riverECHO

15 kilometers around Australia

We’d like to introduce you to our latest travel companion . . . Slim. He has a comfy bed, an extra battery, and a pop-top and after stocking him with a couple bins for our clothes and cooking items, we are excited to have him around while we tour the country.

After we picked up Slim we moved out of our hostel and into a campground north of the city in Sydney’s only national park. Although we’ve been catching up at work for the last few days, we were able to venture back into the city this afternoon for a show at the Opera House, the one touristy thing that we deemed necessary in Sydney. But when we found out that a concert or show in the main theater cost over $200, we opted for a much more reasonably priced performance in the drama theater, which is in the same building but just one floor below the impressive auditorium. In the end, I think we chose wisely. Put on by the Australia based Bangarra Dance Theatre Company, “Fire” is a dance production that combines modern dance with traditional aboriginal style dancing. We had seats in the second row and after two hours we were sad to see the show end. It was totally impressive and as BJ’s first performing arts experience of the kind, I think he’s hooked.

Post Opera House, we revisited the lovely Botanical Gardens, drank an iced coffee which in Australia is short for a coffee float (seriously  . . . they put a huge scoop of ice cream in a cup of chilled coffee), listened to a number of street performers playing a didgeridoo to techno music (BJ named it dij-dub), and had dinner at one of the 500 restaurants along the Darling Harbor. We would love to check out some of Sydney’s museums and other sites, but as it is only getting hotter in northern Australia, we are feeling like we should start getting on the road. But Sydney’s not done with us yet as we’ll probably be back to sell our van at the end of our trip.

Although we’ve been here for less than a week, I must say that the Australians are some of the nicest people I’ve met. They love to engage in conversation and love asking us where we’re from and where we’re going. We met a lady last night at the campground who, after finding out we were from a town near Yellowstone National Park, became really excited to tell her kids that we were friends with Yogi Bear and Booboo. We are starting to realize that living out of a van is not only convenient for our travel plans, but also a very social endeavor.