Travelog for: Eeyore Cutie

Hello! I'm right now at home with my owner...we are waiting for my first assignment. We don't know where I'll first be taken!  She wants to send me on the World Wide trail...wonder where I'll get to visit first.  I'm very excited and so is she. Well she's got to get to work soon so I better go, we'll let you know when I get sent somewhere.

So my owner and I have found out that I will first be sent to...Australia!!!


I told all the other Eeyores about it...


We are very excited for when I get to go.  But before I do my owner took me to work today...see the traffic on the other side trying to get home?



and showed me her desk.

Look another Eeyore!!



She's gonna show me around a little more before I leave next week...
I can't wait!!

Today my owner and her friends are going to watch the movie UP in 3D...but first we stopped at a friends house. He has his own arcade machine in his room!!




After we had fun playing some games we went to the Howard Hughes center to eat at Islands and watch the movie at The Bridge.


We went and got our tickets...

I have my glasses all set for the movie!!

Here is the line to get in the theater...


Here are some things we could see from the parking structure when we left...the Sony offices, the Univision offices(Spanish TV channel) and look at the traffic!!




It was a fun night!!

Today my owner took me to the school she volunteers at...this is the middle school where Cameron Diaz went!!


She helps out the counselor there by makin copies and filing stuff away in the mail room



see me?!

The school is one of the best public middle schools...

tomorrow i will be preparing for my trip to Australia...i will leave Wednesday morning and I'm very excited!!

So today is the day I get mailed off to Australia!! I'm so very excited...my owner is taking me along to the post office along with some postcrossing postcards she is sending...


Her camera died but she took one last picture of me on her phone...here I am getting into my envelope!!


I'll write back once I reach my destination.  Goodbye California!! I will return once I've completed my journey around the world :]

Well, I've finally arrived in Australia! Sara tells me in good time too since I came just in time to go to Bathurst with the other toyvoyagers she is hosting... while we were driving in the car, heading back home.. because Sara forgot something... Sara got a few photos of me and main street Orange. This'll give you some idea of what Orange is all about... from a street view stand point I suppose... here I am on the main street, you can see a NAB bank (National Australia Bank) on the left and you can see Woolworths on the right in the distance...


...and now it's Kite Street... a smaller street that has, really nothing interesting on it... Orange is a pretty small town I tell you, especially compared to what I'm used to seeing in California...


...and now were to my home for the time being, on Kokoda Street... all the houses were built in WWII for the factory down the street - it's now Electrolux, but it used to be an ammunition factory for the men that were fighting on the Kokoda Trail. There's also a movie called Kokoda that was quite good actually...


I can promise you the street isn't that interesting, it's more the history that's interesting I suppose... history of the name anyways... the only interesting thing about the street is what you can see ahead in the photo. Two cars parked side by side on either side of the street... always makes it fun driving down the street when they do that... *sarcasm*... ah well!

Now were back on the road, were off to Bathurst!

Today we visited Bathurst... this time it was a bit more rushed than normal, but we still checked out one of the biggest reasons people drive all the way out West... for the Mount Panorama race track, which holds the famous Bathurst 1000 which stops the nation every October, and makes everyone in the Central West quiver with fear as there are SO many people that come from all over just to see the races... it's a mad house in October...

I got to see the now famous Peter Brock statue that was unveiled last year at the races. He died a day or two after the famous Steve Irwin died... he's famous for winning the most races at this track... he's won 9 races at this track. Tragically he died in a qualifying a few days before a race, not at this track though thankfully... although there have been a few deaths on this track sadly... and some, not human...


...Sara took us up to an over pass section just near the entrance of the track to take some photos up there... Sara's not great with heights but she did it anyways, here I am looking at the starting gate of the track... quite fancy yes?


...and of course I can't visit Mount Panorama without seeing the famous 'Mount Panorama' sign on the side of the mountain... apparently when they were making this sign in the 70's someone messed with the rocks that used to make up the sign and made it say a bad word... which they then published in a newspaper, quickly realizing their mistake, had to gather all the newspapers which had already been delivered before the morning. Kind of a funny story none the less... haha...


Sara found this a bit funny... when she got up there there was a tractor on the track...


