Snakes R' Us

Python

Click on the Alice Springs Reptile Center to see our most recent outing! Highlight of the day was when a Blue Tongue Lizard peed on my hand. My disgust is evident in the picture.

(By the way...we know that Brady's pants are too short. She refuses to let them go and still insists on wearing them. I try to choose my battles wisely.)

New Posts

Please note that there are quite a few new posts. Make sure you read them all!

Out Bush

Ayers Rock

Since Fred (my stepfather) probably won't be returning to Australia, we decided that it was imperative to squeeze in seeing two of the most famous sites in the country, Ayers Rock (Uluru to the Aboriginals) and King's Canyon. Both are within driving distance but, although they look close on the map, are quite a distance. Since Cole hurt his leg, and camping exhausted us, we decided to cut the trip to two nights away. The first was spent at Ayers Rock in a small cabin on with facilities close by, the second was spent in nice little hotel rooms at King's Canyon Resort.

Ayers Rock is a huge rock (not mountain)held sacred by the Aboriginals. What to do there? Well, you look at the rock. You can also take various "walks" around the rock or actually climb the rock if you choose. The aboriginals discourage climbing although it is allowed and there are even chains/ropes to help you up and down. In the pics of AR, towards the end there is a blurry one with little people on top climbing up. It looks to be a scary little climb (I'm afraid of heights). Either way, even if we had wanted to do other things, time would only afford taking in the sunset and sunrise views. Which we took many pictures of. It was truly beautiful and probably would have been quite peaceful if not for our crazy loud kids. Note, in the pictures of sunset, we look disgusting. We had been traveling all day.

Kings Canyon

King's Canyon is like our Grand Canyon only much smaller. We drove in on our second day, and walked the bottom of the canyon. There is also a 3-4 hour rim walk but only Jason and I could have walked it and we didn't have the time. Towards the end of the canyon pictures, you see a pic with people climbing up the steep slope to the rim. Jason wants to go back one day to do it, it makes me a little queasy thinking about it.

At the end of the King's Canyon album are the pics from our drive back home. Now this was absolutely the most exciting part of the trip for me. (I know, I'm crazy) For the first 2 1/2 hours of the drive, we traveled Aboriginal land (had to a purchase a permit) all of which was dirt/gravel road. Talk about a ride. The girls rode in the 1994 4 Runner and the boys in the 2005 Ford F150. Worse yet, the A/C on the 4Runner has been going out. Out of necessity, we led the way home, since open windows on dirt roads behind big trucks spells dirty disaster! The 4Runner rattled until I thought it was going to fall apart. Halfway there I actually had to stop and pee out bush!!!! Talk about an exposing experience - even though it wasn't until the last half hour out that we actually saw another vehicle on the road. The highlight was when we had to stop to let camels and wild horses cross the road! I loved every minute of our roughing it while the boys had a very boring cushy little ride.

Desert Park Pics

Desert Park

We visited the Alice Springs Desert Park. Great place, tells all about the different types of desert and the wildlife of each. These are mostly people pics. There are a couple of Gracie with the map. She became the navigator since the walk was long, hot and boring for her. Celebrated making it through with icy poles in the cafe!

9 Stitches, 6 Nuggets and 1 Very Long Day

Of course the morning after camping, we woke at the crack of dawn. No one had slept very well, and it was cold. I was able to get the fire going again (which sounds more impressive than it actually was since I only uncovered the embers and stuck more wood right on top). Breakfast was fried eggs, bacon and toast. Then we broke down the campsite, got everyone together and drove the hour back home (sighing relief when we hit the driveway).

While the grown-ups were unloading the trucks, the kids went about their merry business wreaking havoc on the neighborhood. Cole went to ride his bike up the street with friends. The next thing we know, Cole comes limping home with blood running into his shoe. After having gone down a steep driveway "faster than he's ever gone before" Cole ripped a huge jagged cut into his upper calf. (That of course is this Mother's way of making his boo-boo sound to you about how it looked to me at the time) So Jason, Cole and I spend the next few hours in the Alice Springs Emergency Room getting him stitched up. It's going to leave quite a scar. And of course offered to feed him whatever he wanted, hence the nuggets.

Camping at Ross River

Camping Ross River

Our first camping adventure. We opted for one night away to test all the gear. Ross River Resort is a great little spot about an hour east of Alice Springs. Since Fred has joined Mom here now, we had to take two cars. With all the equipment, people, and food, there was no car space to spare. On the way out, we made stops at a couple of the gaps, gorges, and rocks that are on the list (where the list came from I don't know) to be seen.

Once there and set up, we roasted marshmallows and sat around the campfire telling stories. Well, technically, I fell asleep with the kids around 7:30ish (long day) and spent a few minutes by the fire with Jason later in the evening when I had to get up to pee (luckily the facilities were clean). Jason decided to sleep by the campfire but came stumbling back into the tent around 3 in the morning complaining that the "dingo's won't leave me alone". Sure enough, in the morning we found one of his shoes beside the fire and the resident dingo (who comes rummaging for food) carried the other one off. Luckily it wasn't so far off that we couldn't find it.

Brady Meets the Bishop

This is Brady and the Bishop of Darwin at a school mass. This was one of the photos in the school newsletter. She's a star! A pious one of course.

Relay

These are pics from the Relay for Life that I participated in. Our team won the highest community fundraiser award. We held a Mexican food fundraiser - we cooked lots of enchiladas and burritos! Yummy and profitable!

What? No Baskets?

Easter

It was a fine Easter at the Cavanagh house. A little odd since Australians don't seem to do baskets. Lots of chocolate eggs and bunnies, but no baskets. So I found these "egg hunting bags" at one of the stores and decided to use those. Of course Cole's tore midway through the day so when we actually hunted eggs, he used a grocery bag. So ghetto!

As if no baskets wasn't enough, they also decided to charge $10 for a 5 pack of plastic eggs (and I only found those after searching 3 stores). This wasn't because they had a run on plastic eggs - they just don't do plastic eggs. So I decided to use the chocolate ones (you know..."when in Australia..."). Note - it is still pretty hot on Easter here. So egg hunting had to be conducted with a speed like we've never experienced. And still we were thwarted by my attempt to find good hidey-holes in our small backyard. I didn't think through what would happen when I stuck them next to the A/C units - squishy eggs! Every year I hide money in our plastic eggs so this year I just wrote amounts on the outside of the foil. Since Grace was lucky enough to find the golden $2 egg, she was our big winner totaling over five dollars.

The top group of picks have the kids in jammies, right before bed, having an egg race. Not our normal attire for egg races but, oh well, had to squeeze it in before bed.

Easter Parade

These are pictures from Grace's Easter Parade at school. Too cute!