then we picked up another couple that seemed in their mid 30s - wife from Perth, husband from Ohio and they lived in Denver. We got to the first winery and met with 5 other people (2 older women from NW australia and a couple from Sydney and a friend from New Zealand who lived in Sydney and that they met traveling in Africa - if you followed that).

The guy at the winery told us a bit about grapes and the wines, and it was interesting. There was a sheet with the four wines we were tasting on it and we could rate them and potentially buy them. I felt bad because I knew we weren’t buying anything. I was already starting to feel the wine, but I was a little bummed because we were only trying white wines and I prefer reds. Then he had us flip over the sheet of paper, and there were 4 reds there and I started to worry because our tour guide said we were going to 5 places and I wouldn’t be able to do this 4 more times.

It was an auspicious start to the day.

After that winery we went to a brewery and I got a little worried about mixing beer and wine, but I was already in. We ate some lunch which helped. I had a beer and the girls had ginger beer/ciders. After that we went to another winery where the woman was very nice, but didn’t do a great job of explaining the wines or types. The good news is that I wouldn’t remember anyway.

We aren't big on breweries, but its hard to be against them.

One of the good things about the trip was that as the driver of the car, its hard to look around while driving (especially while driving on the wrong side of the road, with the steering wheel on the wrong side of the car), so it gave me a chance to look around a bit. And in this instance, we were able to see some wild kangaroos (its unclear if this is something our family could have done previously, but everyone was on their devices and couldn't see them). We had seen plenty of kangaroos by this point on our trip, but pretty much all of them were in zoos. Its always a different experience to see them in the wild.

Then we went to a chocolate factory - and ended at another brewery/distillery. That last brewery had a rum punch on tap, which was hard to pass up. Overall, it was a great day, The driver/guide was really nice and the van was full of really nice (and eventually drunk) people.

We got home and after dinner watched Stranger Things.

Day 142

This stay has been one of those places that we stop for 2 weeks so that Lily and Elenna can catch up on their school work. It was also a good chance to decompress a little after traveling every few days for the past two weeks.

One of the phenomena that Megan and I have noticed about any trip is that when its a week or more, the first day or two in a place seems like you have forever until you have to leave, but then a few days in, you start to wonder how a few days passed already, and it seems like you are already closer to the end of your stay than to the beginning. So despite having two weeks, we are already feeling like we will have to leave too soon. I guess that’s a sign of a good trip, but its one of those tricks that time plays on you when you are traveling.

While I have you, I thought that I would bring up another phenomenon, which is that if you travel for 5 months with the same 6 people, then you run out of things to talk about. This is part of the reason that we wanted people to join us - they have stories that we haven’t heard already. At one point on this trip, Lily famously started to tell a story and then said, “Wait, you were all there”. Pretty funny in the moment, but emblematic of how we want to talk, but it isn’t always easy to come up with new material.

I, in particular, felt like I was struggling to find new things to talk about. Most of the stuff we talked about were either things that people back home have texted us, or that we read online. A good portion of the text threads I’m on, Megan is also on, so that leaves me a small sliver. Then, most of the things that I spend my time looking at online (ESPN is by far the place I spend the most time, followed by work related searches about the movement of health care stocks) are things that my family generally has zero interest in, and sharing the information with them would likely be worse than keeping silent.

This made any new piece of information incredibly valuable. I found it incredibly funny when Keira said aloud something that I had unconsciously (but also somewhat consciously) found myself doing. We were in the car on the way to a restaurant when she said that she had a story to tell, but was saving it for when we were all seated at the table, so we would have something to talk about, to maximize its impact. I had actually been holding onto a story of my own, but took a different tack - waiting to tell it when everyone wasn’t there, so I would have a chance to tell it multiple times.

I don’t want to give the impression that we sit around quietly because we don’t have anything to say, because the meals always have a lively discussion, and I think that we all enjoy these conversations. But it does feel like a bit more work than normal. So I thank everyone who texts me (and the rest of the family) with good stories and gossip, to keep things going.

Most nights, Megan and I would go for a walk, and although we would ask if anyone wanted to join, no one would take us up on it. Liam was the only one who joined us, and even then it was largely because we let him go Pokemon hunting while we walked. He was very cute on these walks, stopping and showing Megan how to catch Pokemon and giving her a turn to do things, knowing that she didn’t know anything about the game, but wanting to include her. Very thoughtful kid.

And since Liam is cute, and very thoughtful (especially when it comes to his mom), he gets away with some things. His bed time, which is officially 9 and can turn into 9:15 if he skips his stories (and watches his iPad instead) rarely had happened before 10pm. He would generally try to convince his mom to give him a few more minutes of awake time, cuddling with her and she can’t seem to refuse it. To me, this reached the peak of craziness when I was sitting in the living room why they cuddled and watched “XO Kitty” together in our room. I looked up and realized that it was 11:22PM! I pointed this out to her, and she said that there was 5 minutes left in the season finale and wanted to keep watching. Once she finally put him to bed and walked back into our room I said, “This is going into the blog!”

