Wow! We can’t believe it is July! We have been gone since June 8, and we can tell you boys and girls, “There is no place like home!” It has been the journey of a lifetime and we are very grateful to Fund for Teachers for selecting us to take this trip. We have learned a lot, not only about the plants and animals of Australia, but also about the history, the geology, the food, the people. It has been a glorious 23 days! Tomorrow, we head home, and we look forward to seeing everybody when we return to school. Have a great summer! You might check the blog occasionally as we may add some more pictures and slideshows when we get home. Cheers!

Our last day

Flying Foxes in a tree.




Moreton Fig


On our last day we enjoyed some of Sydney’s most famous landmarks. We walked around the Opera House, across the Harbor Bridge and spent several hours in the Royal Botanic Garden. The bats, flying foxes, are thick in the gardens. They are so numerous they are damaging the trees. The garden has been given permission to try some things to get the bats to move. One is noise, and we noticed some plastic spikes on some of the trees. That looks like it would discourage bats, or anything else from landing.
They had a rainforest walk and we were excited at all the things we recognized and remembered! One of the trees was a ficus, or a Moreton Bay Fig. This is the tree that creates the strangler fig, but this one seems to have germinated in the ground and it didn’t strangle anything. We loved the sign in the gardens. It said, “Please walk on the grass. We also invite you to smell the roses, hug the trees, talk to the birds and picnic on the lawn.” (In the Daintree we were advised not to hug trees, excellent advice for that part of the world.)
And now, a small moment from Mrs. Morris.
Be careful not to be over zealous when planning trips of a lifetime. When planning our trip to Australia trip Mrs. Harding and I, in our quest to save money yet do everything possible decided we co9uld handle the red eye from Perth to Sydney. In doing so we would save money on a hotel room. That also meant we had from 10:30 am to arounf 8:30 pm to find things to occupy our time swince we would not have a place to crash. Most hotels will keep your luggage for you during the day so we didn’t have to lug it around Perth. Traveling with Mrs. Harding, I knew there would not be a problem keeping busy. Our biggest problem was that we usually called it a day around 4:30-5:00 pm when it got dark. We had until 8:20 pm before we would be shuttled to the airport—a REAL airport this time—to wait for our midnight departure.
Sounds easy right? Maybe when you are 20, but as most of you know I am OLD and bedtime comes around 9:00 pm! Even in Australia! We fought to either stay awake or try to sleep in the uncomfortable qccommodations of the airport. Once on board we tried to snuggle in for the 3 ½ hour flight to Sydney. Mrs. Harding did a fine job of sleeping. I on the other hand got in 2 movies! Point to be made—I am not 20 and when planning any other trips no red eye flights! My eyes have certainly been red today!
That, however, is not my small moment. The battery on my phone died—not that we could use it for anything other than the time since my international service failed—but I wanted to charge it up so I could text family when we got to Dallas. Looked for my charger and low and behold it was gone! I struggled to remember when I used it last and that was way back on Magnetic Island! Now on top of no international service I couldn’t even call when we got back to the good old USA!
Sometimes when yo9u are dog tired things you forget come storming back. This was the case with my charger. I had a smalol bag that I kept the charger in and knew my luggage. Upon arrival at our hotel in Sydney and a short nap I looked and voila! There it was! I was ecstatic! I got my phone, hooked it up and after a minute or two I heard the sweet ring of my text alert. Mrs. Harding and I looked at each other with amazement, checked the phone and oh happy days I have international service!!! Now this news was met with exhilaration and irritation as we have one more day until we make our lon g journey home. Irritation or not I anxiously waited for the phone to charge, sent a text to my daughter and son even though it was 2:00 am back home.
It so9unds like such a minor thing, textimg, but when you are this far f rom home for this long of a time, any connection to home keeps you from feeling alone. This trip has indeed been a once in a lifetime event and one I( will remember—I ho9pe—forever! But I do miss home, family and friends and I’m ready to get back. After all there’s no place like home!!!!

