Two weeks from today the adventure begins!

After a 14.5 hr flight and 13000 km, we arrived safe and sound in Sydney around 6:40 am local time

Sydney this morning.

We got some disheartening news today. A fire on Kangaroo Island has made it too dangerous to stay there.

After a short panic, we found nice house on the beach south of Adelaide to stay. We will still be taking a ferry across to Kangaroo Island on the 26th to swim with the dolphins and explore a couple other areas. It will all be ok and fun, just not what we had plannes.

On a better note, the botanical gardens were wonderful today. Here are a couple pics.

This first weekend in Sydney was interesting. The days had many ups and downs. On Saturday after we arrived, Haley and I walked around the circular quay by the Opera house. The air wasn’t as Smokey as expected which was awesome. After getting home from exploring on Saturday we were extremely tired and crashed in bed really early. Sunday morning we woke up really early and began our day. Mom and Dad walked out to see the sunset over the opera house. Later in the morning Haley and I walked to McDonalds where they had a massive selection of baked goods. They had donuts, macaroons, and mini cheesecakes. We got our iced coffees and walked to the Royal Botanical Gardens. The Fardens were sooo fun. We got to see so many cool birds and tropical plants. After that we went down to lunch and found some disappointing news about our house on Kangaroo Island. There had been/are raging bush fires on the island extremely close to where we would stay. Hopefully later this week the fires will be out. For dinner, we ordered dominos and it was weird. On the menu they had vegetarian substitute meat options and milkshakes! They delivered the pizza on bike. We ordered a large pizza. Once we got it we realized what they call a large is what we call a small in the US. Now I am currently on the plane to Adalaide where more adventures await.

On Sunday Emmie and I went to the botanical gardens in Sydney, Australia and took tons of pictures.

Some of them were silly-

We got up very early on the 26th to drive from Sellicks Beach to the ferry at Cape Jervis for a 6am crossing to Kangaroo Island.. It took about 45 minutes to cross.

Although no one wanted to get up that early, we were all looking forward to visit Kangaroo Island and spend some time at the rental home.

Before going to the rental, we made our way to Emu Bay where we took a dolphin tour with KI Marine Adventures. It was a wonderful experience and all four of us got in the ocean with the dolphins. It was pretty magical.

I have a lot of photos to post, but due to bandwidth restrictions where we are staying, I can’t upload any right now. Yesterday, we took a row boat out on the water from our rental, and the girls went snorkeling at Stokes Beach which is only accessible through a narrow, rocky cave. \240In the evening I went for a short drive and saw more than 100 kangaroos within a mile of our rental. \240 This morning Louise and I went to Lathami Conservation area in search of the endangered Glossy black cockatoo. There are fewer than 400 of them, but apparently that’s up from around 200. We were happy to see both a male and female right before we were going head back to our car. We are headed off to explore more of the island today and then this evening we are taking a nocturnal tour to see some night time animals.

We had an amazing day on the 28th. Pictures will be shared when I have better internet in a couple days.

First we saw the endangered Glossy black cockatoo, then we saw about 7 koalas in the wild, including two babies. We visited the Remarkable Rocks and after dinner we went on a nocturnal tour where we saw dozens of wallabies and kangaroos, including two kangaroos boxing, which I captured on video I’ll share later. We also saw the elusive Little Penguin, the smallest penguins in the world. \240They are usually only seen at night. The drive home was a challenge. There were many brush tailed opossums in the road and many wallabies and kangaroos.

Our last full day on Kangaroo Island was mostly relaxation and a little sun recovery from the long day yesterday. \240The evening turned out spectacularly. Louise, Emmie and Haley took a couple of kayaks out from shore that is part of the property we were staying on. I was high on the cliffs above them scouting locations for the sunset. As I watched them, about 100 meters ahead of them I saw dolphins. \240The dolphins came around them and stayed with them for a while swimming right next to the kayaks. I got a nice video of part of their interaction. I saw a rare white bellied sea eagle, it took off before I could bring my camera up, but I got a couple snaps of it flying. We also saw an Australian Boobook, which is a small owl that is usually pretty hard to photograph, but I got pretty lucky. \240The sunset was wonderful and a fitting way to end our time our last full day on KI. Tomorrow we will see a bit more of the island, perhaps some Australian sea lions, and then we will take the ferry back to the mainland and spend the night in Adelaide before flying on to our next adventure in the Whitsunday Islands.

A few pics from the last few days.

There haven’t been many updates because we haven’t had much cell coverage while we’ve been in the water.

We are doing well. We’ve gotten some snorkeling in and some enjoyable boating, paddle boarding, etc.

Once we have some regular internet I’ll post some more photos.

A few Whitsunday scenes.

We are on day two of our journey down to Brisbane from Airlie Beach. The first night we stayed in Eungella National Park in a nice lodge. Both last night and this morning we saw platypuses in the wild (pics below). We also saw several birds, frogs and such. We wish we would have booked more time at Eungella. It waslocated in some tropical mountains with so many interesting trees. Below you can see the view from the “Sky Window” and the incredible view to the fertile valley

Tonight we rest in Emu Park, a nice little coastal town.