Glenelg: Sounds like coughing something up.

In the first week I met a delightful couple, Rudy and Chantel. We went to a barbacue at their house and had a few beers. I got to experience a real Australian Barbie! However I was sadly disapointed to hear that not only were there no shrimp to throw on, but Australians exclusively call them "prawns."Who knew? We had a wonderful time and somewhere in the middle of the party someone decided it was a great idea to play ne'erdowells, to hop the neighbor's fence and pick some olives from their tree. We ended up ripping a branch off the tree! Whoops.

I only found out later that the house was abandoned and we risked little other than skinning our knees on the fence, but the thrill was nice at the time.

Adelaide quickly became too small a place to confine the likes of Tyler and me. The first weekend we headed for a local sea town called Glenelg. It was nice there. We saw adorable little children playing on the beach like this one pictured here.

Tyler took a moment to play fashion model on the dock.

He guided me with his sheer animal power. The man was really a natural in front of the camera. Here we are together, me wearing the worst sun glasses known to modern man.

The local fishermen were out in force and I caught a shot of this one's crazy bicycle. I like how it turned out.

It was a sleepy little beach town. So much so, that they even had their own metal detector guy combing the beach for lost Dubloons. This was a recovery day so there's not a lot of action in it. Sorry I know my joof is know for swashbucking action!

Till next time.

Blue Mountians are not so to a colorblind man, and Adelaide First Impressions

The next day we went on a trip to the blue mountains, ate lots of food and finally Tyler flew to Adelaide. Here are the mountains...











Here are some local tigers.












And I know we agreed not to talk about it but here is Tyler getting taken advantage of by a Koala. You have got to watch those little buggers, they're incorrigible. Due to a silly mishap my flight was changed to the day after and I was forced to spend one more night at Jill's.

When I arrived in Adelaide it was dry and cold. A strange combo but there you go. I was drinking water like I was in the desert. I later would be.The first few days were recovery from travel and drinking so I spent a lot of time indoors. That however was acceptable considering that it was raining and cloudy. This was the weather I had expected in Seattle not Australia but you can't really order that, the weather I mean.

On the second or third day (things are fuzzy) I took a walk around the park near Tyler's ridiculously large top floor penthouse suite. You think I'm kidding but it was all of those things. Anyway more on that later back to the park. I stalked some wild animals and came up with these pictures.

I found a wild parrot:
Not as difficult as it sounds owing to their loud mating rituals.

I wish this was a Red Headed Boobie or a Nut Hatch
cause I like saying those names, but I think it's an Australian Pigeon (opening for the Sex Pistols).
This is probably not a gum tree which explains why I found
no Kookaburra in it.
Ok I'm a photographer-ish so I am allowed one kind of arty shot, right?
I took this while wearing a beret and
smoking out of a thin black cigarette holder. Incidentally this is the backside of the old fruit and vegetable market in town that has been gentrified into upscale shops.
Ah the simplicity of a bench. Shinning with sit-able warmth there in the middle of the park.

So that's about it for my Adelaide first impression. That night we went to a party with some "real" Aussies which I will talk about next time. Until then, be well.

Sydney Redux

There I was sleepy and having a nice beer with my friends in the hostel when Tyler and Jill ripped my from my comfort zone and tossed me headlong into the minuscule yet ready ample arms of the back seat of a mini cooper. (and yes it was kind of an uncomfortable place).

We headed to a friend of Jill's house and drank Peroni until the sun came up. Actually we kicked it pretty early that night as we were all tired. The next night day we headed to the horse races. I've never been to a horse race in the US let alone one in another country. The tradition it appeared was one of the British ilk when it came to dress, Big hats (which we'll go into later) and fancy duds for the men. That is were the tradition stoped being British and became purely Australia.

Dresses in every color adorned the green in front of the race track, having a competition of their own as to who could be the shortest on the thighs. The hats the women were wearing were more of a "hat gesture" than a hat. Tiny top hats were precariously pinned to clumps of women's hair. Little red berets hung from bottle blond locks and even the occasional miniature cowboy hat waltzed by akimbo.


The men were decked out their sunday best with sun-glasses fake tans and wads of cash. One man came as a circa 19070s pimp.

As we entered the front gate there were dogs which I later found out were sniffing for cocaine. It's a filthy habit for dogs but there you are. The doberman looked at me with those "gotta get my next fix" eyes and felt suddenly sorry for him.



<--Here is a picture of what happens when you take too much cocaine. Stay in school kids.

We weren't there 10 minutes before I surmised that really the only reason for about 90% of the people to be there was to get dressed up and DRINK HEAVILY.


Horse races are fast. Waiting for them to start and killing the in-between time, that's the trick. Enter our old friend "extremely overprice libation." As well as I can tell you just sit and drink and lose money and drink some more. Somewhere in there you get the vague idea there are some animals running around but no one has told you when or where.


After a long day of watching everyone around us get unstable we headed to a bar where I was obliged to pay $7 for 10oz of crappy Australia beer. Hey but the music was good. After a while I got bored and eventually fell asleep a bit in my chair. I was immediately thrown out of the bar. Tyler was thrown out minutes afterward for reading a book.

Right before I left I managed to take one picture. Funny but not every Australia I would meet would be the svelte surfer you might imagine.




The next day would start late.