The art of chatting up bearded men with sailboats

Bear with me folks, I'm going to try to break this up into two posts since the past three days have been pretty jam packed, and i'm afraid you would all give up on me if it was just one endless blabber.  And I promise, there will be more exciting pictures!

Said "exciting" picture

We went camping up at Lake Coothabara, about a 2 hour drive from Brisbane and first went to one camp site but it was crowded and the care taker was creepy and had lots of rules so we relocated about 5k up the road to Elanda Point.  This site was beautiful, grassy, and though the wind was crazy strong the first day and we had rain both mornings the sun came out plenty to burn us all to a crisp.  To the right you will notice my humble little abode.  A damn fine tent that sprung up with ease and kept me dry all through a night of rain.  Though I couldn't sleep under the stars as I am wont to do when the weather is good, being dry and not blinded by the sun when it starts to get light here at FOUR IN THE MORNING were definitely well worth it.  Interestingly, with a group of Australians who have been rained on basically non stop for the past 2 months I was the only one who brought any sort of rain gear or a book (good Rasch upbringing I'm sure).  Not wanting to struggle against the onshore breezes (by breezes I mean winds upwards of 20 knots) or be pelted by the constant sand storm on the beech I set up one of the kayaks in the sun as a nice little lounge station and caught up on my Jack Vance.

The greatest part of the camping trip came the next day, after a swim out--i say swim, but i went out quite a ways and it never got over my head, so more of a water walk--and plopping down on the beach for awhile (the product of which is this accursed sunburn, the back of my hands! who burns the back of their hands?)

(I do)

Anyway, back to the run-on sentence I was in the middle of before I jumped to a pictorial interlude-- Jake, the woebegone kite boarder and I made a mission to go sailing.  A family in the campground had a catamaran pretty similar to our hobie and we went to befriend the large very bearded man (he had a fearsome red beard, this is important) who seemed in charge (again, probably the beard).  He also had a funny hat and walked around in a wet suit all day even though the water and air were warm and even when he was out of the water for periods of time.  But that's just how Bondi is, the bearded sailor man, but we did talk him into it, in fact it took very little convincing since there was a good amount of wind and he wanted someone to crew.  I spent most of the ride on the trapeze, my favorite spot, but the bungee was too loose and I ended up dunked a number of times and harassed by many waves. All in good fun, what's a little water up the nose?

So the other really cool thing about the camping trip was the birds.  And I mean birds. At first when arriving in Sydney I thought that maybe it's just the pigeons that seemed to not be scared of people...nope.  That age old  parent's reassurance when a kid sees a crab or a spider of "don't worry, they are more scared of you than you are of them" is just not true Down Under.  This was our favorite ducky friend who spent most of the trip under the tarp with us hoping for treats.  But he was not the only one, kookaburras, magpies, noisey miners, currawongs, brush turkeys, quail, and cormorants were all very interested and not at all shy.  at one point we were so surrounded it felt like any moment could be a scene from Hitchcock's sequel Birds II: Australia.  

I swear I sing the kookaburra song every time I see one of these little guys, especially in a gumtree. Merry, merry king of the bush is he.
laugh, kookaburra, laugh.

gay your life must be.

I can't stop...

Other than birds that drove nursery rhymes into your head and would not let them out for hours on end, we saw the Australian monster lizards, goannas, which are basically the bad guy's pet from rescuers down under. and the seem just as evil if you ask me.  He kept creeping up to camp, and I really mean he embodied the word "creep" like only a skinny middle aged man with a moustache and fanny pack sitting alone near a playground can.  I was just waiting for him to try to kidnap a small child or steal an eagle's egg. either way, I'm not a fan.

  

Kangaroos are an animal I can really get behind, they are great fans of lounging and naps.  When they scratch their ears they do it just like a dog, which when they have feet that size I must say is just adorable.  These were about 10 feet away from our campsite and well within the campground.  They didn't seem very bothered by us, though a large one did snort at Murray. They lounge I tell you, all this hopping is just rumor.