Australia - This and That

 We have been traveling around Australia for just about three weeks now and have a made a few interesting observations.  Apart from the obvious - it is a big country and although they speak English it is a slightly different version - we have discovered the following:

1.  The Grey Nomads.  This is caravan country.  It seems almost obligatory to purchase some kind of house on wheels once your hair starts to turn gray.  And once retired from the work force you then must spend a good part of the year traipsing about from one site to another and should occasionally venture into another State.  We are amongst the youngest couple in every camp site we have been to and at every attraction visited so far.  My goodness, even the surfers here are gray-haired. 

A game of bochi ball to start off the day. The dogs, the ladies with their knitting and the wonderful all round camaraderie.  

2.  The Highway Buffet.  I somehow thought kangaroos would be an occasional sighting.  Not so.  They are everywhere.  And they are not terribly road savvy. Actually, neither are the emus, but I guess that is not such a surprise.  The early morning on the outback highway is a feeding frenzy for the birds of prey where they have plenty of fresh road kill to choose from. Now we know why all cars have bull bars.

This guy thought he could outrun us.  We did let him win in the end. 

3.  Everything is accessible by road. Quite different from New Zealand where we hiked some 400 kilometers to see the great sites.  It seems here in Australia a long hike is considered to be about 5 kilometers.  Most of the scenic points are accessible by car with a 500m walk at most to get to the lookout.  Maybe this is linked somewhat to item 1?

KiaRoo takes on the outback.

4.  Clean Skins.  This is Australia's version of Two Buck Chuck.  Any excess wine that can't be sold under a well known and therefore expensive label, is bottled with a plain white label and sold for $4.00-$6.00.  We tried some the past two nights and really must ask ourselves why we would spend $20.00 for a bottle of wine.  Well, ok.  It's not that good, but certainly better than home-made wine.

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5. Parrots and Cockatoos.  The love affair is over!  We were so enthralled with our first sightings of the colorful parrots and flocks of cockatoos. These beauties are only ever seen in cages in our home country so to see them flying in large numbers in the wild was quite exciting.  However.  They are noisy as heck and it seems they don't sleep through the night.  A very large group came over our camp last night making a huge racket and, of all things, pooped on our tent and newly washed car.