Mom & Becca's Visit

After months of anticipation, and the longest plane ride of their lives, two of my favorite people finally made it to Australia to visit in late November.  My little cousin, Becca, (who gets an extra shout out for having a rough year but still finding the time and money to make the trip) and my Mom arrived on the fourteen hour flight from LAX at 8am on a Tuesday morning and we thrust them into adventure mode from the get go.  That first day we walked them around the city, showed them the Opera House, chilled in the Rocks while they climbed the Harbor Bridge (Mom surprisingly being far braver on the climb than my cousin who routinely hikes all kinds of treacherous rock formations in Arizona) and then we all went to dinner in Darling Harbour, where we enjoyed laughs over our ‘communal drink’.

The next morning Mom, Becca & I set off for Taronga Zoo, and the ferry ride Mom was so excited for, while Alex headed to Bondi Beach for a surfing lesson.  The Zoo was fun; my favorite part was at the children’s petting zoo area where Mom & Becca were terrified of this smiley emu (who was clearly not vicious given that he was in the petting zoo but that was all the closer they would get for the photo) . 

Peacocks roam freely around the zoo and this one had been somewhat cornered by unattended small children resulting in this gorgeous shot.

While we girls were having fun at Taronga, Alex was mastering his surf moves.  He looks like such a natural!

I can’t in good conscience write this post without telling you about our pseudo-stalker night, even knowing how ridiculous it is going to sound.  After Taronga, we stopped for some drinks before picking up a bottle of wine and joining Alex back at our hotel, where we all sat out on the balcony reflecting on our day.  Mom was pretty quiet then randomly pointed out that there was a hunky shirtless guy walking around the apartment across the street.  Becca said she wished we had binoculars to which Alex responded that she had a camera with zoom.  It wasn’t long after that suggestion before we were unabashedly stalker-style checking this guy out on Becca’s camera.  Clearly I was long overdue for some girl time!  Props to Alex, who was a trooper through it all though he noted regularly that he was having ‘no part in this’ and that we were weird. 

SMIZE!

The next day, after struggling to catch a taxi, we lugged ourselves and all our baggage (which was no small feat given the amount of stuff we had collectively) to the train for the two hour trip to the mountains outside of Sydney.  Alex & I visited Katoomba previously and were excited to share the beauty with Mom & Becca.  We had a perfect, cool sunny day for hiking and we made the most of it.  We walked around the valley, checked out the gorgeous waterfalls, posed in the faux mountain cable car (after checking out the real cable car and being like NO WAY – literally a 52 degree incline the mountain on a decrepit track, see the photo below).  And, despite Mom’s disclaimer that she is a ’50 year old with a heart condition’, she survived (seriously, does this woman look like she was going to have any problem keeping up with us – I was more worried about me keeping up with them?!).

The next day we caught the train back from Katoomba then hopped on a flight to Adelaide, where my Mom’s cousin Rod, and his gf Liz, live.  They were once again amazingly generous, picking us up, driving us around, feeding us delicious meals and letting us stay at their home while we were there.

We were up early the following morning because Mom, Becca & I were booked on an all-day tour of Kangaroo Island.  There were tons of highlights that day; the Sea Lions at Seal Bay, the kangaroos in the wild, the Remarkable Rocks, a gorgeous sunset on the ferry ride home but none more so than our driver, Kieran, and his crazy tales. 

He spoke in a soft mild mannered voice that didn’t fit a man of his size or beardiness and he peppered his tour commentary with hilarious sexual anatomy factoids about the local wildlife gained via his wife, the local librarian (who clearly has too much time on her hands at work).  Though originally from Colorado, Kieran had been on KI for nearly twenty years and, when he wasn’t driving around tours, he was rescuing baby kangaroos from the pouches of road kill and raising them in his home (sounds totally normal, right?).  He had some crazy stories about the kangaroos he’d raised, but the one about Rupert takes the cake.  Rupert apparently loved TV so he continued coming back to the house, even after he was released into the wild, to lie on the couch and watch television, much to the chagrin of his ‘parents’ who sometimes have to fight him for the couch.  In case you were wondering how he gets in, Rupert knows how to open the door (those little paws are deft!).  Haha, I know you all think I am pulling your leg, believe me, we had our doubts too until Kieran showed us video on his phone – Rupert is for real and, as unbelievable as it sounds, there is indeed a TV-addicted kangaroo living in the wild somewhere on KI. 