Finally, we got to take a ride on the track itself... if you look at the ad's on the side you can see some accidents that would have happened. Towards the end of the photos, you can see a blue sign that says "Falken" it's got a huge gash in the cement... that happened last year in a non fatal accident thankfully... and when you see the 'Holden' signs and then the drop, that's the top of the mountain that you can see from the Mount Panorama sign photo that I'm in if you look closely... :-) Anyways, here's the photos:






















So now you've seen the track up close and personal, it doesn't look like much but I can promise you at the speeds they go it would be kind of scary! Especially that drop, it's quite a tight turn after the drop as well... pretty exciting... now many V8 tracks you can drive on. Funny enough, sometimes people have to drive on part of the track to get to their houses, and there's a TAFE (community college) right next to the track as well. Not to mention quite a lot of vineyards...

Sadly since the kangaroo view area that we go to is close by this area, sometimes there are kangaroos that are hit on the track while the race is going on... pretty crazy, quite a few near misses as well! Poor things!

Sadly this time we didn't see any kangaroos when we went and searched for them! Ah well! Write again soon mom! Miss you!

Hi mom! Sorry I haven't updated in a long time! It's been crazy down here, Sara hasn't been able to take us out really at all... she said she's very sorry but has a few things planned for next fortnight. Hopefully she can do a bit more sightseeing around Orange...

Since I wrote Miily and Rob Dyrduck left us for China and Libbs a tiny tiny brown bunny came to visit us. It's been quite fun... today it's been very rainy so we weren't able to go out like Sara wanted to do today... ah well! More to do in the next few weeks then!

Today we decided to help Sara make a spaghetti dinner for her Daniel and us of course... she doesn't have spaghetti very often so she always makes so much more than she needs (not on purpose just because she forgets)... whatever she and Daniel don't eat just goes to the dog, Anni.

Here I am helping with the cooking of the onion and the spaghetti, as you can tell were only in the beginning stages of the cooking at this point... were trying to rush it though so we can sit down and watch a movie... :-)


...and now we brown the meat...


...and add in the tomato and tomato sauce... yummy!


...and we drain the noodles...


...and while Sara serves up the plate (everyone eats off of one plate when it's spaghetti - hah) we sat down and watched some of Sara's favorite show lately Masterchef Australia... there are only 5 people left now (well 4 now) with two people that beat celebrity chefs so they're going to the final week... Sara's favourite is Andre, which is who is on the TV in the first photo...


...and they're in Hong Kong right now... this is Gary, one of the judges trying his dish...


...It was a very good dish Gary told Andre... sadly he didn't win the test though so he had to go through something called the 'Hong Kong Super Challenge'... sounds pretty confusing I'm sure, but Sara's been hooked right in - haha... but Sara was taping it so we watched a bit more before they turned on American Beauty and watched that...


So now you have a bit of an idea of what Sara and Daniel's average night looks like... there have been a lot of movies being played, since it's the cooler months it's much easier to snuggle up in a blanket and watch movies! I promise we'll do something more fun soon! Write again soon mom! Miss you!

We got two new visitors today! Charlis the dog, and Moxy ugly doll the... ugly doll... wait, I see Charlis but where is Moxy?...


Oh there he is! He was hiding with the much larger ugly dolls that Sara has... they're kind of cute though for being "ugly" dolls aren't they?


Sara decided since she has been lazy to show you her pets. I know of them know, crazy animals! But you don't so... here's a photo of Sara's beagle Anni. She's insane. To say the least... as you can tell that's her front "lawn" which more looks like a dirt pile because of the dog... fun! Anni has been quite a handful and very hard for Daniel and Sara to take care of when they have Sara's son Andrew, who is disabled... so I'm sure you can imagine... hah!


Next is Sara's birds... she's got an aviary in her kitchen... quite a funny place but it's the best place for the light. Here I am in front of the birds... there are nine Star finches both the red and yellow faced, four Gouldian finches, Zebra finches, two Spice finches, two Society finches, that look more like this, and two Diamond doves. She also has two bottom dwelling birds, two Button Quail, which also look more like this for the male, and without the "bib" for the female. Can you see all the different birds?


