Only 50 Pictures Left

After a couple of amazing days exploring the Bungle Bungles by road, foot and air, we now find ourselves at Fitzroy Crossing. The tour we are on now is a drastic change from the previous tour in Kakadu. Instead of being the oldest and only married couple in the pack we are now the youngest (by far), and instead of being the only ones with steady jobs we are now the only ones that aren't retired. This isn't a bad thing though...we now get lovely sleeping accomodation, have chairs for lunch breaks, appetizers and wine around the fire before dinner, and get to stop and 'stretch our legs' every hour or so. We are having a great time getting to know our new tour friends and are sad to see it end tomorrow following a scenic tour of Geike Gorge (and a few more hours of driving). After that we only have a couple days in Broome before making our way back into the real world. It has been an amazing experience, with such beautiful scenery - often reminicent of spots in AZ and WY. We've nearly filled our 4GB memory card with photos to share, but no worries we have a spare 2GB card ready to go - no bug will go unphotographed if Josh has his way!

5 & 30 in the NT

Here we are looking down over the Darwin Mall on another beautiful sunny Northern Territory day. We have finished up the first leg of our journey and had a great time traveling through Kakadu and Litchfield National Parks. Highlights included sighting (and photographing of course!) 'salty' and 'freshy' crocs in a billabong, swimming in a babbling brook in Litchfield, inspecting massive termite mounds up close, and gaining a better appreciation for aboriginal rock art. In between all of that was quite a bit of riding in a 4WD safari bus, which was an adventure in itself once we went off-road and got to drive through a 1.2m deep stream teeming with crocs!

Yesterday was an anniversary/birthday that we won't forget. Not only are we rounding out our Australian adventures by exploring the Top End, more importantly we've happily made it to another set of milestones! After finishing up our three day backpacking tour we rocked up to the night market in Darwin in time for a beautiful sunset over the beach accompanied by some groovy didgeridoo playing and an enjoyable greek dinner on the waterfront.

Just a few hours until we're off to Kununurra, so the adventure continues!

Sunshine Here We Come

It hasn't been hard to predict the forecast in Melbourne for the past couple of weeks - a high of 14 degrees with a chance of rain...basically grey and rainy with some boughts of high winds thrown in. Needless to say, we are quite exited for our upcoming trip to the Top End! We've been frantically running around the past week in preparation, but the day has finally come and we head to the airport tonight for a 9:45pm flight to Darwin, yay! Josh has been guaranteed by his colleages that he will actually see the sun on our trip - Kakadu and Litchfield National Parks, Darwin in the Northern Territory, through the Kimberlys, and then onto Broome in Western Australia. And we won't forget to celebrate the big milestones coming up...but that reflection will have to wait for another day. For now we're off and will post again when we return in just over a week :)

Whee Wii!

While Tim and Rachel were visiting earlier this year, they took the time to go visit Game On at the Australian Center for the Moving Image (ACMI). Of course both of them thought it was a hoot and a half, so we put it on our short list of things to do in Melbourne since it was only in town for a limited time. The limited time has now come and gone, but we did make it - it only took us until the last Thursday night of the exhibit! All of the old games and consoles were fun to reminisce over, and Kristi played a mean game of Tetris on the old Gameboy (grey and green screens are where its AT!) The big draw for crowds though was at the display of the newest gaming consoles - the Playstation 3 (PS3), XBox 360 and Nintendo Wii. Luckily the games went fast and we didn't have to wait long to try them out. First up, the gyroscopic-based Wii where Josh was creamed by Kristi's bowling skills. Its really hard to win when your opponent just keeps hitting strikes! Josh then had a go at the PS3 and a fun dune-buggy driving game. Once you figured out how to not blow up all the time it was great fun with only a few very minor (yeah right!) crashes between laps. We decided to skip the XBox since it was another driving game, but the graphics really made it look like someone had videotaped the race track rather than drawn/programmed the entire thing.

After Game On on Thursday, we were all set for an outing with some of Josh's colleagues for more video games on Saturday. This time, we discovered the joy of Rockband and Singstar for the PS3. With Josh's musical training, and Kristi's love of music we had a lot of fun singing along to our favorite tunes and jamming out trying to mimic the Chilli Peppers. Some songs were more successful than others....Kristi's recall of Wilson Phillips 'Hold On' was shocking, and Josh's rendition of Britney Spears 'Hit me Baby' was inventive. Of course we lost track of time in all the fun and didn't make it home until very late, but there are already plans for another Rockband night in Melbourne and perhaps one in Denver once we return home!

