TTT - Books for your beach bag

It's time to link up with the Broke and the Bookish again!

The topic for this week is the top ten books that are in my beach bag this summer. Except there are a couple of small problems with this: 

1. It's the beginning of winter down here in the Southern Hemisphere, so the likelihood of me going to the beach is slim to none.

2. I really don't like the beach so even if it were summer, I probably wouldn't be going.

With those things in mind, I've changed the topic to my top ten books for YOUR beach bags! I've been working on several theories when developing this list:

1. The books one reads at the beach shouldn't be too brain-taxing because, you know, BEACH. You're going to be doing other stuff or getting distracted every ten minutes or accidentally falling asleep, and no one can keep track of all the serious or all the world building when they're at the beach.

2. The books should be fast-paced.

3. The books should not be a thousand pages long because no one wants to lug that around with them. 

SO. With those rules in mind, here are my suggestions.

1. Croak - Gina Damico

Reading a book about a teenaged Grim Reaper might seem a little dark for the beach. But this story is so fun and so entertaining that I can't resist putting it on here. I read it in about two hours, and you have the added bonus of famous people - like former presidents and authors - wandering around in the Afterlife. 

2. We Were Liars - E. Lockhart

You've gotta love a summery story with a big twist ending. The writing is pretty choppy, but I liked it. It's pretty short and a quick read. You'll either guess the ending before it happens, like I did, or be staring at the book in disbelief when the big twist happens, as everyone else I know seems to have done. 

3. My Life Next Door - Huntley Fitzpatrick

Oh my God, this book is adorable. But adorable with a side of SERIOUS REAL LIFE STUFF OMG. The supporting characters are all fabulous, and it's a total summer read.

4. Murder with Peacocks - Donna Andrews

I have an irrational love for this utterly ridiculous murder mystery. The characters are all completely fabulous, and while the mystery side of things may be a little dumb, I just don't really care that much because THE CHARACTERS ARE GREAT. How can you not love Meg, who's tall and decidedly not willowy and stuck spending her summer being maid of honour in three weddings simultaneously and generally dealing with her bonkers family?

5. Notes from a Big Country - Bill Bryson

It may be non-fiction, but it's not the kind of non-fiction that requires a lot of brain power to read. It's a compilation of Bryson's newspaper columns focusing on different aspects of life in America, and because it's newspaper columns each "chapter" is only three to four pages. And then the topic changes to something totally different. Perfect for the beach! 

6. Outlander - Diana Gabaldon

This one is pretty chunky, but it's worth it. It may be a historical romance-y thing with a bunch of squicky moments, but it's such a cool concept and so well researched. And it's way more violent than I would have expected based on the description. Added bonus: it'll prepare you nicely for the miniseries that's airing later in the northern summer!

7. Jurassic Park - Michael Crichton

Okay, so this DOES contain quite a lot of science-y stuff, which is a little brain taxing. But if you've seen the movie, you'll know the basic gist of it and you can skim over it if it seems too much like hard work at the beach. 

8. Anywhere - J. Meyers/Jinsey Reese (depending on which edition you have)

This book is so stinking cute. Newly graduated twenty-somethings falling in love while travelling around Europe over the summer? Uh, YES. 

9. Let's Pretend This Never Happened - Jenny Lawson

If you've ever read Jenny's blog, you'll know exactly what to expect. Mostly hilarity with the occasional dose of feels. As an added bonus, the chapters are sort of stand-alones, so if you pick it up and put it down a thousand times, it won't really matter that much. 

10. Mr Darcy's Bite - Mary Lydon Simonsen

Okay, hear me out. This book is pretty terrible. But it's the GOOD kind of terrible. The so-bad-it's-come-back-around-to-good kind of terrible. Basically, Mr Darcy is a werewolf. It's total fan fiction, and the author admits that. But it's the kind of fan fiction that makes you giggle non-stop and that's just plain fun. And what more could you want at the beach than giggle-worthy fun??

Will you be putting any of these in your beach bag this summer? Or are you, like me, trapped in the half of the world that's heading into scarves and gloves and open fires territory?? 

K xx

A most unfortunate curse

So Kat mentioned in the comments of my last post something that I'd completely forgotten about - that Bethells Beach wasn't quite as close to deserted as we would have liked, in that there was a man quite a distance down the beach wandering around on his own who proved, upon closer (but not too close) examination to be rather elderly and completely naked.