Despite the photos I’ve posted of me & Alex & his parents all cuddling koalas, it is illegal to hold koalas in some regions Australia.  I had originally thought there wasn’t anywhere we were traveling with my family that they would get to experience the joy of cuddling one, but, fortunately for them, I was wrong.  Our last day in Adelaide, we wandered around the city then headed over to the Cleland Wildlife Sanctuary where we were able to pet kangaroos, cuddle a koala and interact with curious emus.  In the emu enclosure one of the emus took a liking to Alex and was never far from his side – it was hilarious (he even snuck up on me while I was trying to take a photo).  We also fed the cutest baby kangaroo – we could have spent all day with the little fella if we didn’t have a flight to catch.  

After our late night flight to Melbourne, we picked up our rental car and holed up in an airport motel so we could get an early start exploring the famous Great Ocean Road early the next morning.  I think we would all agree this was the most disappointing leg of my family’s visit (you'd have thought we'd have learned our lesson from the Styche family visit but alas we did not).  The little bit of the GOR that actually runs along the Ocean was closed for a road race so we had to take a narrow, windy inland road that made all of us girls super car sick, and the sites like Bells Beach and the Twelve Apostles were cold and little fun to visit that day.  But we visited them anyway then continued on our way towards the Grampians, a national park set in the mountains outside of Melbourne. 

Sick of driving, car sick and disappointed by the day, we hoped to stop at the end of the GOR but couldn’t find sufficient accommodation so, despite our desire to get out of the car hours earlier, we made it all the way into the mountains before we stopped for the night.  Finally we pulled into a ‘major town’, or so it appeared on the map, and I invited everyone to keep their eyes out for a place to stop for the night.  Alex was driving and abruptly pulled into a motel with a long driveway along a field full of kangaroos.  Becca was impressed and told him good job for picking the place with kangaroos.  Alex just laughed and said that after the day we’d had, he picked the place ‘cause it had a sign for a bar.   And thus began the night we jokingly called ‘roos and booze’; a night well deserved after the day we’d all had. 

I wish I could say our road trip luck improved but the next day wasn’t much better.  It was cold and rainy with a low lying fog that cloaked all the sites we’d driven so far to see.  And, with the memory of the previous day’s carsickness fresh in all the girls’ minds, we opted not to even try driving the windy roads up to the nearest hiking trail and instead headed back to Melbourne to get an extra half day of exploring in there. 

First up in Melbourne was the Firefighter Museum, where we were treated to quite a tour by the aging docent on duty.  He took us through the museum room-by-room, item-by-item and then the adjacent working firehouse, allowing us to stop for photos all along the way.  It was $18 well spent as it took up the bulk of our afternoon, but I feel like I now know more than I will ever need to about the history of the Australian Fire Brigade. 

The next day we took a souvenir trip to the Victoria Market, which Alex & I enjoyed so much on our first trip to the city with his parents.  Mom & Becca loaded up on trinkets for friends and family back home and then we went down to the CBD for a late lunch and walk along the river before heading up into the Eureka Tower for a sunset view of the city. 

The highlight of the day, for me anyways, was when Becca approached the weird dude outside of the train station, who we’d eyed from across the street holding a sign that said ‘Free Hugs’, after he’d put the sign down, actually saying to him ‘you look like you’re on break but I’d like my free hug’.  I don’t know if it’s as funny if you weren’t there, I’ve gotten lots of weird looks when I tell some of these random stories from Australia, but I thought it was absolutely hilarious. 

And boom, that was it for their trip.  Ten days flew by in the blink of an eye, even with all the photos and fun memories of an awesome visit, the time passed too quickly and the next morning we were up at 4am to walk them to the bus station so they could catch a ride to the airport and begin their journey home.