Sara decided this time to take a small video so you had some ideas of the sounds they make, since for such small birds they're very vocal... VERY vocal... hah! Here's a short video if you want to see it right here. It's not easy to tell, but the zebras are making most of the noise, where as the few chirps here and there are the society finches, the peeps at the end are the star finches. One of the male Gouldians kind of... dive bombed the star finches on the platform at the end of the video - whoops! The spice finches only make noise during the morning mainly... quite noisy birds in the morning haha! Ah well, it's always fun to watch them... they're all Australian birds except for the society finch, which isn't native to anywhere... it's a captive bred bird for mixed aviaries. :-)

Anyways, moving on... Sara's also got some mice... 3 domestic mice, and 3 wild mice (the smaller cages below since they're so small)... there's a Fawn coloured one (kind of tan/orange coloured) called Fluff, a little brown one called Bongo, that Sara believes was a domestic mouse and a wild mouse must have bred and was taken to the pet store... she's also got a long haired black mouse called Shadow... they sleep in a hamburger! How crazy is that! hehe... you can't see it though because it's in the paper at the bottom... :-)


Sara's also got some fish... don't mind the 'Sara' on the side of the tank... that was all thanks to Sara's husband Daniel. They're mostly platies, but a few Chinese barb fish that have been around since 2005 when Sara moved down! There's also a bristlenose catfish, also known as a sucker fish that are common in pet stores in the US. There's also some kuhli loaches but you'd never know.. they hide so well!


Sara's also got some... well, I wouldn't call them pets by any stretch of the mind... but Sara's getting her bathroom re modelled in a few days since it's old and well... falling apart. It's very common here for bugs to get into the houses, this includes slugs, snails, spiders... all those weird things... well, Sara had a few slugs and a snail in the back of her house so she "rescued" them so they weren't killed and is releasing them outside... here we are with the few slugs in the container... yucky slimy things eh?


Well, that was all of Sara's pets.. quite a story with all of them isn't there! haha! She's quite the animal lover, and her animals love her back! She even had a partial tame Gouldian finch baby! Well, I'll end this with a photo of me looking outside... been quite dark and dreary outside lately! Oh well, it's Winter time I suppose!


Write again soon!

Well, this was day 1 of 10... we surely didn't get up early but we tried to sleep in but the loud BANG BANG BANG! Really woke us up! What was that? Well, it was a contractor in Sara's shower area tearing everything apart... ugh! She says they really needed it since when the shower was built it was not built right and tiles were falling off... so they tore all that off and jack hammered the floor... see this is all the stuff they took off the bathroom? Can you imagine? Geez that's a lot of stuff there!...


...when the contractor was done for the day we had a bit of a look back there... it's amazing, the difference even from yesterday. The right corner of the photo was where the shower is (you can see the piping a leading to the shower head). The window, on the left side was a sink... and in front of all this... was a really big wall. He tore down the wall though, pretty quickly mind you!... it's all a big surprise even to Sara and Daniel - they're not sure what it's going to look like in the end... but I'm sure it'll be nice... interesting to watch it step by step though! Here I am in front of the now torn apart shower area...


Write again soon!

Today we went to Bathurst... on the way to somewhere else... but on the way we stopped in Bathurst and had a look to see if we could see some wildlife... and indeed we did... can you see him?


Sara had a hard time getting an actual photo of him... took a few shots and focusing again and again to get a clear one... here's a much closer shot. As you can see they're very nervous creatures... and they need to be unfortunately because a lot of kangaroos get shot by local farmers! :-(


Just as Sara was looking around a bit more for anyone else, someone behind her popped up and looked quite nervous ready to jump away at any time... thankfully she stayed there... almost posed for the camera... :-)


Right near the last one, was a much smaller one laying down next to her... Sara tried to get a photo of one laying down and just as she clicked he started to get up...


...and here he is in all his glory... pretty small kangaroo though..


Sara finally decided now that she's got some proof I've seen a kangaroo we can get in the shot... sometimes they're very nervous and bounce away before Sara can get a toyvoyager in a shot... so precautionary measures.. here I am, see them behind me?


After another 20 or so shots Sara decided to get a last shot of the first kangaroo we saw... she realizes it's the one she sees all the time in the photos - he's got very distinctive eyes...


Sara has another scan around the area and doesn't see anymore... and then... what's this? Do you see it?


It took a good trained eye to notice it... but a large kangaroo is laying there... here's a closer shot of him... he doesn't seem to mind us there - although still quite a distance I think he's more concerned about getting some shut eye than paying attention to us!


After a few more shots to make sure we got a clear shot of him, Sara goes to open the car door... and then, he got up... opening the car door must have spooked him because after a few seconds Sara looked back and saw this... look at those claws! Isn't he amazing?


