So I had been driving for probably 4-5 hours, getting a little sleepy then out of no where i scare the crap out of kent by pulling VERY fast into a driveway. mind you this was the highway, so i was going fast in the first place and i saw a GIANT LOBSTER and i was like HOLY SHIT, we gotta stop here. once kent recovered he saw why i was trying to kill us, jumped out of the car and yelled IT'S LOBSTER TIME!! oh Australia, how i love thee and all your giant structures. now it was kinda sad that this little tiny village is completely built around this thing. there is a lobster motel, and lobster items for sale... and it takes about 2 seconds to drive through. the restaurant was closed for renovations, but we had to keep driving anyway.
this may be slightly anti-climatic after shark cage diving, but what could possibly beat that? so after we left port lincoln, we drove down to kangaroo island (i am skipping port augusta and adelaide because they kinda sucked due to a lack of time in each place). about 20 minutes south of adelaide is probably the most beautiful land i have ever seen, and it just gets better as you get closer to kangaroo island. as the name may suggest the island is full of animals (not a single kangaroo was seen). we saw the rarest species of sea lions just hanging out on the beach. watched fairy penguins court (and heard some mating, they are loud little buggers). one was on the stairs with us and trying to run away and because they have those non-exsistant legs, it would wobble then stop, and hop down the stairs, trying to get away from us. poor little guy was probably terrified and all of us were just going, awwww how cute!! the sea lions were a highlight for sure. this is the only place in the world where the public is allowed to share the same beach with these magnificent creatures. here is a video of the pups playing in the water. AWWW!!
after kangaroo Island we switched vehicles and headed down to melbourne via the Great Ocean Road. LONG drive, but very worth it. just gorgeous. when it got really pretty i wasnt really able to watch cause the road is ridiculously curvy and one side is sheer rock and the other is cliff, and no one else seems to be watching the road. kent almost had 12 heart attacks. i did too. go to Kents facebook for all those pics. we actually posted a lot of the pics. Melbourne might have been cool had driving through it not been the worst experience of my life. so picture this, you are driving on the left (they do that here) and you want to make a right, but there is a sign, it says, "right turns from left lane only." thats all. no diagram, no explanation. needless to say i made left turns till i ended up where i needed to be. i pulled in the parking lot, grabbed our bags, checked in the hostel, then went straight to the bar.
the next morning we went to the museum, much more impressive than the Australian Museum in Syndey. very very cool, and only 6 bucks! they had a huge exhibit on the mind and the brain, i think kent and i spent at least 2 hours in there alone.
the next morning we head out early 5:30 am, and catch our train to adelaide, haul all our crap to the YHA hostel, do laundry fall asleep then head out early again to catch the train to Darwin. two nights, three days on a train. very interesting. the first night was only bad because of the 12 kids running around screaming. They got off in Alice Springs so we had one night of decent sleep. We met a nice guy from Melbourne. He was moving to darwin for a job, he is a pilot. we also made friends with an 18th month old. she liked kents stuffed dog, so she was showing it off to everyone in our carriage. She made the trip very enjoyable. She also made us think of little sophia, and how excited we are to finally meet her in November!
Now we are in Darwin. where it's hot as hell and so humid when you get out of the shower you never dry...or is that just sweat...? the tap water is labeled cold, but after about 3 seconds it gets hot...We did manage to come up here right before the Wet so its our own fault. Tomorrow we are headed out to the Lichfield National Park so swim in croc free waterholes and waterfalls (guided tours so we wont get eaten, we promise) afterwords we are going on a croc cruise where we will go along the croc infested adelaide river and bait 5 metre crocs to jump out of the water and get hunks of meat hanging off our boat. good times!!! i am very excited.
now i need to fill this space with more mumbo jumbo while the video of the sea-lion pups load...wait i have a better idea, here is kent.
~D
what to say what to say.
It was a night, very much like this one. Drunken people were hanging out by the pool, when the girl got up to go take a pee. Her useless BF was sitting on his laptop killing time until a stupid video of sea-lion pups finished uploading. "Loading this video is costing us a fortune" he said to himself as he tried to think of what on his ipod could possible replace the incessant whining of the Phantom of the Opera soundtrack the Girl had thrown on.
"Ahhh" he heard a scream from downstairs.
"For me to get up and go all the way downstairs to see what it is could end up costing me even more if I'll wait until this stupid video finishes uploading." He said
Then a thick red fluid very much like blood, or tomato sauce(Ketchup to those americans reading) splattered across the window.
"Just a minute" he said waiting for the video to upload.
The screams got closer and closer, echoing down the hallway like a pack of sea-lion pups carefully playing in the.....hallway?
