Entries this day: australia

australia

(This story, including misspellings, is transcribed from 5 hand printed sheets of notebook paper, which have been stapled together and stored for fifteen years in a folder labeled "cool stuff")

Our Trip to Austrailia 1985

It is 6:00 (Houston) 4:00 (San Fran.) Wednesday, June the 12th. We are on the way from Houston to San Fransisco and we are flying over some snow capped mountains in California. The plane ride has been fairly boring except when we are low enough to tell what things are. The trip has lasted 3.5 hours. We got a hotel for Ma and then jumped on the next plane 1.563 Hours later.

Now It is 11:00 (Houston) 9:00 (San Fran) and Fred and I are in the very middle two seats of a 747 (It is awesome!) we are about to be leaving for Honolulu. To bad we can't see out any windows!! The flight should last 4 hrs + 35 mins but I hope it is shorter. We just recieved some orange juice to drink or spit in or whatever. We will get to see a movie. ~~~~~~~

(In Hotel) The movie was dumb and Fred and I missed supper. We ate at burger king right down the road and went swimming at Waikiki beach.

The beach is much more fun than Galveston. The shore slopes down at a 40 degree angle then it evens out a little when it hits the water. The shore then drops straight down about 2ft after that. Then it slowly goes down and out to sea. The water is awesomely clearer than galveston (not suprising) and has a blue tint to it. We saw a balboa tree which was about 30 feet in diamater. Too bad we couldn't climbit!!! There were about 200 surfboards for rent at the beach too. We spent the night at a hotel and saw the Arizona memorial the next day. It was O.K. But not awesome. 1100 men are entombed in it and listed as "buried at sea"

We slept for a little bit at our hotel then we went to pick up ma. We jumped on a bus and cruised to the airport. We got there 3hrs before our plane was to leave to get good seats. We ended up getting window seats in the smokin' section though. Then we went to a bench and waited and waited etc for 2 hours (too long). When it was time for our plane to arrive we walked a long way to the gate. We waited until the plane came and got to watch it being loaded and unloaded. When ma got out we gave her the key to the hotel we had been in and we jumped on the plane. When we got to our seats some dumb lady was sleeping on them and she wanted us to move back to her seat. Then some stewerdess made her move back to her seat. We sat down and I started to start to snooze. I woke up when the plane started to move and went back to sleep again I then woke up when we were about to take off. I stayed awake through the take off with Fred and he went to sleep right after we took off. I was awake through the midnight snack but Fred slept through it even though I shook him and put an orange slice on his mouth. I went to sleep after the snack and slept until the movie came on (2010). I woke Fred up near the end of it and made him stay awake till the end when we were to eat breakfast. We ate breakfast and landed a few hours later. We spent a long time in line so we could get our passports checked. When we did we got on a bus and went to our hotel. We slept about the whole day and night. We got Ma the next day and went to the zoo and the opera house that day. We got to ride on the subway 3 times while we were there in Sydney. We got a camper van to cruise North to Brisbane if possible.

The first day we drove to Gosford and stopped at koala park along the way. We saw a little pen of Koalas and got to pet one. They are awesomely soft and have two thumbs. We got to see and pet some Wallabies too. They are awesomely soft and have long teeth. We saw some big Emus which are big, ugly, mean birds that look like ostriches. We spent the night in Gosford in a place with train tracks right near it. Trains went by about every 10 mins. The next day we drove to Coffs harbor and stayed 2 nights 2.5 days. Our campsite was in running distance from the beach. The waves were huge and powerful. I didn't dare go past 4 foot deep water because they were too big. Fred and I went to our beach and went left to some huge rocks. We used a stick to draw a line to them. When we got there it was beautiful. There were trees and grass growing on some short mountains. The mountains made a little cove that was sort of hard to get to so not too many people went there. That meant there was a whole bunch of rocks and shells and coral to get. There was a little sand dune that had about 123 sponges on it. If you were to go right you would get to some other rocks that were yukky. They were just big and mean. I did see a maroon shark on them though. It was about 1 foot & 2 inches long with a marroon back with little white spots (this big O) and it had a white belly. I made a sand fort on the beach too. When I was done it took 26 waves for the ocean to total it. When we left Coffs harbour we went to a bannana plantation. The bannanas grew on trees. The trees lived one year and produced 1 or 0 bannana bunches and 1 little bannana tree to grow next year. In the building for the bannana place was an operating bee hive in the store it was closed off so no bees flew in the store though. They could only get out of the hive through a glass tube leading directly outside. after seeing the bannana place we went to see some waterfalls. They were O.K. After that we went to Armidale to sleep. When we woke up we went back to see the tallest waterfalls in the Souther hemisphere. They were 457 meters _____ feet high. They were also to far away to even tell that the pool that the water fell in was rippling. After seeing the tallest falls we drove to musswellbrook. We spent the night there and went to katoomba. Katoomba was neat. Our campsite was not to far from a huge valley that had many trails on it. There were floodlight lit waterfalls there too. A "skyway" went across the valley for people to ride on and a train went down from that same building into the valley. We went on the train down and went on many trails that were there. The only bad things about Katoomba was the Temp (Tooo cold!) and a roller coaster. At the same place the train and skyway were The Orphan Rocker sat. It was a roller coaster that started near the top of the valley and went around the skyway building through a tunnel down into the valley and back up to the top. The problem it had? It was shut down for a tune-up.

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There were some -*awesome*- things in it!!! One project was a padlock about two feet tall which could have its front taken off to show its mechinism that really worked!!

Another great project was a go-cart with wheels that really rolled, a steering wheel that really worked, brakes for the back that really worked, wooden shocks for the back wheels that really worked and four lugnuts that really went on and off for each wheel!!!!!! It was priced at $8250(U.S) and 12,5000 (Australia).

The last awesome thing cost $28,500(Australia) $18,810(US). It was a huge table 'bout 10 feet in diameter which had inlaid pictures of the food for eight people to eat. It was totally smooth but looked 3-D. Each plate had different types of food on it and some of them looked half eaten with the silver ware dirty with the food. One plate had a fish with some hush puppies and shrimp. Another one was a half eaten hamburger with ketchup smeared all over. I didn't see the rest but they were all different. I can't believe the guy even wanted to sell the table.