Out In The Outback ( and the last day in Melbourne )

 I haven’t written for so long! I am in California  and I haven’t written since Melbourne! I can’t believe I am almost done on this trip : (  The day in Melbourne we packed. And then with our Nana and Papa we went to a place called Rippen Lea Gardens Rippen Lea Gardens is a huge place. There’s a Terrace A Mansion and  acres of grassy land. Some filmers were filming the movie “ Picnic At Hanging Rock” If you watch that movie the part where the Lady walks out of the house and into the horse and carriage you can imagine me and my family and Nana and Papa standing right where the horse and carriage goes ( strait ).  Anyway after that we went back to the apartment room and packed a little bit more. And left to a Lebanese Resturant. We met the Olsen’s. The Olsen’s are the people that I talked about in my other blog post, my dad’s friend from college and his family. The next day woke up at 5:30 AM and got ready to go to Uluru!  After a three hour plane ride we arrived at Uluru. We stayed at a place called Emu Walk Apartments. Our room wasn’t ready yet, so we had lunch at Kulatā Academy Café.  Then we waited in the Check in place or whatever you call it. After our room was ready we got into our swimsuits and went to the pool. That night we went to dinner and my dad caught a lizard (and let it go) and then we bought dinner and brought it back and we had ravioli that was our dinner of course. We made it. The next day we woke up early and drove to Uluru as the sun rose. We got there did a little quick hike to a waterhole place with the aboriginals got their water. We went back to the apartment and got a free buffet breakfast that we soon learned to love that was super good. We hung out. Then for dinner we went to a place called the Pioneer  Kitchen  where my dad had to cook the meat on the grill for emu sausage, kangaroo and crocodile. The crocodile was good it wasn’t  my favorite thing ever the kangaroo was OK I didn’t really like it though and the Emu sausage was… disgusting. The next day we got up early to go see the Olga’s another rock formation also known as Kata Tjuta. We hiked up a little Cliff thing to see the Olga’s closer up. If you want to know more about Uluru I will do another post about it’s facts. We got back had the breakfast and then we went to a little projector movie thing about the crow, cockatoo, and the Eagle then we went to dinner at a different apartment. And the kids got a separate table. The next day my dad loaded everything into our car and we were off.

The Rest of Australia

Hi! I haven’t written for so long. So I will have a lot of catching up to do with what we have been doing. We have not had wifi to post anything or the time to write one because we have been doing so much fun stuff. Right now we are in New Zealand, but on this blog post I am only going to catch up with what we did in Australia.

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First, we left Melbourne and went to Uluru. In Uluru, it was 36 degrees Celsius, which is around 104 degrees Fahrenheit. On the second day there we watched the sunrise over Uluru, went on a hike right up to Uluru, and then went to the Aboriginal Cultural Center, and went to an art shop, where Aboriginal women painted traditional paintings, right in front of us, and my mom and dad bought one. for dinner that day we went to a restaurant where they give you raw meat, and you have to cook it over a barbecue by yourself. I ate shrimp skewers, but I tried kangaroo and crocodile. The crocodile was chewy and disgusting, but the kangaroo was just like steak, and tasted even better. On our second day there we watched the sunrise over Kata Tjuta (the Olgas), and went on a hike near the Olgas. On our last night in Uluru, we watched the sunset over Uluru, and the next day we left.

