Petrol

If you think gas (known only as "petrol" here, short for petroleum) is expensive in America, think again. Petrol is currently around $1.60 per liter here, which would be equivelent to Americans paying at least $6.00 (U.S. dollars) per gallon. Naturally there are fewer SUVs here in Australia.

Another interesting thing about petrol here in Australia is that it is always a higher octane % than it is in the U.S. Here, petrol is usually 98 octane. If you buy the cheap stuff like me than you are usually buying 95 octane, and you can't find anything lower. In America I think 87 octane is considered standard, and premium is around 92.

Blue Mountains

We decided to do some more vacationing after we dropped Bill off at the airport. So, instead of driving back to Albury, we drove from Sydney to the Blue Mountains. It was beautiful. We spent the night in a windy mountain town (Katoomba) and drove to the Jenolan Caves in the morning. The caves were spectacular! They are the oldest caves in the world, predating even dinosaurs. We took a guided tour of one of the caves, and then we ate lunch in the lodge before hitting the road.

It was a long drive (two days) back to Albury, but now we are back.

Goodbye Bill

From Darwin we flew back to Sydney. On Bill’s last day we went out for brunch before dropping him off at the airport. He figured he shouldn’t leave Australia without going in the water, so he did. Don’t worry, the beach he went wading in had shark-netting, so it was a safe place to go in. After lunch we said goodbye to Bill and dropped him off at the airport.

Additional Kakadu Pictures

Darwin & Kakadu

We only spent two half-days in Darwin, because we wanted to spend our time in the Northern Territory at Kakadu National Park. Kakadu was impressive. We felt like we were in the middle of nowhere and the wildlife was unlike anything we are used to. Termite hills can are often 20 feet tall, ants are large and colorful, and you wouldn’t want to go swimming in any rivers you come across. Also, humans (aboriginals) still live off the land up there!

We did a number of things in Kakadu: we took a boat ride to look at crocs and other wildlife, we drove near some brushfires, we hiked around on foot, and we looked at ancient aboriginal cave paintings. One of the cave paintings was of a character named Nabulwinjbulwinj, a notorious spirit known for striking females with yams.

Sydney

Boy we’ve done a lot in the last two weeks. We started by driving to Sydney with Bill. We left on Saturday after the guys finished playing pennant (their team won and Bill played well!). In Sydney we went to the Aroma Festival (a coffee and chocolate festival), took in a concert at the opera house, and went to the Sydney Observatory to look at planets and stars. The next morning we took a ferry to Manly and had breakfest on the beach. Then we walked around the city before going to the airport for our red-eye flight up to Darwin.

Welcome, Bill!

Bill arrived last week. He flew into Melbourne where we met him and explored the city. We are having a great time showing him around Albury. His trip is going by too quickly, it is already half over. Bill has been the main photographer since he is excited about his new camera. Unfortunately, he forgot to bring along the necessary cord for downloading pictures. The only pictures I have are of Bill and Dylan playing pennant in Albury today. I hope you enjoy. We are leaving for Sydney in an hour. We will update the blog in a week with pictures from Kakadu. Sorry about the long break between posts.