Travelog for: Kari

On our way home we came through this small town. Because I liked the church tower, I asked for taking a photo with me.

We drove through Karlsruhe and I saw another church, which seemed very interesting. So of course I asked for another photo.



This is the entrance of the soccer stadion of the team of Karlsruhe. My whole family is fan of that team. I'm so sorry, that Alfie Langer was in his package already, so we couldn't take a photo with him

Good bye, Kari!!!


We hope to see you again next year. Have a nice time, we are sure, you will enjoy it.

Im here in Busselton. Australia,
I arrived on Thursday  18/10/2007.
Its a lovely place near the ocean.
Cant wait to explore this town.

This is where Kira found me.
In her letter box outside her house

Im going to play a game of world business with Sydney

Kari at the beach. The ocean is in the backgound.

Im at the main beach of Busselton

This is me having a rest in the christmas tree

Well, I arrived in Sydney and can't say I was terribly impressed at first. My host had gone away and the neighbour who was collecting the mail just left me in the packing on her kitchen bench for three days while I waited and waited to be released.
To make up for this very poor treatment, my host took me with her to Olympic Park to the Bon Jovi concert. Wow! Amazing! Even though we had to sit in the nose bleed seats it was well worth it!

Here is the Olympic Stadium (which since the Olympics has been renamed Telstra Stadium after it's major sponsor). This was where the Opening and Closing Ceremony and Athletic events were held during the Olympics. My host told me she went to the Opening Ceremony of the Paralympics and had to be like a mountain goat to climb up to her seat in the rain.


And, this is Acer Arena where the concert was being held. During the Olympics it was called the Superdome and this is where you would have gone if you wanted to see the gymnastics or basketball or other indoor sporting events.

Today is Australia Day in Australia. This is the biggest day of celebration in the country. It marks the day in 1788 when the "First Fleet" of eleven convict ships from Great Britain arrived at Sydney Cove. This was the beginning of white settlement (some would say "Invasion" ) of Australia.
The day is marked in most local areas with picnics, community barbeques, live entertainment and fireworks at night.

In Sydney itself there are many different events celebrating the day and today I got taken into the city to check some of them out.


The first thing we did was go for a ride on a vintage bus.
We caught the bus from outside the QVB shopping centre, which is next to the Sydney Town Hall. (That's the Town Hall in the pic)




The bus was fun to travel on, even if it did smell a bit dusty.


We didn't stay on it long though, as we only rode it down close to the Harbour.


This is the anchor from the HMAS Sirrus, which was the ship that led the First Fleet and carried the first Governor of New South Wales (ie Australia) out from England in 1788.

There was loads of free entertainment on offer around the city today. Here we sat and watched a musician for a while. We can't say that we enjoyed his music very much, so we won't say who he is!


Maybe you've heard that Australia is a sports mad nation?
You'd better believe it! Look! Here's a huge outdoor TV screen that was set up so that everyone who wanted to could watch the Australian Open (which is currently being played in Melbourne) even while they are out enjoying the celebrations. Crazy huh?



Hmm, we seem to be experiencing technical difficulties with photos. Will continue this tomorrow! Bec

At 3pm the Tall Ship Race was going to start, so we made our way down to Dawes Point under the Harbour Bridge where the finish line was. As there was very little wind (and tall ships are wind powered!) it took quite a while for the ships to get through the harbour. This gave us time to take lots of photos of our surroundings.

Can you see the tiny little spikes on top of the bridge? They’re people doing the bridge climb. You climb right up to the top of the bridge, then cross over the top (across the road way!) and come down the other side. According to Bec’s sister who did the climb a few years back, the view is amazing!

This is the south pylon of the Harbour Bridge. We saw people standing on the viewing platform on the top watching for the tall ships too. We had considered going up there too, but the humans had blistered feet and no inclination to climb the 200 or so stairs to the top (I think they had very little sense of adventure, but what’s a small koala to do?)


As you can see, lots of people were beginning to gather to wait for the ship race to finish.


The harbour was very, very busy today too, with lots of ferries, cruise ships and pleasure craft out and about enjoying the sunshine.


We waited for a long time. Here we’d been waiting for almost a half hour, but still could only just see the tall ships. That white “blob” is the P&O Ocean liner.


Finally, close to 4:00 the tall ships actually got close to the finish line. Can you see them? There were four ships in the race, but I don’t know which one was which!


Suddenly, there was a loud BOOM! One of the ships, we think it was the Young Endeavour, fired its cannon at one of the smaller ships just after it crossed it’s bow. How exciting! (If you look closely at the photo, you might be able to see the smoke!)


Everyone cheered and clapped as the ships crossed the finishing line almost an hour after the race had begun. I’m sorry to say, I don’t know which ship won the race.

Can you see the little boat right above my paw? It was competing in the “Best Dressed Boat” competition. It is covered in tinsel, flags and streamers and looked very beautiful. (There is a better photo of it here.)

After the race, we walked down a little further to Dawes Point so I could stand under the Harbour Bridge.


Another thing that had happened while we were watching the tall ships, was that the Army parachutists put on a display. They jumped out of a small plane in a puff of pink smoke,


Flew over our heads,


And landed in the water, right in front of the Sydney Opera House.

Today we packed a picnic and took in another Australian institution – a day out at the Cricket.

While looking into what we could do to celebrate Australia Day yesterday we stumbled across the details of a match between Bankstown (the local “county” side) versus Sri Lanka at Bankstown Oval, which is just around the corner practically from where I am staying.
So, with my new friend Kalli we packed a picnic lunch and went along to join the fun.


Cricket can sometimes be a very slow sport to watch. This was a one-day match. That means that each team gets one innings of 50 overs each in which to score as many runs as possible. One over is 6 balls bowled at the batsman. When the batsman gets a hit he runs to other end of the pitch and that makes 1 run. If he runs back to his starting point, that’s two runs and so on. There are two batsmen on the pitch  at one time. (I hope this is not getting confusing! - there are much clearer explanations on YouTube if you type in \"This is Cricket\") You can get out  if you are caught on the full, “bowled”, meaning the stumps, the three sticks behind the batsmen are hit, or “run-out”, which means that the ball beats you back to the stumps on a run. Getting an opposing batsman out is cause for great celebrating among the fielding team.
When we got to the match, Sri Lanka were batting and Bankstown were bowling & fielding.


The game just seemed to go on and on and on! But I started to get the jist of the game. Sri Lanka hit a lot of fours (when the ball gets to the boundary without being stopped by a fielder) and sixes (when the ball goes over the boundary on the full) so that was pretty exciting. Plus it was fun to listen to the crowd. There were a lot of Sri Lankan supporters at the match who had bought their drums and trumpets to help cheer on their side.


One thing to remember is that if you are out in the Australian sun in the middle of the day, it is important to protect your self from the sun so that you don’t get sun burnt!


This hat was a little slice of home – the R32 being a Volkswagen Golf!


During the lunch break I think all the sun and fresh air must have gotten to me (or maybe all the travel and excitement of the last few days caught up with me?) and I had a little nap.


After lunch, it was Sri Lanka’s turn to bowl and field. Like many other supporters I went down the fence line to get a better view of the game and maybe meet a world famous player. No luck though, his mind was firmly centred on the game.




The final score for the day was Sri Lanka 9/274 and Bankstown was all out for 207, so Sri Lanka won the match by 67runs. We had a great time!

Almost forgot to show you this Blue Tongue Lizard that lives in my hosts' backyard. It's shedding it's skin at the moment and so is very placid. When it opens its mouth, its tongue is a purpley-blue colour. Very intimidating!


A closer picture of our lizard friend is here.