DAY 145

We spent the next few days going to the beach or pool and one day the girls went clothes shopping while Liam and I got our hair cut. My haircut was fine (its pretty easy to cut the hair of someone who is going bald), but the barber took a bit too much of Liam’s hair off for Megan’s taste (after the prior barber took too little off). I just liked having my hair staying well cut, since this was only the third hair cut Liam and I had, but it was also the second cut within the past month.

Not sure if this was the cut he needed, but it was better than what he had before.

We went to the grocery store a few times, with Megan’s plan being that we should eat healthily while we had a kitchen, and our kids will eat a bag of grapes within hours of coming back from the store. But any parent knows that the second we buy 4 bags of grapes to last us a few days, our kids would immediately find that they no longer like grapes and we would have 4 bags of grapes going moldy in our fridge.

We also saw Mufasa in the theater (everyone but Megan, who thought that the first Lion King movie was sad and didn't want to watch another one like that). It was fine, but nothing anyone has to run out and see. I had been watching the Paddington 1 and 2 movies with Liam in case it rained again and we had to go to the movies, so we could see Paddington 3 without being lost.

When we were on our winery tour, one couple, where the wife was from the area, recommended a brewery called Swings and Roundabouts, saying that it had a good playground, so the 5 of us (ex-Lily) went there to have lunch. We went to the brewery without a reservation and that turned out to be a mistake. It was a bit surprising, since all of the breweries we went to on our tour had been 80% empty, we didn’t expect an issue getting a table. That said, it was “Australia Day” weekend so more people were likely out than normal and it occurred to us that maybe the wineries and pubs that allow tour visitors need the foot traffic, and the jam packed ones didn’t have tours come through. But once they told us they were booked, we went to Cheeky Monkey Brewery, one of the breweries we visited on our tour that had a decent playground.

It turned out to be a good pick. It was also 10x more crowded than when we went a few days earlier, but it still had plenty of availability. The food was good and the playground was good too. They had a normal playground with slides and such, but there was also a separate area with a ropes course. Liam went across the bridge even though he was “completely terrified”.

I didn't take pictures of the normal playground, but this play area was pretty neat.

I had heard that on the coast of Busselton there were some interesting rock formations. One of these was an hour away and Megan decided that there wasn’t such a thing as a rock formation that was worth a 2 hour round trip drive. But I discovered one that I thought looked cooler than the famous one that was only 15 minutes from the brewery, and since I’m the only one who could drive the car legally, and they had to go where I drove them, I brought everyone there on our way home.

It actually was pretty cool. Even Elenna, who was slowly becoming a teenager and therefore against almost anything that we proposed, had to (grudgingly) admit that it was pretty. There was a walkway that connected some of the rock formations, and then there were even some steps carved into the rocks so that you could go from the rocks into the water. Waves were coming through, so you had to be able to swim in order to be in that water (Megan would have had a heart attack trying to keep Liam afloat there) but I still felt like we should have brought our swim suits and took a swim there. I was even tempted to do what some of the younger people were doing, which was jumping off of the bridges into the water. I definitely think that Canal Rocks is a place that I would go back to if we ever had the time (and slightly older kids).

I thought that this rock area was cool, and if I had it to do over again, I would have brought a swimsuit and gone in.

DAY 146

We decided to go to the town pier - a place that Megan and I had separately identified as a place to visit (me because I saw a cool playground for Liam, and Megan because of the pier itself). It took us over a week to go because it was just easier to go to the beach by our house and we had a couple of days of not great weather. But it turns out that we should have gone sooner.

Before we went, Megan and I were tired of the kids never doing any exercise (really mostly Keira and Elenna because Lily would work out when we stayed somewhere with a gym and Liam runs everywhere and will always go for a walk if there are Pokemon to find). So we dragged Keira and Elenna on walk that lasted an hour and was a bit miserable because it was getting hot and the flies would come out. Even Liam, who is normally so engrossed in catching Pokemon that he doesn’t notice anything else around him, started to drag from the heat.

After that, everyone except Lily, who had work to do, went over to the pier. The pier is the longest wooden pier in the southern hemisphere. I love it when places start off with some bold description of the “The Largest” or the “The longest” or the “Highest” and then start adding all sorts of qualifiers to it, like “in the southern hemisphere”. Apparently, there is one about 0.3km longer in England.

We got there early, so with a little time to kill, Megan went to a beach store while Liam played on a playground. He made friends with a little girl so we didn’t even get a chance to move to the playground that I had seen on-line that looked really cool, before we had to get in line for the pier.

They had an option of a train ride out to the end of the pier where there is a maritime center. We boarded the train, and it was about a 15 minute train ride (it didn’t go very fast, but it was 1.8km long). It was quite narrow, and there was barely room for people to walk by on either side in most places, but there were some areas where people were fishing off the pier. There was also a place where kids where jumping off of the pier into the water. Keira and I looked enviously at them doing that and decided that we needed to come back again, but this time with our bathing suits.

Liam is always up for a train ride, at least in theory.