June 29-30, Fremantle to Sydney

When we made our reservations, we must have been thinking we were 25 years younger! Yesterday was a grueling day for us. We awoke in Perth and took the train to Fremantle. Fremantle is a suburb of Perth, located where the Swan River empties into the Indian Ocean. It is a lovely seaside town. We went to see the World Heritage listed Fremantle Prison. It was originally built by convicts sent from England, then used to house Australian prisoners. During World War II the Australians detained Italian Americans, in much the same fashion the United States did the Japanese. Some of these prisoners were held at Fremantle. Displays throughout the prison explained housing, punishments, visitation, rehabilitation, rebellions and escapes. This prison operated until 1991. Fremantle is part of a group of Australian convict built prisons listed as World Heritage sites. They are considered an important historical and cultural example of the evolution of prisons over the years. We had planned to drive to Wave Rock, but realized after our travels through Western Australia that this was just a little too remote and scary for us. Fremantle was a great alternative!





After taking the train back from Fremantle, we had several hours to kill before leaving on the red eye to Sydney at midnight. We arrived in Sydney ay 6:00 a.m. tired and miserable. Fortunately our Holiday Inn had a room ready for us, and after a few hours sleep we were ready to explore a little. Because a harbor cruise is highly recommended we rode the Manly Ferry across the harbor to Manly and had dinner. We were able to get some great shots of the Harbor Bridge and Opera House. Tomorrow when we are rested up we plan to visit the Opera House, our 6th World Heritage site on this trip, and then spend the bulk of our day in the Royal Botanical Gardens. They have a special tropical center which we are excited to see. This garden is the site of the First Farm, established when the first convicts landed in Australia. Plants is a third grade unit and since we are moving next year, we hope to find out lots about Australian plants that fill similar niches to those in the US.

Beaches

A small moment with Mrs. Morris

Loading luggage



Gassing up




The "Shedport"


Flying is not one of my favorite forms of transportation. Obviously I tolerate it which is why I am here in Australia. For the most part we have not taken any unnecessary or risky flights, until last Saturday. Check back to my small moment for that day to refresh your memory of that harrowing flight,
If you recall I described the “airport” at Shark Bay as a shed. It is literally a metal corrugated roofed building that is open and separated from the runway with a chain link fence. There are two rows of 5 or6 plastic patio chairs and a wooden lattice roof covers an area with two small round tables. I’m sure this “shed”port is quite lovely on a sunny, clear day, unfortunately we’ve never seen it on such a day.
Upon entering, two quite cheery blokes are there to greet you and check you in. Check in requires a form of ID, the usual questions—are you carrying any explosives, aerosols, sharp objects, etc.—and they weigh your luggage including your carry ons. I fully expected them to weigh me!! At this point you are issued a boarding pass and move to security, Wait, there was no security!! The blokes then move to their next job which might be the sale of a soft drink, chocolate or Mentos. Meanwhile you sit and wait patiently for the plane.
Now if you are anxious about the arrival of your plane or IF it is coming at all, you can ask one of the cheery blokes and they can tell you the latest they have heard over the radio as they also serve as the control tower. Eventually you hear the crackle over the radio and hope that the “shed”port workers/control tower can understand better than you what the pilot is saying. The “shed”port/ticket taker/concession/control tower worker relays back to the pilot information about the wind speed, direction and other vital info which he gathers by looking out at the runway and checking a windsock.
The announcement is made that your plane will arrive shortly and you should be boarding in about 20 minutes. As the plane arrives the “shed”port workers don their bright yellow vests, put on their earphones, and grab their orange ping pong paddles to assume the job of air traffic controller. He scampers out to direct the pilot to its “gate”. I don’t know about you, but if the pilot can’t find his way to the only spot to park on the runway without help I’m a little concerned about flying with him!
With this job completed the air traffic controller dashes off to get on the tram with our luggage to load and unload the other luggage. While he is taking care of this job, the pilots and flight attendant are busy checking and refueling the plane. Two 50-gallon cans are rolled out to the plane, some sort of syphoning-type instrument with a crank handle are inserted into the drum and plane and the pilot begins cranking! Thank goodness there are two pilots because when one gets tired of cranking the other takes over! Meanwhile your luggage can be picked up in the shed at the back of the building.
Refueling and plane check done and it is now time to board. Final job of the “shed”port worker, to announce boarding of flight #192 to Perth at gate #--well, at the only gate we have! In a nice single file line we march across the runway to the plane, climb the stairs and find our seats.
Nervous yet? As the plane taxis out, the flight attendant collects our tickets, does the usual emergency procedures, of which I pay particular attention to the life vest section, and we prepare for take-off. Eventually she comes back through to get out drink order—juice or water. Once served she comes back through passing out cookies—arrowroot biscuits. Back again asking if we’d like tea or coffee! Guess she needs something to do! Our delicious snack is topped off with a chewy mint candy.
If all of this wasn’t enough to make you think twice about boarding this plane add to it the fact that the weather once again was cloudy, rainy and windy. Supposedly Shark Bay gets 3 days of rain a year and we happened to fly on two of them! Lucky us! It was also a small plane which to some of our mates didn’t seem that small when we described our harrowing first flight. Needless to say we were a little concerned—ok I was petrified—about this flight. As it turned out, it was not too bumpy or harrowing and we didn’t have to circle the airport 4-5 times. We landed safely in Perth with only 3 more flights, on bigger planes, to get home! Cheers!

