The Great Ocean Road

Our friends in Geelong graciously lent us their car today so we could head out and explore The Great Ocean Road!

This wonderful coastal road is in the Great State of Victoria, which is governed by the wonderful capital city of Melbourne. In Victoria, the weather changes often. The Victorians are known for good-heartedly complaining about "Four seasons in a day", although I doubt it ever snows (ha!)

Anyway, when the weather's a changin', there's bound to be rainbows about, and we weren't disappointed, because we were greeted with a beauty as soon as we hit the Southern Ocean:

There are some odd rock formations along the road, and these are the main tourist attractions, although they seem to be diminishing. One of these attractions is called The Twelve Apostles, but several of the twelve have disappeared in recent years. Here we see two Apostles:

Stripey tried her best to fill in for the missing ones:

Interestingly, the Twelve Apostles used to be called "The Sow and Piglets." No word on whether or not the sow is still standing.

A bit further down the road, we took in London Bridge, just before dark. London Bridge used to connect to the mainland, but it fell down in 1990. We heard that there were tourists out on the remaining part when the arch collapsed, but nobody was hurt.

Here we have more Stupid Tourist Tricks with photography. Keeping true to London custom, we see our subject Minding the Gap:

And judging by the hardness of said subject's head, we might call this snapshot "Marble Arch". We'll leave it up to you.

These attractions are located just west of Port Campbell. The satellite images isn't quite up to snuff yet, but perhaps one day you'll be able to see the rocks from space.

51st State

We saw this book in the gift shop at Australia's Parliament in Caneberra.

Evidently Oz is trying to muscle in on Canada's claim:

Feed the Parrots

The neighbors here in Lane Cove, Sydney have some friendly visitors. Every afternoon, the most colorful parrots hang about in the trees around their back yard, hoping for a treat. The little buggers don't seem to be too worried about people harming them, as the photos below show!

food (munch munch) more interesting than big scary guy

closeup of colorful little critters

makes you want a bowl of Fruit Loops!

So if you're in Sydney, you can skip the stinking zoo. Just go to the neighbors and feed the parrots! ;)

For you bird watchers out there, these little guys are evidently called the Rainbow Lorikeet.

Schizophrenic Cockatoo

Last weekend -- here in Lane Cove, Sydney (Google map) -- we were sitting around in our neighbors garage watching the pig roast (another story altogether) While we sampled bits of the roast, we were also being amused by our good friend: Koki the Sulphur-crested Cockatoo. Koki is the neighbors faithful pet bird, and is usually in good spirits, as seen here:

After a while, though, Koki started getting all aggressive. Perhaps she had angst about ending up like the poor little piggie:

Perhaps she was riled up from chasing/biting the grill's eletctrical cord every time somebody moved it. Or maybe the camera-flash freaked her out. Whatever the reason, she started flaring the yellow comb on her head, spreading her wings, and aggressively attacking our toes! She was promptly escorted to her cage, but not before inspiring these comics:

Weird Products #1

Every once in a while, we just have to laugh at the small differences between the countries in which we live, and those we visit. Here's a sampling of products that have made us laugh (or cringe)

In Australia, it looks like Burger King has a twin brother:

While we were in New Zealand, it took me a couple of times to the super-market before I realized that the Kiwis do not eat tons and tons of Jimmy Dean Sausage:

We were just dying to buy this guitar for our "little" brother back home:

I almost broke my neck when I did a double-take at this item in the dairy section of Cole's:

Spewing Turtles of Hyde Park

So yesterday, we were walking through the center of Sydney, Australia -- through Hyde Park to be exact. Not the real Hyde Park, but the fake one. Anyway, we came to a fountain, and I'm struck with this intense feeling of Godzilla-de-ja-vu.

I never thought I'd put the words "spewing" and "turtles" together, but, well here you go. I'm also amazed at how many hits "spewing turtles" returns on Google.

Click here for the plan-view of the spewing turtles.

CeBIT in Sydney

So who knew that there was a CeBIT show in Sydney? We were walking along Cockle Bay in Darling Harbour and couldn't help but notice all the red flags! Tempted as I was, the A$66 entry-fee kept me properly "on vacation." Besides, by the time we're done with our trip, all the gadgets from this show will be obsolete anyway. :)

More info:

• CeBIT Australia
• The real CeBIT

By the way, did you know what CeBIT stands for?

Centrum der Büro- und Informationstechnik

Gesundheit!