And this, in turn, reminded me of another incident - New Year's Eve two years ago. In case you weren't around in those days and/or are too lazy to click on that link, I'll recap. I went to Fairhaven with my brother and a bunch of his mates. We decided that we'd wander down to the beach for actual midnight, and watch the fireworks display from Lorne across the water.

Somehow, we ended up with a crapton of glowsticks and sparklers, and so were playing around with those as 2012 commenced. Shortly thereafter, an incredibly drunk and incredibly naked New Zealander staggered up out of the surf. Someone informed this random dude that he should be carrying a glowstick so that we knew where he was, and didn't have to see his junk. Upon which he grabbed a glowstick from someone, shoved it between his butt cheeks, and ran off down the beach.

He then bent down to pick up his clothes, causing the glowstick to fall out from between his butt cheeks. So he kindly picked it up and threw it back to us. You've never seen a group of people scatter so quickly as when the butt germs glowstick fell towards us.

ANYWAY. Apparently that incident served as a precedent, and now I'm cursed to see naked New Zealanders every time I go to the beach. Because I'm about 99% sure I didn't go to the beach at all in between those two random-naked-New-Zealander events. And there was a small naked child running around during the five minutes Kim and I spent at the beach while I was in Wellington.

At least now I have a good excuse not to go to the beach?? "Oh, I can't, sorry. I'm cursed, you see. If I go with you, a naked New Zealander will appear and everything will get slightly weird..."

Are you randomly cursed in any way?

K xx

Auckland - the "mmm, ice cream" edition

So. Let's do this thing!! With the exception of having to get up at 5am to get to the airport on time, getting to Auckland was surprisingly painless. I rock starred my way through immigration, threw my socks all over the place in customs (because I had to show them my hiking boots and I'd cleverly shoved all my socks in there), and met Kat and Ness in the terminal.

A short drive later, we were back at Kat's place just in time for a very belated lunch of toasted cheese sandwiches and Haribo Tangfastics. After much catching up and generally admiring Kat's new house, we went for a little walk along the foreshore and came back via a trip to the dairy (otherwise known to Australia as the milk bar). Which was, I think, about the time that I discovered that my entire life was a lie and that Hairy McLary is not, in fact, from a dairy as in the place where they milk cows, but from a dairy as in a MILK BAR. It's been several weeks now and I still feel betrayed for inexplicable reasons.

Anyway, we picked up a Kapiti stick each - mine was raspberry and white chocolate and it was amaaaaaazing - and headed back to the house for a few drinks on the balcony, a spot of dinner, and Hocus Pocus on DVD. Because, obviously.

The next day, after endlessly mocking the Shopping Channel while having breakfast, we piled into Kat's ute and headed north. We stopped in Wellsford for an early lunch, then continued on to the Kauri Museum at Matakohe where, despite being allowed to take photos, I completely neglected to because I was so busy being all "Holy crap, these dudes were hardcore" over the early kauri foresters. We ended up spending several hours there because there was so much stuff to see. We made it back to Auckland just in time for Cider O'Clock and sunset on the deck:

And then we watched Heavenly Creatures, which is an INCREDIBLY weird film.

The following day, we got back in the ute and headed out to Puhoi for some cheese tasting and ice cream nomming. Award winning ice cream, nonetheless! If you go, I heartily recommend the Dutch chocolate/mixed berry combination:

NOM.

From there, we headed out to the west coast and Bethells Beach. I was particularly intrigued by this particular sign which we came across about two seconds after walking onto the sand:

Luckily, we didn't come across any. Bethells Beach has black sand thanks to the surrounding volcanic rock, and we quickly discovered that black sand gets rather warm in the sun. Thankfully(?), it clouded over not long after we got there so it was actually bearable to walk on the sand. It was almost deserted and amazingly gorgeous:

Aaaaaand this is already long enough, so I'll leave what we did on the way back from the beach until next time!

K xx

Ancient History, Volume XXIX

Previously, there was a Mayan skeleton in a cave in Belize and it was awesome. Also, I saw a manatee while snorkelling.

The day after the Snorkelling of Sunburn-y-ness (which is not, as it would appear, a place in Wales), we caught a boat from Caye Caulker back to Belize City. That was a completely miserable experience, because it was INCREDIBLY windy, and every time the boat hit a wave, the spray would fly into the boat and hit us all. By the time we arrived in Belize City, I was a) cranky, b) sitting in a puddle, and c) drenched, in addition to looking like I'd wet my pants.

