Leap'n Lizards

I headed out the door this morning for a quick little bush run. I only wanted about 45 minutes. I ran down Fuller Street again towards Lane Cove National Park. Fuller Street is very steep – all downhill going to the park. As such, it only takes me about 4 minutes to get to the park.


Once at the park I stayed on the trail. There were not many people at the park and I noticed quickly that the lizards were out in force. They were basking all along the trail – some were on rocks near the trail but most were on the trail. They react pretty slowly to an approaching running. They also blend in to the surrounding very well. I could see the vegetation on both sides of the trial most as I passed. There was also more than one occasion where I had to huddle one of these lizards. Just to be clear, these are pretty bit lizards – like at least a foot long and with their tails more like 3 feet long. Yeah – big lizards were everywhere.

After my run my sister and I headed back to Darling Harbour in downtown Sydney. We visited the Australian National Maritime Museum. There were several real naval vessels (a Destroyer Class ship called the HMAS Vampire - damn cool name for a ship) as well as a full sized replica of the HMB Endeavour (a sailing ship from the 1700’s). In addition there was more information on Aboriginal peoples and lots of stuff on navigation. There was also an exhibit about ‘Britain’s Child Migrants’.

From the 1860s, more than 100,000 children were sent from Britain to Canada, Australia and other Commonwealth countries through child migration schemes. They were sent by charitable and religious organisations, with government support, in the belief that their lives would improve, and that they would provide much-needed labour and increase the population.

Few were orphans; many came from families who were unable to care for them. The lives of these children changed dramatically and fortunes varied. Some succeeded in creating new futures. Others suffered lonely, brutal childhoods. All experienced disruption and separation from family and homeland.

Child migration schemes received criticism from the outset, yet continued until the 1960s. Formal apologies were made by the Australian Government in 2009 and the British Government in 2010 but many former child migrants and their families are still coming to terms with their experiences.

They were shipping kids to far off lands for hard labor and increase white people in these countries.  Many were lied to and told that their parents were dead and deceived into thinking that they were going to have a great time.  Some thought they were going to get to ride horses and kangaroos and pick fresh fruit from trees.  This was the governments and the churches.  Nice.

It was a nice museum.

I had planned on another run in the late afternoon after walking the kids home from school. However a storm blew in and it rained rather hard for about an hour. I had lost my inclination to run.

Woven jellies

Aboriginal coffins

Cockle Bay

Motorbike parking

Street painter

Christmas tree's are up already

Running Lane Cove

I got up early this morning. I headed out for a short run before most of the house rose. There was very little traffic on my way to the park. The Lane Cove National Park is quite hilly like most of Sydney. This is good for me. I ran at an easy pace for most of an hour. I had to get back to the house to walk the kids to school with my sister. We would be heading to downtown to run around today.

The park has a mix of road and trail runs. Any run that is no on a road is called bush – so hiking on a trail or running on a trail is a Bush Walk or Bush Run respectively. I did a combination of road and bush running. I did see several road cyclists in the park. They were riding up and down the hills. There are some pretty good hills in this park. I got back to the house with plenty of time to grab breakie and pack a lunch for the day.

We walked the kids to school, which is also quite hilly. My calves are getting a workout with just the walking. At the school the kids have to line up by class and the all of the announcements are made. My sister and I then headed to the trains to head to downtown.

We got off the train at Circular Quay. This is the hub of Sydney Harbour. It is the founding site of Sydney and the home to the Sydney Opera House and Royal Botanical Gardens. On the north side is the Harbour Bridge and The Rocks.

After walking around this the Opera House we visited the Sydney Museum of Contemporary Art. We then had lunch in the Royal Botanical Gardens. The gardens are expansive and impressive. There is a pond with lots of birds and eels.

Harbour Bridge

Sydney Opera House

Me in front of Sydney Opera House

In addition the trees are very unique. In the tops of the tress there are many huge flying fox bats. I have been told that at dusk it is exciting to see the bats take flight. After the gardens we headed to the Sydney Library where they have a small but interesting exhibit about the first aboriginals their interactions with the first westerners.