Then we went to Rosebud, which is South of Melbourne, on the coast and rented a house for five days. On our first day in Rosebud, we walked to the beach near our house, and then went to Arthur’s Seat, and went tree surfing, which is kind of like a huge high ropes course with ziplines and other cool stuff. Then we went back to our rental house and met our cousins, and our Nanna and Poppa. We had dinner with them, and then our cousins slept over. The next day we went to Point Nepean, and went on a hike, and then met our friends, the Olsens, at our house. We had dinner with them, and then went to the beach and played on a sand island, and played with the boogie boards that came with our rental house. The next day, we went to the Moonlit Wildlife Sanctuary, where we got to cuddle a koala, feed kangaroos outside of a cage, and hold a python. That night, we went to a huge rock pool that my dad went to when he was a kid for camp.  There is a huge rock, and a really pretty tide pool that you can swim in with tons of fish. The rock was around 30 feet high. We didn’t jump off though. The last day, we went to Cape Shank, and saw a ton of rock pools. After that we went back to the huge rock, and this time I jumped off the lowest point, which is about 15 feet. It was a bit bigger than the high dive at the Wilmette pool, but it hurt a lot more.

The next day we drove back to the Melbourne Airport, and flew to New Zealand, where we are now, and rented a camper van. I will post more pictures and stuff later. That is pretty much what we did on our last days in Australia.

Melbourne ( Tess )

We are Melbourne and we’ve been very busy.  First, we went on an 11 hour flight. And we arrived in Melbourne at around 3:30p. We got dinner at Subway got used to every thing and went to bed. Day two we hung out with  my Nana and Papa and then we went out to dinner at an area called Southbank. The third day we went to a place called Sience Works and there was a bunch of fun stuff like you could see how tall you were or how good your hand eye coordination was. Or if you could run faster than Cathy  Freeman (an Australian Olympian). The 4th day we went to Clip’n Climb a huge rock wall place. Some rock walls were easy others were hard. The 5th, we  hung out and went to the pool. The 6th day we went to my Dad’s  friend from Elemetry school and his family. The Viddotos, the people’s house we went to, own a farm. They only have a couple Animals. But they were pretty cool. They had three horses Penny, Zee and Gummy. Gummy is the small Chestnut colored one. The  big Chestnut one is Zee. And the big black one is Penny.  They had three chickens (I don’t know their names). And a sheep named Lonny who was really friendly. We had a lot of fun there. On the 7th day we went to my Dad’s friend Andy and his family, the Olsens. My dad knows Andy from College. We went there for brunch. Then we went to the Royal Botanic Garden and played and there was a secret bamboo forest. Then we went to a Thai place for dinner. On the 8th day we hung out at the pool. And for dinner we went to my Nana and Papa ‘s house and ate dinner and our other relatives came (Uncle Eddy Aunt Tracy). Cousins  Adrianne and Lochlen were also there. On the 9th  day we went to a historical place called Sovereign Hill. On the 10th day we went to a place called Geelong around an Hour from our apartment. And visited Our Uncle Ralph he’s 88 and he’s actually not our Uncle. He was my Dads next door neighbor when he was growing up. On the 10th day we went to breakfast at a place called St. Kilda and hung out the rest of the day.  James my brother learned to swim and Luke my other brother had his first food. On the 11th day here we went to Clip’n Climb again because the first time we loved it we also loved it the second time. Then we went to a place called Captin Cook’s cottage. Captain James Cook was the person that discovered Australia. We recognize Chritopher Columbus the same way Australians recognize Captin Cook. That night my cousins came to our apartment so did our Nana and Papa. My Mom and Dad went with my Aunt and Uncle to a restaurant. And my Nana and Papa watched us. The next day, the  12th day here at noon, we went to our cousins house. We played and went and saw Kangaroos ( we didn’t get good pictures sorry ). On the 13th day in Melbourne  we went to mass at Saint Thomas Aquanis and went back my Dad and my Uncle went golfing but Mom, Audrey, James, Luke, and I stayed back. Australia or I should say Melbourne is 17 hours ahead of Chicago. So today for example is the 19th but in Chicago it’s the 18th. Day 13 was really rainy and it’s about 63° and I heard that there it’s warm and some people are at the beach. What I’m looking forward to is we’re going to spend a week in a rented house with my cousins in Rosebud part of Victoria which is one of the states in Australia. I miss you guys. Time for pictures. I have written captions underneath all the pictures. This first one is a video. 1 More day til Uluru.