Of course, what you want to do when you're soaking wet and look like you've peed your pants is spend three hours on a bus heading for the Mexican border. Interestingly, you clear Belizean emigration about a 20 minute drive from the actual border. Which seemed weird to me. BUT I DIGRESS. We once again walked across the border, except that it was more like a dog leg into Mexico:

Please marvel once again at my wicked MS Paint skills...

The trip through the immigration building was...interesting, because Arizona Boy (our tour leader, in case you've forgotten) managed to piss off one of the border guards who then decided that Arizona Boy was dodgy. So it took an extra long time to get across the border. Eventually though, we were back on a bus and heading for Bacalar. Upon arrival, we were greeted with the tackiest hotel room of EVER. Our reactions went a little like this:

The bedside lights were conch shells, the bedspreads had ENORMOUS tigers printed on them, and the bathroom fixtures were made of shells and dead seahorses in resin. And the bathroom had a giant sign on the sink warning you not to put hot things on the resin because "YT MELTS". I was sure I had a photo of that sign, but apparently not. And I'm too lazy to search through all of Sara's photos on Facebook to see if she took one!!

Still, the view of the lake was totally worth it:

And we spent the afternoon sitting in the pool with guacamole and cocktails. Which would have been a slightly more pleasant experience if the pool hadn't been right next to where they were sanding down a couple of benches, meaning that there was a film of paint flakes on the surface of the water..........

The following day, we were bound for Cancun. But we were given the option of detouring via Tulum, a Mayan site right on the beach, so obviously most of us chose to break up the bus trip. The site itself wasn't particularly exciting from an archaeological perspective, but RUINS! ON THE BEACH!!

After several hours there, it was back on a bus and into Cancun. We were staying in the old part of town, rather than in the really touristy hotel sector, so it wasn't quite what any of us expected. That night, we went out for a farewell dinner (most of the group were leaving us in Cancun, and we were getting some new additions the next day). And after dinner, Arizona Boy decided to take us to this cool little bar he knew. Except that he couldn't remember exactly where it was, so we spent 20 minute wandering around the backstreets of Cancun, only to find that the bar had closed down several months earlier.

And so it came to pass that we ended up at the karaoke bar opposite our hotel. Did you know that Mexico takes its karaoke very seriously?? Neither did I. And there seemed to be some kind of obsession with slow, tacky ballads. So it didn't go down very well when one of our group decided to sing AC/DC later in the night... On the plus side, we got to cackle hysterically at the video clips, which were all batshit crazy. In one, a giant monkey was running around attacking people. Because, you know, that's totally what the song lyrics of the sappy ballad being sung were about...

Next up, Sara and I spent FAR too much money in Cancun's hotel zone, and then leave town for Chichen Itza!

K xx

Ancient History, Volume XXII

Last time, I flew to the Galapagos and met tortoises, sea lions, and marine iguanas. And nearly died of fright when the door to my cabin fell open in the middle of the night...

The following morning, I was woken at the delightful time of 4.30am when we raised anchor to sail from Santiago to Bartolome. Thankfully, I was able to get back to sleep without too much trouble. By 7.45, we were in the dinghy and making a dry landing on the island of Bartolome. It was crazy volcanic, and pretty barren - kind of like walking on the surface of the moon! (I imagine, not having been to the moon...)

There was a half hour's walk to the top of the island, with numerous stops along the way to admire the view, particularly of this awesome underwater crater, caused by a giant lava bubble:

The walk got a lot harder from about half way up, because we were walking up shoddily built stairs that were on weird angles and unevenly spaced... Luckily, the view from the top was totally worth it!!

If you recognise this view, it's probably from any number of documentaries about the Galapagos, or possibly from Master and Commander. From there, we headed back to the boat to change, before being dropped off at the beach on the right in the photo above for a spot of snorkelling. We'd only just gotten into the water when our tour leader called out that there was a shark nearby and that we should go and check it out.

What he meant:

Source

What all the Australians imagined:

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So while we DID head over to see the shark, the snorkelling didn't last all that long! After lunch back on boat, we set sail for Sombrero Chino. On the way, there were a bunch of frigate birds following the boat, which was pretty awesome:

It was only a couple of hours sailing to Sombrero Chino, and I *MAY* have spent most of it standing on the upper deck of the boat, with my hands behind my back, pretending I was in an episode of Hornblower and singing the theme for HMS Indefatigable (see here) in my head. BECAUSE THAT'S HOW I ROLL.

Ahem.

Sombrero Chino (which, incidentally, DOES translate to what you think) is absolutely gorgeous. See?

And it's covered in all kinds of awesome lava formations:

And the usual dopey looking sealions:

And GALAPAGOS PENGUINS!!!