June 26, Dolphins

This is the crowd that came to see the dolphins.



One of the dolphins waiting to be fed.

Although we (well Mrs. Harding) have been very persistent , it appears a trip to the stromatolites is just not going to happen for us. In fact we can’t even get off the resort and into town. There are no taxis, no bus, no shuttle! If we could make it to town, we could visit the Shark Bay Discovery Centre. But there are some excellent displays here and a great menu of videos about the area that play in the theatre. We watched one this morning about the reasons this area is listed as a World Heritage area. There was some great video of the wildlife, the stromatolites and the landscapes. One of the reasons we are having trouble getting to the stromatolites is that they are 100 kilometers away on the road into Shark Bay. Everyone drives by them on the way in, and apparently few people fly.
.We had a delightful morning watching the wild dolphins come in to be fed. They have been coming here for over 40 years. It used to be people could just buy buckets of fish and go out and feed the dolphins. Eventually that caused a problem. The mother dolphins would stay at the beach eating fish all day and neglect their babies. There was a 99% mortality rate among the babies. Now it is carefully controlled. Nobody is allowed to touch the dolphins, and only 5 females are fed. They can only be fed in the morning and each one can only have around a kilo of fish each day. Lots of dolphins come up including babies, but none of them expect to be fed. They are often seen the rest of the day frolicking in the bay throughout the day. The way they tell the dolphins apart is by their fins. They generally have little nicks and indentations in their fins.
The beach here is very different from most beaches we have been to. For one thing it is virtually deserted. Beaches at home are generally full of condos. There are not palm trees here. There is red dirt, low green shrubs, Spinifex, shells, sand and brilliant blue water. It is very lovely, but in a stark kind of way.
And now, a small moment from Mrs. Morris.
Our schedule for the last few weeks has been to awaken with the sun to great whatever adventure lie before us. We have had many a great adventure and this morning’s was to see and possibly feed the dolphins.
I had some misgivings about this activity after watching a documentary about the Japanese capturing dolphins to sell to places like Sea World and then slaughtering those that were left. Not knowing if the dolphins here were kept in a fenced area and used for show was somewhat troubling.
To my surprise we learned that they only feed about 5 of the dolphins that come in every morning and what they give them is merely a snack compared to what they need to survive. The dolphins have been coming to Shark Bay for 35-40 years and have not been touched my humans in over 10 years. The volunteers are very aware of the names and personalities of each of the dolphins and will cut the feeding time down if they notice a calf that needs to nurse, as the mothers only nurse in deeper water.
As we stood about shin deep in the water, these magnificent creatures would swim calmly back and forth inspecting our ankles or just lie still and take a snooze. The younger male dolphins would frolic and wrestle in the deeper water. It was truly amazing to be standing that close to wild dolphins and both human and dolphin be together.. Quite comforting to know that these dolphins were free to live in nature the way they were meant to live.
The dolphins come in to feed 3 times in the morning and though Mrs. Harding tried each time, neither of were chosen to feed the dolphins. As we watched others feed them it was fascinating to see how gently the dolphins took the fish. We have tomorrow morning and I am sure we will give it a go. They are amazing creatures to watch, so if we don’t get a chance all is not lost. Cheers!

