Remembering Oz, the Land DownUnder

At long last a few photos from our 2005, month long trip to Oz…the glorious land DownUnder…where women roar, men thunder and the animals trump everything.

One of Australia's weird and wonderful wild life species

If there's ever a time you'd like to be able to say, "Been there, done that" it would be when someone mentions a trip to the amazing wonderland down under.

Everything in Oz is HUGE, DIFFERENT, dreamlike, unforgettable and unimaginable. Like that weird bird above with a huge bill. How can it fly???

Everything is otherworldly...Like waking up to a airy balloons outside your garden in Melbourne...

Like finding a giant surreal mural in a tiny Tasmanian town and 

realizing you fit right in…

Like spotting giant neon orange and and pink mushrooms….

Like walking into beautiful giant fanning grasses...

and spotting giant two legged birds that can't fly...

Then there is the giant Victoria market that spans blocks...

We found a sculpture garden outside of Melbourne with big white balls of ….

who knows????

There are boldly colored parrots that come 

and sit right next to you...

And a midnight marauding Tasmanian devil who comes right onto your wilderness porch to devour his dinner….those marks on his skin are war scars...

There is a place on Tasmania called "The Remarkable Rocks"…

this one looks like Darth Vader to me...

And this one like a side view of the lion...

Still on Kangaroo Island to the south of Adelaide…you might encounter kangaroos or wallabies anywhere…they eat them in Australia…"minced wallaby" AKA hamburger.

Huge colonies of huge walrus seals lie on the rocky shores on Kangaroo Island…man does that smell!

The sweetest little bear in the world can be found in the wild like this one we spotted sleeping in a gum tree in a community park in Adelaide...

Still on Kangaroo Island…an otherworldly land down under the surface 

These are aboriginal hands painted on a cave wall…remarkable rocks again I guess!

I love Australia! One of the best things that ever happened to me was getting the opportunity to live a year in Melbourne teaching high school in the suburb of Fawkner…that was 1975-76. My students treated me like royalty and my memories of life there are just as clear as if it were yesterday. It had always been my dream to take Dave to Australia and share the things I treasured in the land down under. The thing is…it was even better the second time around.