After the penguins, we'd exhausted Sombrero Chino's supply of wildlife and sights, so it was back to the boat for cocktails and dinner, before an early night.

Up next, more frigate birds, and blue footed boobies (which are quite possibly the dumbest birds of EVER)!

K xx

Ancient History, Volume XXI

Last time, I left Peru for Ecuador, went to the equator and ate my body weight in melted cheese. The day AFTER eating my body weight in melted cheese, we were off to the airport again, heading to the Galapagos. Turns out when you fly to the Galapagos? You fly via Guayaquil, which is about 35 minutes flight from Quito, and is the economic capital of Ecuador as well as its largest city. Kind of like Canberra and Sydney, really!

Anyway, the flight from Guayaquil to the Galapagos was about an hour and a half. The AIRPORT in the Galapagos is basically a tin shed, with no walls, which made claiming our luggage kind of interesting... From the airport, we headed to Puerto Ayora where we were transferred to our home for the next four days - the Darwin Yacht (or, as the stickers we were given said, Darwin Yatch).

After settling into our cabins and a quick spot of lunch, we were off to the Charles Darwin Research Station to see the giant tortoises. We got to get right up close to them, which was pretty amazing.

I was terrified that I was going to topple backwards and squish a tortoise...

We also got to see poor old Lonesome George, the last Pinta Island tortoise (he died about a month ago, so now there are NO Pinta Island tortoises. SAD PANDA). He did look very lonesome...

He's the rock looking thing behind the pond.

And we got to see BABY TORTOISES!!! (Also? Do you have ANY idea how hard it was for me not to write 'Esio Trot' in all these sentences???)

The colours painted on their backs tell the keepers which species they are.

Wandering around the research station (which also houses lava lizards, iguanas, and a bunch of different bird species) took up the rest of the day. That night, back on the boat, we had a briefing about the next day's activities, before we headed to the upper deck for a few drinks. And at about midnight, we set sail! I had a rather exciting(??) night, because the door to my cabin decided to fall open by itself, and bang against the wall, scaring the crap out of me. (Thankfully, my millionty kilo pack held it closed very nicely for the remaining nights!)

The following day, we were up stupidly early and doing our first trip ashore before 8am on the island of Rabida. It was pretty incredible - the beaches are red volcanic sand. We got to see hermit crabs, marine iguanas, sealions, pelicans and Darwin finches.

Marine iguana! They're kind of gross. There's almost no fresh water in the Galapagos, so
they've adapted to drinking seawater and snorting the salt out through their noses...

Cranky looking nesting pelicans

Sealions

And from there, we went snorkelling with several schools of fish, and a very curious sealion!! That part was ZOMG worthy, because the sealion swam along side us in the waves for a good ten minutes. After the snorkelling, it was back to the boat and off to Santiago. Public service announcement: taking a shower while sailing through choppy water is...interesting. On the plus side, there were a bunch of frigate birds handing out behind the boat, which was pretty awesome.

After a couple of hours of sailing and an hour for lunch, we were back in the dinghy heading for shore on Santiago. It's pretty amazing that two islands can be so close together and so completely different. Santiago had black sand beaches and a whole stack of crazy lava formations, along with TONS of marine iguanas, and a brand new baby sealion:

Kooky lava formations

Baby sealion, mummy sealion, and a butt ton of marine iguanas

We had a pretty long walk around the island, and wound up near some inlets getting to see a group of fur seals playing, which was incredible:

SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!

From there, we went snorkelling again, before sailing off into the sunset (literally) past a rock formation that was used for target practice during World War II (seriously), and a colony of masked boobies:

The Bishop

Masked boobies. THEY'RE BIRDS, YOU SMUTTY PEOPLE.

All in all? Not a bad two days! 

Next up, underwater craters, sharks, and a dose of "Hey, I remember this from Master and Commander!!"

K xx

Um... What just happened?

So, kids. Here we are in 2012! How were your New Year's celebrations? Mine were...interesting. Here's what happened:

• I went to the beach with my brother and his friends
• Took a scenic tour of Melbourne to get there because you can't get on the freeway going south where we thought you could #mapreadinggeniuses

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• I turned into a four year old and sat in the back of the car going "Are we there yet? I'M SOOOOOOO HUUUUUUUUUUUNGRY!!!!" over and over again until we stopped.
• Had lunch at McDonald's. They now have to list the nutrition information on the menu boards. Pretty sure one burger combo shouldn't contain 75% of your daily calorie intake *shudder*
• Had a view of the lighthouse from Round the Twist from the balcony, but neglected to take even a single picture of it...
• Went to the beach. Highly unusual for me. I spent my time there covering as much of me as possible with a towel to prevent sunburn, trying to prevent sand from getting in the spine of my book, and trying to take photos without looking like a creeper. 

