September 24 - to Sydney

We landed in Sydney and found our first youth hostel of the trip. Welcome to budget travel in Australia, Team USA! As all of our American visitors have learned, Australia is very expensive! Hotels are easily $300 per night. So, we've opted for the backpackers' lifestyle! We share a bunk room, share a shower room down the hall, make coffee in the central kitchen with other international travelers, and use our own towels! Pat and I have grown to prefer this type of traveling, anyway. We've met all kinds of random folks, watched a variety of cultures make their morning and evening meals, and saved cash while we're at it. Even still, a bunkroom in Chinatown runs us $90 per night. Not exactly Motel 6 prices!

Sunday we jumped on an all day tour to the Blue Mountains. This is a beautiful area just west of Sydney. We stopped first at a wild life park to see the koalas and emus up close. We saw dingoes, Tasmanian Devils, crocs, roos, quolls, and more. Pat re-united with his former flame, the Brolga. Last visit with Barbara and Natalie in April was hilarious when Pat decided to flirt with the ostrich-sized bird. She'd been most flirtatious back. This time I was ready with the video camera for their reunion.

He walked up to her, fluttered his arms a bit, and she swayed, side-stepped, and bobbed her neck with him. She did her dance up the back to her little hill, stared right at him, and waltzed back down to meet him at the fence again. Unfortunately, she was not as enraptured with him, and their encounter was brief this time; perhaps she sensed the Other Woman with the video camera. When he left, I moved in front of her and waved my arms seductively at her. She was nonplussed.

At the Blue Mountains we did a great hike down through the rain forest. The tour ended with a ferry ride back into Sydney proper with the sun setting.

Monday we drooled into our Starbucks cups, licking and lapping up every delectable morsel of caffeine and frothy milk yummi-ness. Then we hopped a bus to Bondi Beach to have a look around. Evening flight to a quick overnight in Melbourne - then on to the Red Center!!