Fri, 19 May 2000 08:13:36 GMT We're reporting to you that the Kookaburra does still sit in the old gum tree, merry, merry, merry as he can be and he does laugh and it scares the dickens out of Nathan. We were in Australia for about 6 weeks and Oz is a wonderful place. The people are exceptionally friendly, the weather very nice and those kangaroos and koala bears more fun to pet than any old cat - but Jessica still really misses our family cat Ralph a bit anyway. Brisbane and Sydney, the two metropolitan areas that we visited, are in most respects very similar to any big U.S. city. There are lots of interesting sights and the requisite play areas for kids, churches, science centers, libraries, internet cafes, great restaurants, etc. Everyone seems to do exactly the same types of extracurricular activities with their children as us so we felt right at home. Getting out of the cities was a very nice way to meet people who seemed a little less busy and really gave us a sense of the history of Australia. We had a wonderful time on a beef cattle property in Miles which is about 4 hours west of Brisbane. The owners have had the property in their family for four generations and we heard wonderful stories about how that area had been developed for farming. An informative drive all around the 5,000 acre place in a ute (common type of pickup truck on which the sides will fold down to make it a flat bed) taught us so much about intricacies of raising cattle. Kangaroos and wallabies are abundant in the area, especially taking to the local golf course in Miles - (that's a little better golf hazard than the crocodiles in South Carolina). In the daytime, splattered on the roads, you see the damage done to the roos the previous night by the roo bars that are common on vehicles. The panel beaters (body shops) must be full of jobs repairing damage from hitting kangaroos judging by the road kill. Ky just narrowly escaped hitting on that jumped out right in front of us on a dirt road back to the farm. There are a lot of surfers in Oz and Ky can now be numbered among them. Despite a recent (and highly unusual) shark attack on a surfer, he gave it a go in Manly, a town just north of Sydney. The incidence of shark attacks is actually quite rare due to the fact that they actually have shark nets strung along the coast to keep them away from the beaches and surfing areas. Must have been effective because Ky came back in one piece. Sore, but not eaten. There is a lot of activity going on to prepare for the Olympics in Sydney in September. We were happy to have had a chance to swim at the aquatic center and take a close look at the man made white water rafting center so watching the Olympics on T.V. will be very exciting. It seems that a lot of people in Sydney are hoping to get out of Sydney during that time because of the huge crowds. There had been a huge public outcry about the lack of available tickets for the games and it turned out that several million tickets were held back to sell for much inflated prices at a late date and for friends of the organizers. As a result, many of the tickets were released for sale by lottery while we were there. That couldn't entice us to stay though - might grow moss on our feet if we stayed in any one place that long! Next update from Bangkok, Thailand (where we currently live). What a CONTRAST! More in the next update... G'day Mates, The Coffey Bunch