• Overheard one of my brother's friends coin the term 'festively plump'. Decided it's total genius.
• Sat through a LOT of "That's what she said" jokes. 
• Alternated between being intrigued and terrified (if you're new around here: Hi, I have bird phobia) by the massive numbers of king parrots, kookaburras and crimson rosellas that turned up at the bird feeders hanging off the side of the deck

• Played with glow sticks and sparklers, because apparently we're all five years old
• Between 10 of us, we ate our way through 2.3 KILOGRAMS of jelly snakes. 

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As for midnight, we all walked from the house down to the beach. We reached the beach with about a minute to spare until the new year, and brought out a bunch more glow sticks and a sparkler bomb, which fizzled out miserably. A bunch of small children at a nearby house screaming the countdown at the top of their lungs proved very helpful in establishing that 2011 was nearly over. From the beach, we could see the fireworks at Lorne, further down the coast, along with some incredibly illegal (but very pretty!) fireworks being set off by a bunch of people about 100 metres down the beach. 

I also spent a chunk of time staring up at the sky, because the stars were AMAZING. Sadly, a TARDIS didn't appear... *sigh*

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Then, out of nowhere, a random New Zealander appeared. He was stark naked (I gather skinny dipping was involved), very drunk, and *very* impressionable. Someone said something along the lines of "Jeez, mate. You should carry a glow stick so we know where you are and can avoid you [and, by extension, seeing your junk]!" In response, he grabbed a glow stick from someone, jammed it between his butt cheeks, and ran off down the beach.

Well. We could CERTAINLY see him then. Up until the point where he bent down to pick up his clothes, and the glow stick fell out. And he picked it up and THREW IT BACK TO US. This led to much screaming and yelling and "DON'T TOUCH THE GREEN ONE, IT HAS POO GERMS!!!"-ing from certain inebriated members of our group (not me), and the offending glow stick being kicked into a hole on the beach and buried. I pity the small child that inevitably found it the following day... O.o

So there you have it. Between that and Paulie telling me the next morning that he was woken up at 4am by an unidentified couple having very enthusiastic sex (complete with arse slapping) upstairs, I believe 2012 is keen to crown itself The Year of 'What The Fuck Just Happened?'...

Anyone else have any interesting New Year's experiences?

K xx

Fieldwork lessons 2

I've been in Portland for the last few days on another photography expedition. We also had to collect some rocks that are going to be used in the gallery. And once again, fieldwork has taught me a couple of things:

1. Tiny planes have really low roofs. Ow.
2. The security checks at tiny airports consist of "Do you have any sharp objects? No? Great!"
3. Co-pilots with pimples and bum fluff on their chins? Not reassuring in the slightest.
4. If a tiny plane is scheduled to take an hour and a half to get somewhere that takes four hours to drive, it's not because the tiny plane goes really slowly. It's because it goes via Hamilton, something that isn't on the itinerary.
5. Don't watch Fox 8 first thing in the morning. You'll get sucked into a Futurama/Family Guy/Simpsons session and end up running horribly late.
6. Don't wear Converse on fieldwork. You'll end up having to trek through a partially flooded cow paddock and stand on something that SEEMS like solid-ish mud, but is actually a crust of mud with squelchy, watery grossness underneath. Which leads to this:

7. I love my shiny new 55-300mm lens (okay, I knew that one already. Whatever):

8. ALWAYS wear sunscreen. Sure, I should have known this one. But for some reason it didn't occur to me, and now I'm a delightful shade of beetroot.
9. Half of Portland is named after the Hentys. Not surprising, considering the Hentys founded Portland, and therefore probably named half of it after themselves in the first place...
10. A 50m roll of bubble wrap is rather large. Also? It's perforated. Awesome...
11. Posting a 5kg rock from Portland to Canberra will set you back $15.
12. If I lived in a country town, I would a) go insane, and b) be the size of a house from eating nothing but doughnuts from the local bakery.
13. The Mexican schnitzel with chips and salad at the Bridgewater Bay Beach Cafe is delicious. The view ain't too shabby either!