At the end of the line, there was a maritime center that was actually pretty neat. Essentially, it was a 4 story building that went down from the pier level to the sea level. At each floor there was a giant window where you could look out at the pylons and see the sea life. So it was like an aquarium, but you were looking out into the real ocean. The day was quite sunny and the bay was quite calm, so we had good visibility. I’m not sure why there aren’t more of these things.

The set up of the maritime center was pretty cool, with an aquarium look into the actual ocean.

Maybe the set up was ideal, but there were fish everywhere. And there were barnacles and coral all over the pylons, creating a colorful undersea landscape. It almost looked like an undersea forest.

It was really neat to see the underwater forest.

There’s a limit to how good an aquarium can be, but this was about as neat as it could be. It was also a 30 minute tour, which is about as long as I need to be in an aquarium. But definitely a cool thing.

At the end of the pier, they had one of those signs that pointed to cities all over the world. It turns out that NYC is the city furthest away from where we were - somehow even further away than Toronto.

We were about as far away from home as possible, but Liam still gave it a thumb's up.

We took a train ride back and Liam was generally unimpressed by the train, complaining that he was bored about halfway through the trip. It was more like one of those little trains you see at small amusement parks than an actual train. As a result, it wasn’t a real train, but halfway down the line there, Liam said that he was bored, and we were starting to wonder if Liam likes trains the same way that Elenna likes animals - which is much more in theory than in practice.

We got a table at a restaurant near the pier and I drove back to pick up Lily (we were about 10 minutes from the house). The area around the pier was pretty neat, with restaurants and things along a strip, but it was all about 100 yards off of the beach, leaving plenty of room for trees and parks and nature - none of the 10 story high rises you would normally see at a great beach.

Afterwards, we got home and Megan and I went for a walk and Liam joined us to play some Pokemon. When we got back, Megan, Keira and I played some cards.

DAY 147

The next day we went to Swings and Roundabouts, the bar that we had heard about from the woman on the wine tour, and which we tried to go to earlier in the week, but it was booked. The place definitely was worth the effort. The woman had sold us on going here because she said that the playground was neat, and we had been in Australia enough to know that a lot of restaurants have playgrounds, and although we continue to love that concept, it was no longer new to us. But here, the playground was really neat.

It was a neat playground that

It was all wood, and built around trees, giving it a tree house vibe. It also had logs to climb on and and slide. And in our view, the best thing was that there were tables right next to it, so we could sit and watch Liam on the playground while we waited for our food. It was a picturesque backdrop as well, with rolling vineyards as far as the eye could see.

A beautiful place to have lunch.

Meanwhile, we had another wild animal join us for lunch. This time a kookaburra - I was glad to see one live.

This cute little bird had no issues coming up to the table.

After the brewery, we stopped at a chocolate factory and got some ice cream (and free samples). Then we went back to the house and ate some dinner. Then Megan, Keira, Elenna, Liam and I went for a long walk. Better said, Liam played Pokemon and talked non-stop to me, while the other three went for a walk. Once again, the sunsets were beautiful - more orange than I’m used to seeing and there was always a period where some stars would be coming out at the same time.

Day 148

Our last full day in Busselton and we decided to go back to the pier. But first, Megan had arranged for a photographer to take family pictures. We weren’t sure where to take the pictures; Megan wanted a place that looked “Australia,” somewhat lamenting that the pictures in Zanzibar were just on a beach and could have been taken anywhere (although I disagree with this somewhat - the sand and water isn’t something you can find quite anywhere). So she happily told me that the photographer had a place that looked “Australia” that we would go to.

We had to leave by 7:30am to get there and although it went well, we were all tired when it was over. We went to a cafe for breakfast and once again there were a little play area for children than Liam loved (the Nutella pancakes were also pretty good).

A giant Bumblebee Transformer toy makes any cafe better.

Then we went home and Elenna did some school work and Liam and I caught some Pokemon for a little while. Then after a quick nap, we went to the pier. The pier was just as good as we remembered it. Great beach a picturesque background for pictures.

The background is picturesque, but the foreground ain't bad either.

This time Liam went to the pirate ship playground, and surprisingly climbed to the crow’s nest - he is becoming a lot more brave at climbing things.

A little hard to see but Liam is in the crow's nest.

Then we went back to the beach and went with Megan to jump off of the pier. No, not the giant pier that we were on a couple of days earlier, but lower piers that reminded me a bit of Gull Pond in Wellfleet. The jump was still pretty high, but Liam didn’t hesitate to jump in.

When we got back to the towels, Keira and Elenna told us a story about a couple of women came out of the water in great pain, after they mistakenly jumped into pool of jellyfish. So that put the kibash on us jumping from the higher pier. Keira and Elenna spend 99% of their time reading on the beach - they don't go for walks or go swimming. We'd prefer a little more activity, but they figured out the loophole that it is hard for us to yell at them for reading.

Liam and I went back to the playground, and then after a while we (what else?) went Pokemon hunting for a little. We went back home and ate some dinner, trying to eat all of the food in the apartment. After a 2 mile walk with Meagan, Liam and Elenna, we came home and Keira, Elenna and Megan watched Gossip Girl while Liam did Pokemon on my phone and filled out New Zealand declaration cards for everyone.

Another great sunset in Busselton.