"Just a minute" he said as his mind tried to formulate a better metaphor for the sounds going on in the hallway.
as he continued typing not really paying attention to what or how his sentences formed on the page. another thick red fluid seeped through the hole between the door, and the floor, similar to the first one but this one was on the floor rather than the window, and also there apparently was a lot of it, cause seriously it just kept coming and coming through the door. Very shortly after he started hearing thuds as if some very heavy footed individual was walking down the hallway, after every step a dragging noise as if he were carrying something. Possibly the size of a small the medium sized human or several children, not moving at all, quite possibly the body of a sea-lion pup or several for that matter. also there was a sloshing noise coming out following that. Much like the thick red fluid that had become so abundant recently were squishing out of the thing being dragged by the heavy footed individual, or at least he thought having not moved from the front of his stupid computer screen and rather than investigate he would like to write LONG run on sentences.
A knock on the door followed.
"Is it important" he said to the door, or the individual knocking on the door "cause if I get up and this video finishes uploading while I'm at the door and I could post my blog post and log out then I've wasted extra minutes that I didn't need to and could use them tomorrow for more important things like checking the redwings information that I so desperately crave or even check my email to make sure my spam folder is empty, I do seem to be getting them a lot recently!" As he finished his sentence he wondered why he so craved to explain his every thought to the person behind the door, I mean he really didn't need to know about his red wing fetish or that it was costing him fortune sit here typing while he could be doing more important things.
"Well not really" the voice on the other side of the door said, "I mean I can always come back, if you're busy"
"Well, a little, I could put it on hold but really if this video finishes posting and I don't notice then I might lose a lot of precious minutes and have to pay another fucking 30 dollars for half an hour of internet time."
"Well I'll come back think half an hour would be good" the voice on the other side of the door said.
"Yeah that should be fine, what do you need"
"Oh nothing that can't wait until 1030"
"Thanks I really appreciate it" he said, still waiting for that annoying video to load.
"Not a problem" The voice said "see you around 1030"
the footsteps and dragging and sloshing noises started again, as he heard a knock on the other door of the second floor of the youth hostel that until right now he hadn't thought of how inaccurate that name was since a lot of people staying there seemed in their 50's. The screams soon began again, and the red fluid once again began to flow underneath the door.
"Someone out there must really like tomato sauce." he said completely oblivious to the fact that the entity on the other side of the door was obviously killing people and collecting their bodies and dragging them off. Completely and utterly un-phased that most likely his girlfriend who had been so good and understanding through the years was indeed included in those bodies being dragged off.
"I wish I had some chips, or fries as the americans would call them" He said wondering why he felt the need to explain to himself that the americans, himself included, call fries something other than chips, and Australia actually calls them Hot Chips, as well as Chips and fries, although his sentence hadn't in the least covered even half of that.
"I wonder when danielle is getting back" he said without capitalizing her name in his speech which he also thought was impossible til that moment. "I hope she brings back some chips"
The clock struck 1030 and once again the knock came on the door.
"I'm still waiting, again if it's that important then I'll just answer but could I possibly get another half an hour?"
"No worries mate, I'll just move up to the third story" voice on the other side of the door said to him.
"Thanks I really appreciate it" he said thinking desperately for a different way to say he said.
The footsteps slowly made their way upstairs, the knocking screaming and sloshing continued. Sure enough from the ceiling down their ceiling fan came that same red fluid that reminded him so much of tomato sauce he could almost taste the tomato sauce in his mouth as that same fluid dripped into the center of the room.
"I may have to file a complaint with management about the overabundance of tomato sauce but the surprising lack of chips" he explained to himself as the tomato sauce like fluid continued to pool in the center of the room. It now covered more than a centimeter of the entire floor, and that stupid video had yet to load.
the screams at the top of the stairs soon enough stopped and sure enough after that the footsteps slowly made their way down the stairs and stopped right in front of his door. The knocking followed and he again responded with the same response.
"Still not done" He exclaimed.
"Seriously, this is getting ridiculous, there are other hostels I have to get to in town tonight you know." The voice on the other side of the door roared.
"I know but I only have 32 minutes of internet time left, and if I miss my opportunity to load this video then well then I might have to pay another quadrillion dollars to get more wireless time, and it's PRICEY." he fought back in his typical overly defensive early in an argument.
"I'm sorry about that I really am, but it's just that I have a REALLY tight schedule tonight, do you have any idea how many backpackers there are in this town?"
"Not really, I mean it's kinda off the beaten path, and it's off season, you don't happen to have any chips do you?"
"Why would i have chips" the voice asked sounding more confused than ever.
"Well it's just that there's all this tomato sauce and that I thought maybe you were delivering chips to all the attendants here at this lovely hostel, seemed logical at the time" he explained once again not really sure how long this damn video was going to take to load.
"No I'm not delivering chips, I assure you, could you just come and answer the door?"
"I guess gimme a minute"
He canceled the video and got up to answer the door.