Now THAT is a very large male kangaroo! Sara made a few clicks and noises to get him to look at her (in the photo above) but he decided he had had enough... you can see a (not so great quality) video of him here. Sara's never caught one laying down, let alone on video... here's a few more photos of him...




...one last look to make sure were no threat to him...


...and... BOOM! He's down again...


Sara was absolutely wrapped about getting photos of this since usually they bounce off and totally ignore me, but this huge male decided to almost pose for us... how cool is that? Definitely a first for the toyvoyagers! :-) Write again soon! :-)

Next stop was a small town of Lithgow which is just outside of the famous Blue Mountains which you can see in these photos. It's around 90 minutes drive from Orange and 45 minutes from Bathurst. It's around an hour from Sydney at this point... unfortunately we're not going to Sydney today... but here are some photos going into Lithgow... and the last photo on the road you can see Lithgow in the distance...





...and just as we entered Lithgow we saw the Lithgow Miner's Lamp. Also known as the tourist information centre - hah!


Unfortunately we didn't spend long in Lithgow, and on the news last night Sara found out where we were going to go was now unstable and dangerous. So we couldn't do that! It was a nice lookout where you can see the blue mountains in the distance and all of Lithgow and more. Gorgeous! Hopefully we can see it again if we go through Lithgow and it's safe... instead Sara took us somewhere else... write again soon! :-)

Last stop today was Lithgow's Lyell Lake... Sara's never been here before and since we couldn't go to a view point because it was dangerous road now Sara took us here instead...



...and here I am in front of what's left of Lyell Lake...


See how it's so much darker than in Bathurst? It's because were technically closer to the coast and Sydney and it was rainy and gloomy in Sydney today apparently... it was FREEZING! What you don't realize is how low the lake is... it's usually SO much higher than this, how do I know that when I've never been here before? Have a look at this:

See the colour change on the cement thing? That's where the water level was, and is supposed to be... around 20 feet below normal... we've had a lot of dry Summer's and very dry Winter's unfortunately... Lithgow isn't as bad, but Orange's water supply is at around 11% at the moment! :-(

Apparently this lake overflowed in 2002 so they had to build a dam, which is what you see... this the backside of the dam, as you can see there's no water there... and hasn't been for quite a while...


...and here's the other side of the dam... a sloping bit, so if it does overflow it goes in a controlled area rather than into the city... there's a little bit of water down there... from the recent rains we've had...


We also got some photos of the signs around the dam where we were standing - you can see them here:




Here's a photo in the distance of the last photo of me and the back side of the dam... here is a good photo of the Blue Mountains. Unfortunately you can't tell why they're called that since it's so dark and gloomy out - but they have a blue tinge to them on nice days... really gorgeous...


Well that was that... time to get into the car which is SO much warmer... such a cold breeze Sara's rushing to get us all back in the car and head back to the warmer Bathurst and Orange...

As we were heading home we actually got to get some Red Rooster as well - yummy! No photos with it - it went down pretty quick! We were all so very hungry!


Write again soon! Miss you! :-)

Today we took a trip to a small but quite widely known town called Parkes a lot of people know about this city... but they don't know how they know about it... it is quite a famous little town that only has around 15,000 people. You would never think this small town has quite a huge history... here is the turn off to Parkes...


Well if that doesn't give it away... Parkes has a huge radio telescope (if you click that link you can see the telescope at Parkes that I saw!)...


The telescope here actually assisted in the Apollo 11 mission to the moon! How cool is that? Here I am in front of the telescope... can you believe how huge it is?


Well... it is quite famous, a lot of people didn't know that this is where the transmission from Neil Armstrong to Houston went through Parkes... crazy huh? There was even a movie made about this radio telescope and it's role in the Apollo 11 mission called The Dish... here's another photo of it without me in it...


Sara said she and Toothy Walrus had been here a few months before... the radio telescope was facing the opposite direction... you're not allowed to use any GPS systems or cell phones and you need to turn your engines off when you get close to it as it's still working... pretty cool huh?

Write again soon!

We also visited a small town 30 minutes South of Parkes called Forbes. Unfortunately Sara's never been there before, and was getting there just as the sun was setting so we weren't able to see anything - besides what we saw out the windscreen... here are a few photos driving through Forbes....





Write again soon! :-)