Doing Epic Shit Down Under

  Melanie and I are just wrapping up a 2 week stint volunteering at Safe Haven, a wildlife rescue and rehabilitation center, located on a 150 acre farm in rural Queensland.  The accommodations here have been spartan but adequate, and the work - while not glamorous - has (mostly) been fascinating, as the animals are just a tad more interesting (and exotic) than the racoons, skunks and wild turkeys we see at home!  Thought I'd share what a typical day volunteering here is like: Kangaroos/Wallaroos/Wallabies :  There are about a dozen or so that live at or around the facility.  They were either brought here as rescue animals, or were born here to mothers that had been rescued (when you hit a marsupial with your car in Australia - a far too common occurrence - you are supposed to check and see if there is a joey in their pouch that can be saved, even if the mom can't).  With the exception of the youngest joeys (all marsupial babies are called "joeys"), these an...

Just back to Australia after our week-long adventure in Papua New Guinea, and happy to hear that Joey Chestnut continued his dominance in the annual July 4th Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest! We are no worse for the wear, despite my one night of violent illness and consequent passing out. Luckily no serious injuries when I hit the floor like a sack of sweet potatoes (PNGers staple food). Only needed one day of recovery before I was able to rally! Way too much info, and way too many photos, to share here, but I’ll try to relay at least some highlights of our experience…. First, to orient those of you who are not PNG experts (likely everybody), PNG comprises the eastern half of the island of New Guinea, and at its closest point is less than 100 miles from the northeast corner of Australia. It is the 3rd largest island country in the world (behind Indonesia and Madagascar) and has the 3rd largest rainforest (behind Brazil and the Congo). Up until about 10,000 years ago (the end of th...

  Just back from a camping adventure in and around Uluru in Australia’s Red Centre: It was definitely not “glamping”, but it was epic!  But before I get to that, a few other updates since my last post: Spent the last couple of weeks in FNQ (Far Northern Queensland), also known locally as: Melanie and I celebrated our 37th Wedding Anniversary (that's 259 years in dog years...Woof is right!) in Port Douglas, a beautiful beach town north of Cairns: checked out the local music scene (never heard a didgeridoo before): and did some cool hiking: and aboriginal cultural tours: including one where we attempted to catch fish and crabs using traditional aboriginal spears: Suffice it to say that if we were contestants on that survivalist show "Alone", we'd starve to death pretty quickly, while the guides we were with would be having a feast! Fortunately, we had more success on the wildlife-spotting front than on the wildlife-spearing front!  In the Atherton Tablelands, we final...