Adelaide Or Bust!

So I've been living in a town called Naracoorte South Australia for the last 9 months. A place that's a 6 hour drive from Melbourne, 16 hours from Sydney, a bloody world away from Cairns, a different land mass than Tasmania and a mere 4 hours drive to Adelaide. Yet, I've been to Sydney twice, Melbourne more times than I can count, made it down to Tassie and up to Cairns before visiting Adelaide. The capital of my own state. This pretty much makes me pathetic. . .wouldn't ya say? I've spent more time in Victoria than I have in South Australia. And to anyone living in South Australia, they would recognize this as a great Betrayal. Victorians are the dirty Mexicans of Australia. They live south of the (NSW) border :) But no, not this time. I was determined to show some South Australia pride. I spent 5 days in Adeliade doin the Tourist thang with my thrid Host Family, the Agnew's.

First we went to the Monarto Zoo. Now look at that word 'Monarto'. It is pronounced monato. That, like the word 'arse', is the Australian accent in a nutshell. They put useless, meaningless R's in the middle of words just to make themselves different. Bloody hopeless I'd say. Oh, and get this! They do it with U's too!! Colour? Flavour? Labour? What is this country doing to me!!?!?!? Anyways. . .back to the Zoo :) It's a massive chunk of land that was meant to be used to expand the city of Adelaide but because the soil is hopeless for growing crops and no one ever got around to building any hospitals or schools, it's a zoo. With animals mostly imported from South Africa and the USA. There were Bison, Zebras, Giraffes, African painted dogs, lot's of African deer and antelope of some kind or another and Lions. This photo is of Leroy. The king of the Pride. Looks pretty scary. . . RRRAAAWWRRRR!

And the Zebra's. Which is pronounced Z-eh-bra, none of this Z-eeeee-bra hoopla.

Oh, now this is exciting. Well, more exciting than the grammar lesson I've been giving you :) I went to the Footy on Friday night right. Aussie Rules is just about the only sport I can sit down and watch. Cricket is hopelessly boring and Grid Iron is incredibly confusing. Footy just makes sense. It was a St Kilda (My Team) V.S. Port Power match. The Saints creamed Power. Beating them 106 to 32. GO SAINTS!! There was a members thing after the match and my host Dad is a member so I got to meet some of the players and got an autograph on my scarf. To bad I have no idea who this bloke is, let alone what position he plays. . .I'll have to google that one and get back to you on it :) I only know that he was nearly 7 feet tall and is pratically bent in half for this photo. . .WOW.

And then there was ANZAC Day (April 25). Australia and New Zealand Army Corps Day. A day to celebrate and thank all of the men and women who have put their lives on the line for Australia's Freedom, Peace and Safety. There was Dawn Service which I attended. I now have a new respect for the soldiers or a country. I would never do such a thing, but those who do are Heros in my eyes. The ceremony was beautiful. It's to bad we don't do anything like this for the Hero's of the USA.

"Yankees Invade Oz"

A family of three traveled all the way across the world to see me. Yes, I am that important. :) I mean, they stopped at a few places along the way. . .places like Sydney, Cairns and Melbourne. But their sole reason for being in Australia was to see me. That would be my family. The yankees who invaded Oz. My mum, twin sister Hayely and older sister Autumn. I met them in Sydney where we did a bridge climb, rode on the ferry to Manly at night (which is SOOO pretty)and went to a play at the Opera House. Mum even got herself on the news!! There was a massive blackout in the CBD the night we were meant to go to the Opera House to see our play, the camera man interviewed mum and *SNAP* she was on the National News. Just like magic.

Left to right we have Autumn, Hayely and me at the top of the Sydney Harbour Bridge. Pretty amazing feeling that is.

This is my mum on the Ferry to Manly. People say she looks like me. . .?

We also went to the Blue Mountains on a Bus trip. We went to a wildlife park and then drove up and tried to see the Three sisters. Problem was, it was foggy as and we couldn't see a thing. So here, have a photo of four smiling super tourists who even went so far as to have their photo posed with a Koala :)

(L to R) Autumn, me, Mum and Hayley.
And here's another irrelevant photo. We then went up to Cairns and spent two nights staying on Green Island. Which is an island made out of Coral sediment stuff. It's millions of years old and has a thriving rain Forest living on it. We spent three days snorkeling and got our backs horribly burnt. And seeing as snorkeling requires that you be in the water, I never took my digital camera down and got a photo of us. So here's one of some complete strangers :) The Coral was very pretty and, the farther out you went, the more diversity there was. Me and my sisters also went for a short Scuba Diving adventure in the Outer Reef. That was really good. You would expect the colours to be brighter but the water, it dulls the colour. But it's still well worth the trip.

We also went up to the Tropical Rain Forest near Cairns and did Sky Rail. Which was BEAUTIFUL!!! It's so green up there! Everything here is either brown, a crisp yellow color or well.. .brown.

Then we were off to Melbourne. After the four hour plane flight we got off expecting there to be an hour time difference. When the captain announced that there wasn't one. We were all SOO confused. Then someone came to their senses and remembered that that wonderful thing called daylight savings must have ended and everyone was happy again :) That night we went over to the Cole's house and had Tea. Then we got on Public Transport and headed for the City. We did the Queen Victoria Markets and looked at some of the touristy things in Melbourne.




L to R we have Autumn, Mum, me, Hayley and Britt Cole who tagged along as our tour guide :)

Things like this awesome Graffiti Alley where it's just full of art.

(Hayley and Mum)

Then we made our way over to a place called Halls Gap in the Grampians. Real Australia. Out of the cities and into the country, my land. Where there is nothing but gum trees. I love it. This is Borken Falls near Mckenzie falls on the other side of the mountains from Halls Gap. Here we went out for tea with my Country Contact with Rotary, Sue Williams and her husband Allan.

(Hayley, mum and Autumn)

The next day we made our way over to Naracoorte. Where I made them stay a night in Kyby, my first host family lives there. It's literally two shacks and a footy oval, TINY. Then we went to the caves and pretty much did nothing else aside from meeting my people cause that's all that's worth seeing here in Naracoorte. A town NOT meant for tourists, one that was totally unprepared for this yankee invasion.