Yankee Girl's Adventures in Australia: 2009

Welcome to Mt O'Reighlys, one of the most beautiful places in the world! About a two hour drive from Brisbane, with the 45 minutes of the driving navigating up a steep mountain, which reduces to one lane, in numerous places, with twists and turns, and sometimes huge tour buses barrelling down from the direction!

PS. Some of these photos are courtesty of a friend....

Always an exciting trip just getting there! Especially for these guys, I would imagine!

Lots of exotic birds living in the wild...

These birds will eat right out of your hand! Watch video...

Spectacular waterfalls...

What a view!

Beautiful fern.....

After a long day of hiking, time to relax, unwind with a glass of wine..

Apparently, the birds thought they were invited....

Ready to go out for the evening....

Vivid sunsets....

more pictures coming soon....

The trip started out with a bang! The day started early, with a 6:30 am flight to Adelaide, so, I caught a cab from my apartment around 5 am and headed to the airport. As we drove through the quiet streets of New Farm and into Tennerrife, we noticed that the driver in front of us was driving erratically.

Stopping in the middle of the road, for no apparrent reason, speeding up, slowing down and then sitting at a green light. My cabbie tried to pass him, but the car just speed up and then decided to sit at a green light. The cabbie beeped the horn.

Nothing happened, so he beeped again. We are all still sitting at the green light. Sh*t, I gotta get to the airport! You know how these early morning flights are - you wait until the last possible minute to leave the house, as to squeeze out just 5 more minutes of precious sleep.

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Then, we see the car door slowly open and a big black biker boot appear. Oh sh*t. A man slowly extracted himself from the car and walked toward the cab, his hands clenched into fits, his hair wild about his face. "Click" go the cab locks. As he stalked over to the cab, he raised his fists and then BAM, BAM, BAM. He slammed his fits into the window of the cab annuncating each word with a pound of his fist. "I" (pound) "AM" (pound) "LOST" (pound). "If" (pound) "You" (pound) don't back off (pound) I will (pound) come back (pound) and kick (pound pound) "this" (pound) "window" (pound) "in".

Sorry, sorry! the indian cab driver said in his singsong voice. The derange man glared at us for a few more minutes, and hten stalked back to his car, slammed the door and proceed to weave slowly and erradically down the street. The cabbie and I exhanged looks of (WTF was that!) and I wiped the sweat which had been gathering on my brow.

I then explained to the cab driver that, had we been in my home land, he could of just pulled out a shotgun from the back seat and just blasted the guy and then we could of gotten to the airport a bit faster, but, then, rules are rules, and we must follow them and that sort of behavior is frowned upon here.

The rest of the short trip to the airport was uneventful, so, I took a flight to Adelaide, where my friend picked me up from the airport. We got the rental car and then re-entered the airport. We decided to go back through security so we could be waiting at the gate for them when they disembarked the plane (in Australia, you don't have to have a ticket to wait at the gate). I had my bag, and my camera, my steel toed ass kickin' hiking boots (hey, I should of used those this morning) and my belt, all which had to be removed so as not to set off alarms. This was the rare time that I had my mobile phone in my pocket, and I had forgotten all about it, so, they asked me to put it in the tray and go back through. Needless to say, with all the excitement and having to get redressed with the ass kickin' boots, the belt, purse, and the excitement of meeting new friends and being new places, I completely forgot about my poor little mobile phone until Tuesday night, when I was headed BACK to the airport and realized that I did not have my phone. And, dear friends, please note that this was the week AFTER I had lost my mobile phone in the forest during my night time hike. (see previous blog entry for that fascio. Luckly they remembered me at the airport, and had set aside my phone for my return flight.

We drove off from the airport in our spiffy rental car for a few hours until we reached the ferry.

The gang - minus me, ofcourse, as I am busy taking the photo! To the left is Cathy, in the middle is Sue's Daughter - Liz and to the right is my friend Sue.