14. Watch out for small dogs when packing six large rocks in bubble wrap and plastic boxes. They may run up and pee on the stack of boxes just when you've finished putting the last of the lids on...
15. Week old bull terrier puppies are *seriously* fugly. I mean, bull terriers are fugly at the best of times. But when they're a week old and haven't opened their eyes yet? They just roll in their own shit and bear a striking resemblance to rats... *shudder*
16. A pub crawl in Portland isn't nearly as impressive as it sounds. Cos there's only about three pubs in town!
17. Waking up at 6.45am with the 'See My Vest' song from the Simpsons stuck in your head on a Saturday morning is incredibly irritating, despite how catchy it is...

K xx

Sydney!

It was Queen's Birthday long weekend a couple of weeks ago. Sara and I decided that spending a long weekend in Canberra was too depressing for words, so jumped on a bus and headed up the road to Sydney. In addition to seeing Wicked on the Friday night, we went on a harbour cruise, went to the Aquarium, the museum, the Opera House, the botanic gardens, and Bondi. Let's start the scenic tour with the harbour cruise. Here's the harbour bridge.

Twice.

And then Opera House.

Here's the city from the harbour:

Here's the Opera House, complete with scenic ferry!

Aaaaand from the front:

From a little further away, you get the city, the Opera House AND the bridge.

Here's the bridge with Admirality House in the centre and Kiribilli House on the far right:

Look! Teeny tiny people climbing the bridge!

The bridge looks different from every angle:

Ooooh, the Maritime Museum - complete with tall ships! Tall ships make me happy. Sadly, we ran out of time and didn't get to go. Next time...

Then it was a stop off for some afternoon cocktails. Mmmmm, daiquiri...

Then it was on to the aquarium, where Sara posed for many slightly ridiculous photos, such as this:

I've developed an unfortunate habit of finding text panels that I wish I'd gotten to write and taking photos of them. This is one of them. Mostly because it amused me...

And this is another - this time because of the image. Who wouldn't love to be in charge of morphing a crocodile's head onto a chicken's body????

Then it was onto the undersea beasties. Seahorses:

And dugongs:

And leafy sea dragons - oh my! Okay, not quite the same as the Wizard of Oz, but hey. I saw Wicked. What did you expect??

This is a stonefish. He'll kill you in a second due to horrible spiny things on his back. He's also possibly the fugliest beastie I've ever seen............

Here's a bunch of cuttlefish. They were so cute!!

Then it was on to the shark tank. Which also contained the BIGGEST ray I've ever seen. I can remember what species it was, but I do remember that they can grow up to 4 metres across...

He was absolutely massive................

There were a couple of green sea turtles in the shark tank too. Apparently they like to wedge themselves into corners - weird little beasties!

This is the Great Barrier Reef tank. It was pretty impressive!

It had sharks in it too!

The next day, it was off to see the Opera House up close!

You get nice views of the bridge from there too:

Then it was into the botanic gardens. They encourage you to hug the trees - Sara was most impressed!

Here's the bridge and the Opera House from the botanic gardens. Sick of it yet?? ;)

Here's some nice fungus.

And the fernery:

It contained some funky looking flowers from Brazil:

The succulent garden was pretty cool - here's some nice agave plants...

These were kind of fun:

And this is a custard apple. I think... Some kind of a cactus-y thing involving the word 'apple' anyway...

Then it was on to the museum. On the way there, we passed the cathedral, which was quite impressive. I'm a bit sad I didn't get a photo of the statue of John Paul II - he looked like he was flying. He he he.

The museum was filled with fun things. Including more signage I wish I'd written:

Delightful velociraptor models. I often wonder if palaeontologists have done any work on velociraptors since Jurassic Park came out. Or if they just make the models based on people's expectations...:

Hello, Mr Stegosaur! You're cool...

Aaaaaaaand here's a nice tyrannosaurus rex.

This beastie was freaking bizarre. It was like a cross between something from Jurassic Park, Dr. Seuss, and Labyrinth...

And then a T-Rex ate Sara's head...

Then it was onto the skeleton room, which featured fun stuff like this guy:

And his friend, who even had pets:

Finally, it was on to Bondi Beach. It was a wee bit chilly by the time we got there... And it was mildly subarctic once the sun went down!

Sara decided she needed to brave the Pacific Ocean:

Aaaaand then she got mildly drenched...

Some mental people were surfing:

The sunset was quite purdy...

And finally, here's the lifeguard tower where all the Bondi Rescue action takes place:

And from there, it was back to the 'berra. Which featured three hours on a bus with a puking woman and a 10 degree drop in temperature - lovely, no??????? ;)

K :) xx