June 25, finally

Peter made friends at Monkey Mia.




Well boys and girls, I am a little discouraged today. After a difficult trip, which Mrs. Morris will be telling you about, we arrived at the Monkey Mia Dolphin Resort in Shark Bay. Now if you were in Mrs. Harding;s class you know that the reason we are in Shark Bay is to see the stromatolites. For those who don’t know what stromatolites are, they are a primitive cyanobacteria that created the oxygen that enabled life to develop on earth. Unfortunately as more complex life forms evolved, the stromatolites became food for them. Living stromatolites only exist in 2 places in the world, Shark Bay and the Bahamas. When we were planning this trip I looked into car rental here and it was pretty ridiculous. I could rent a 2004 for $78 plus a $32 delivery fee each way. The website did say they offered tours to see the stromatolites so I decided to wait intil I got here and see what was available.
Apparently this is the low season, so no tours are operating, the car they normally have here to rent is broke down, and the car hire company is booked out the whole time we are here! I am disappointed, but I will not give up and will keep trying to find a way to get to Hamelin Pool to see the stromatolites. In the meantime, we have a lovely room with a patio that overlooks the Indian Ocean, dolphins are frolicking in the water and in the morning we get to go down to the beach where we might get chosen to help feed the wild dolphins. After reading this small moment from Mrs. Morris, you will understand when I say I am just glad to have my feet on the ground.
Harrowing!! That is the only word that can describe today’s adventure! Harrowing just plain harrowing! We flew to Monkey Mia in Shark Bay today. Last night Perth received the most rainfall on that day in 25 years! From our vantage point on the 5th floor of the Perth Hyatt we didn’t seem to think much of the rain. This morning brought cloudy skies, but we had seen that the day before and it cleared off nicely by midmorning so we didn’t think much of it. We were just excited to go a little further north to some warmer weather, sunshine and the beach.
The plane in which we would make this journey was a tiny 30- seater and I knew if there were clouds there would be rough flying. The sky was clearing so I relaxed—a little. Take off was “smooth”, we flew above the clouds and got above them into sunshine. About halfway to Shark Bay we landed at an “airport” in Kalbarri, more like a shed with a landing strip, where 2 more passengers boarded. There were now 9 passengers and 4 crew members, who looked like they were barely old enough to shave. Still the sky was clear, take off was good, no worries! Ha!
As we approached Shark Bay the clouds began to thicken. Suddenly the pilot came on and announced that we would be circling Shark Bay for, what we thought he said, 2 hours waiting for the sky to clear! I looked out the window and sure enough there we were circling the ocean!
We circled once, then twice, then the third time and still the clouds were thick. As we started the 4th circle Mrs. Harding said “I don’t like this,” and I began to get really nervous! We need to put on our life vests! How long can we do this there’s only so much fuel! I really don’t want my kids to have to come to Australia to find me! IF they CAN find me since I will be eaten by a shark if we crash! Just land the plane on the endless highway with no cars on it already!
On the 4th (I think) attempt we went in for the landing. The sky was full of clouds and it was raining! And the airport was another shed with a landing strip! I held my breath, closed my eyes and as soon as I felt the bump of the wheels on the ground I let out a sigh of relief. We were on the ground—NOT in the ocean! As we rode the bus into Monkey Mia, the driver told us that the pilot had said if we didn’t make it on that attempt we were going back to Perth! We were just glad to have our feet on the ground!
It’s good to be here, safe. The sun came out for about 30 minutes and we wandered around. We’re keeping our fingers crossed for some sun and warmer weather as we will be here until Tuesday. We will go back to the shed with a landing strip, airport, and board that tiny plane once more to head for Perth. Weather for Tuesday! More rain!!!! Between the rain and the ash cloud from the volcano in Chile I hope we make it home! Keep your fingers crossed for clear skies and a less harrowing trip back to Perth! Cheers!