Duck in hiding

Bats (Fying Foxes) in trees

Bats (Fying Foxes) in trees

Close up of Fying Foxes - You do not want to picnic under these trees

Century Old Trees

The day had flown by and it was time to head back to Chatswood, do a little grocery shopping and then pick up the kids and walk home. When we got home I had a small bowl of oatmeal for a snack at got ready to meet the Lance Cove Runners at the park. They meet Tuesday and Friday evenings. I ran down a steep hill of Fuller Street (about ¾ mile) and arrived at the park just as three other people were congregating. I introduced myself and one of the guys was Jim who I had corresponded with a couple of weeks ago. Two of the other people were Tom and George. They are both accomplished Bush Runners. In fact, Tom has a 100K bush run this weekend. We started the run at a comfortable pace and the road got hilly. This ended up being a challenging run. I would say it ended up being comfortably hard. Tom and I pushed the pace in a couple of sections but we were able to keep it conversational most of the time. Tom asked me if I thought that Australia had an obesity problem. I said that compared to Mississippi Australia had nothing to worry about – Tom was still concerned.

I ended up getting just over 13 miles running plus several more walking around the city.



Touch down in Sydney.

Well, I made it to Australia. However, my checked baggage did not land with me. After spending almost 26 hours in airports or airplanes I met my brother-in-law Joe at the train station. My checked baggage would arrive on a later flight and be taken to my sister’s house.
After Joe got me pointed in the right direction I rode the train to the Chatswood exit near my sister’s house. She was waiting for me. We walked the 20 minutes or so to her house. It was now 9 or 10 o’clock in the morning but it felt like a million o’clock to me. I had slept some of the flight but it was not productive sleep. Joe had ordered my sister to not let me go to sleep. It was like a nightmare on Elm street movie. Joe did not want me to sleep because we were headed back to the airport the next day at 5AM. Dang.

Anyway, I finally got my checked baggage so I was able to take a nice hot shower and actually have some clean clothes to change into. I probably won’t have my computer with me for the next 5 days while at the Great Barrier Reef but I will take lots of pictures!

Hey, where did my Monday go? Sydney bound.

I am sitting in the New Orleans airport waiting on my flight. This is going to be a very long day. My flight leaves NO at 2PM. A short time later I arrive at Dallas where I get to spend about 4 hours at their airport. Then it is a much longer flight to LA. When I arrive at LA I get to spend about 2 hours at LAX. Finally I get to board my flight to Sydney. I will be on the flight for the next 18 hours. I am not a big aviation geek but I did specifically book my flight so that I would get to fly on the Airbus A380. The Airbus A380 is a double-deck, wide-body, four-engine airliner. It is the largest passenger airliner in the world. In addition, there are 3 self-serve snack bars! This might present a problem since I am a nervous eater – and I am especially nervous when I travel.

Snack Bar

We went and lined the streets to watch the New Orleans Halloween Parade last night. As far as parades go it was pretty good – nothing spectacular. There are about 10 very large floats that were decorated very well. However, there was a very mechanical aspect to them. I seemed to prefer the more dynamic parade elements. There was a group of about 10 people dressed in some kind of voodoo straw outfit – maybe African witch doctor. And they were 10 feet tall (on stilts). These guys were extremely talented and they were jumping into the crowd and hopping around. They were showman! It was pretty incredible.

The other group that was exciting was the devils, witches, skeletons on horseback.  Their costumes were very dramatic.  I wish I would have had a camera with me.  We called it an early night in New Orleans although we could hear the parting well into the night – I mean day.  I went to the lobby to get some coffee at around 6AM and two guys stumbled onto the elevator.  They were both clutching 12 packs of beer.  One 12 pack was intact while the other had obviously been dropped several times.  This guy held the beer close to his chest as he rested against the elevator wall.  After a moment or two he spoke, looking to his friend he said, “How did I F@#$# that up?”  To which his friend replied, “She played you.”  This is an everyday occurrence in New Orleans.