Rove Rocks

This would be the post of 'you know you're used to living in Australia when...'

There are a couple of answers to this phrase that come to mind such as:
...you know that utes are not for utility, they're for picking up chicks.
...you know how many bottles in a slab and the correct way to pack your esky.
...barbies are not for girls or for playing dress up.
...you watch Letterman....at 5am.
and most importantly,
...you look forward to watching Rove on Sunday nights.

Not everyone in Australia enjoys Rove, but we do, so you get to hear about it on the blog. :-)

The interesting thing is that he always brings on a range of guests, asks very fun, entertaining and probing personal questions of them, and has surrounded his show with a group of comedians that give the show a sort of manic joy. Since the show is based in Melbourne, many of the regulars are also locals and participate in local radio or TV broadcasts of their own. Two of the guys that we've really enjoyed getting to know are Hamish and Andy. Normally mild-mannered radio hosts, they have joined Rove and each week end up with some sort of crazy and yet marginally logical plot to entertain and push the boundaries (check out Ghosting and Hamish and Andy in Afganistan). The main man Rove won't let you down either - just watch a few clips of $20 in 20 seconds, and we've also found Rove's opening monologues as podcasts on iTunes!

"Have you picked a team?"

One of the first questions that anyone who resides in Melbourne for a length of time (generally anything greater than one month) will be asked is 'Have you picked a team?' This question may seem trivial, and most inquirers will be satisfied with an impulsive choice just so long as you have actually made a choice. We may have mentioned it earlier, but it bears repeating - Australians, and those living in Melbourne in particular, absolutely and without a doubt love all types, variations, popular and niche, sports. The simple question above though, is unique to a single sport - Footy/AFL/Aussie-Rules. Mainly this is because it is the only sport with a significant number of teams such that choosing one does actually involve making a choice. As a comparison in Melbourne; Rugby League, Netball, Basketball and Soccer all only have one professional team. AFL has 9 teams currently in Melbourne (and surrounding suburbs), out of 16 total teams in the league. This does not take into account the minor leagues (VFL) which has even MORE teams in the Melbourne area.

For us, the question of a team to follow has taken over a year to answer. For the first year we had to assess the strengths and standards of each team, compare the team colors, team songs, mascots and of course the fans as some teams are associated with a certain type of fan (similar to the Oakland Raiders of NFL fame and fortune). In the end, it has come down to being able to connect with a footy team on more than just color, song and stature - we wanted to be able to actually know the team. Kristi helped with this immensely as there are two footy players in her massage class - and they both play for the same team. We watched a couple of games on TV to confirm that we could actually pick them out on the field, and once that was settled we decided to pledge our footy allegiance to the Richmond Tigers. This momentous decision accomplished, the next task was to actually attend a game in person - and luckily a great game was fast approaching between Richmond and Carlton. An even matchup with both teams solidly in the middle of the league standings, both needing a win to build momentum into the last part of the season, and held at the Melbourne Cricket Grounds - rated one of the best in Australia for footy atmosphere and ambiance. The game really didn't disappoint, as we cheered and groaned through three and a half amazing quarters of action. The final 10 minutes changed everything though as Carlton finally was able to string things together and pile on some points quickly, eventually overpowering the Tigers by 30. Though we're sad for the loss, we take comfort in knowing that at least now we'll have a response to the pervasive 'have you picked a team' question and we'll cheer them through the rest of our stay in Australia.

Movies in Oz

For those of you that have talked movies with us you probably noticed that our choices are a bit different than what is available in the states. In fact, when we talked to Ed, Myra, Carmen and Jim all in the same weekend and they had all already seen Iron Man, Narnia, and Indiana Jones, the only one that was actually available in Austraila was Indy! We had to wait almost a month for Narnia, and a few weeks more for Iron Man to hit the theatres. The same holds true for DVDs as all the releases are delayed by sometimes up to a couple months after US availability. We watched the US DVD of Ratatoulie before it had hit the Australia theatres.

So since we're going to be behind on movies we might as well be farther behind and just wait for DVDs. We LOVE our Blockbuster subscription at home so we're going to try out a Quickflix subscription while we're here. For those of us non-techie people that don't download movies from iTunes it's a good way to have movies at your fingertips without leaving the couch. We signed up today so will have another report when the first DVDs arrive but the couch is calling, the dreary weather is here, it's the perfect time to watch more movies at home!