 

This is a picture of part of Melbourne the tallest one is the Eureka tower and it’s the tallest building in Melbourne
These are the three chickens I don’t know their names thou.
This is Penny
This is of Zee
This is a penguin I think you know what that is
This is of people feeding penguins
This is of Punjaro the Crocodile
This is Gummy
This is Lonny

This is of Luke having his first food
This is of the British getting ready to fire their muskets
This picture is of Audrey, James, and I in front of a British army man.
This is a picture of Cannoli’s in a box at our cousins house. We have these in America too.
This is a picture of a small house with some motor boats.
This is the sunrise that you can see out our apartment window.
This is a swamp we went to with our cousins by our cousins house
This is of some more Cannoli’s
This is of people playing cricket

 

This is me rock climbing on Twister (North) at Clip ‘n Climb

 

Melbourne (Audrey)

Hi! Sorry that I haven’t written anything in such a long time! We have been really busy in Melbourne, in our apartment, and we have done a lot. Australia is really awesome. There are tons of really interesting buildings. It is really warm and enerything that we have done here is fun. We have met a lot of family, including our grandparents, my aunts and uncles, and my cousins. We have also done a lot. We went to Scienceworks, the Melbourne Aquarium, which were both interesting.  We also went to a place called Sovereign Hill. It is a place where the history of Australia is reenacted. We also went to the Melbourne Botanic Gardens, where we met tons of old friends, like the Olsens and the Vidottos. My favorite place that we have been is Clip and Climb, which is a place with a bunch of rock walls that are really hard. We had tons of fun there.We also went to see our old friend, Uncle Ralph who was my dad’s neighbor when my dad was a kid. So far Australia has been really awesome.
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Melbourne and Hawaii ( Tess )

My pictures are not in order. They’re from the last week or so. Currently Iam  in Melbourne. The plane ride was 11 hours but it didn’t feel like it because there was games and movies. The 1st picture is of Audrey and I on a boat going out to snorkeling. I ❤️ snorkeling.  It was my first time and at first it was hard but soon I got the hang of it. We snorkeled in a place they call turtle canyon because there’s a bunch of turtles. The reason the turtles love that place is because fish live there that clean. So they get free cleaning fish. The 2nd picture is of an awesome place we were going to go hike but there was a small Avalanche so we couldn’t go. The 3rd  is of in Melbourne we went to the Queen Victoria gardens and I thought that it looked pretty the temperature here goes from 70, to 80,  then 90 then it rains then it’s cool again. The 4th is of the Eureka Tower right by our apartment we’re staying at. The 5th is of the people on Pearl Harbor day that got killed for those who don’t know what Pearl Harbors story is. In 1941 technically the whole world was at war except  America. Hawaii was not part of America yet. One day on December 7th ( 1941) American young men and dads and family  were living at a base in Hawaii and the Japanese bombed. Over 24 hundred died and  around 1,000 men wounded. It was a really sad day. And what’s interesting if the Japenese didn’t bomb us they might have  won the war.  Pearl Harbor made the U.S. Join the war so the Japanese lost. The 6th is of in Melbourne we went to an Aquariam and this is a crocodile that is 80 years old named Pinjaro ( pin -jar –  o ).  The 7th is of at Pearl Harbor  a submarine. The 8th is in Hawaii on the hike we were going to go on and it had a bunch of chickens. The 9th is. Of th USS Arizona one of the boats that sank they built a memorial on top. The 10th is of the fireworks in Hawaii and they began on exactly at 7:45 and scared us.the 11th is of the oil in the water from the USS Arizona. The 12th is of a cool lamp that my Nana and Papa gave me. I just thought it looked cool. The 13th is of some hot air balloons in Melbourne that got really close to our apartment deck. The 14th is of a Gentoo penguin. And the 15th is of one of the hot air balloons that were flying outside our window this morning!
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