More Alligators

A nice day today with no camera destructing incidents or parking fines (which we got yesterday). We went up to a nature preserve called the corkscrew swamp which entailed a 3.5km long boardwalk through various everglades habitats. It was really well done and stacks of wildlife. Alligators are obviously South Floridas equivalent to Gunnedahs Koalas. Now we know what to look for you can spot them in the water on the side of the road just about everywhere you drive.
Had a walk through another part of Naples from yesterday where there is a collection of high end shops and art galleries. This walk was mostly for mine and Allys benefit as I have discovered that Ally is a fellow car lover. This was car spotting paradise with Ferraris, Porche, Bently, Rolls Royce and just about anything else you could think of. Tammy and Rhiannon were non plussed.
Naples is the self described golf capital of America and once you get away from the beach it seems to consist of one after another huge golf resorts with competing grand entrances. We had fun driving around deciding which was the most ridiculously opulent entrance and decided that the 20m long sculpture of six horses running down though a cascading waterfall took the cake. I used to think that the entrances to some of the resorts on the Gold Coast where a bit wanky but they pale in comparison to the monstrosities over here.
A beautiful dinner tonight back in Everglades City in a cafe on the waters edge. We ate fried alligator and shrimp and drunk beer while the sun set over the water and Rhiannon spent about an hour telling us how she would cope being locked in a steel box with a guinea pig versus an alligator and how in that situation she would still not eat the guinea pig although she would eat the alligator. Fantastic.

Can't get the hang of the post layout

Sorry about the way the photos are laid out below. When you put the post together it looks completely different to how it ends up on the screen. I'll get the hang of it eventually.

Everglades City

Almost over the jet lag now although still finding it a little bit hard to adjust because of the odd day length. The temperature is quite hot (hotter than home before we left) however because it is the middle of winter it’s not light until about 7.00am and is dark by 6. By 7.30 it feels like about midnight.

Thursday, we went down to Key Largo which was a bit of a disappointment. We all really like South Beach which has a definite individual charm and not a used car lot or fast food joint in sight. The trip down to the keys and key largo itself however was very much back to anywhere USA, an endless succession of strip malls and car yards.
We went out on Ocean Ave in South Beach that night which is the main drag along the beach and stacked with restaurants and clothes shops selling $700 jeans. Ally and Rhiannon got Henna tattoos and we wandered along soaking up or rather being bowled over by the ambience. Humvees blasting hip hop followed by convertibles with pulsating latin beats followed by roaring choppers seemed to be the order of things. I heard more languages being spoken than anywhere I have been before and not a hint of danger. Really a pretty cool place.

Friday, we drove the couple of hours over to Everglades city which is on the south west tip of Florida. We spent the day on a guided Kayak trip down through the everglades. The trip started off between stands of cypress, moved into tight mangrove tunnels and finished off in sawgrass. We paddled for about four hours and it was a great experience.

The wildlife was fantastic with innumerable bird species as well as lots of Alligators. I was paddling with Rhiannon who wasn’t altogether sure about the whole alligator thing but in the end was won over by the cute babies sitting on their mothers back. They really were pretty cute. In the pictue on the left Rhiannon is looking over at the Alligator in the photo below.

The only downside to the day was when Rhiannons new digital camera she got for Christmas got run over in the parking lot by some guy from Canada.

Today we drove up the road to Naples which is a nice little city on the Gulf of Mexico. It was a complete change to Miami which Rhiannon picked up on straight away when she observed that "its not as multicultural here is it". Naples is Noosa on Steroids. Very wealthy very white but also very pretty with a beautiful beach covered in shells and a planning regulation that limits any buildings from being taller than the palm trees. Its a big centre for art galleries and today they happened to have a huge art fair on with the main street shut down and about 500m of stalls all of which were selling really good art, sculpture and jewellery. As nice as it was it still felt a bit odd to have such a huge art market with no hippies. There was definately an element of an enforced "safeness" to it all.

We had a great time on the beach in the afternoon and watched the sun set over the gulf which was a bit of a novelty.

Miami Beach

I don't know if 33 hours travelling time can ever be called painless but I think we got lucky with our trip and apart from general tiredness we really have nothing to complain about in terms of turbulance, passengers from hell, lost luggage etc. Scamming our way into the American airlines lounge at Tokyo helped a lot with the 7 hours spent there and Dallas has a nice big new terminal which was O.K to hang out in.

Our B&B in Miami is really nice and last night we all slept a long long time. After Ally was informed this morning that she had slept for 13hrs she replied in disbelief "wow that's a record".

Today we spent the morning walking around South Beach, famous for its Art Deco Hotels and buildings before an afternoon on the beach. The temperature, air and water, is warmer than we expected and it is no wonder that half of the European and Northern American States population seems to be here.

South Beach is a really interesting mix of the ultra fashionable, mega rich, old time Floridian, holidaying european/latin american and the odd Australian family. It is great people watching territory and for Rhiannon, superb pet watching. South Beach is the home of the pampered pooch and last night while we were having dinner it was an endless parade of beutifull people with their beutiful pets. Rhiannon took this picture of one example today. The bling on this dog was quite mild compared with many that we saw. You can't really see it in the photo but the dog had diamonte encrusted collar, hairclips and tail bow.

Here we go!

Well I can only hope that all our airport experiences are as painless as the first one. Sydney airport is not surprisingly fairly quiet at 9pm on Christmas eve and there are no quese anywhere. We've had our first stupid carry on baggage episode though (stupid on our part) as the girls had wanted to bring their hand held UHF radios. We thought it wasn't a bad idea but without thinking put them in our carry on. The customs check seemed to think they were O.K because there were no batteries in them yet but we are suspecting that they will be confiscated when we hit the States. Boarding in about half an hour.

Holiday Haircuts

After months of pestering Tammy decided that 2 months without having to do "gym hair" was the ideal oppurtunity for the girls to get their wishes for shorter haircuts. At 8.45 am Helen lined up with about 20 people waiting for the Just Cuts at Miranda Fair to open at 9 so the girls could join in with everybody else getting their Christmas do's. We have a Christmas eve dinner tomorrow and then head to the airport for wheels up at 10pm.

Ready to Go

Well after a couple of days of frantic activity we are all packed and ready to head off to Sydney in the morning. I almost managed to get our holiday cancelled this morning by suggesting that I could just do a quick couple of hours on the boomspray before it rained but sanity prevailed and we spent the day tidying up the house and printing out e-tickets etc which always takes you longer than you think. William and Stina were very kind to us and provided Pizza's for dinner as the campaign to run down the food supplies has been overly successful. We are attempting to travel with three bags between the four of us and have been surprised so far that we seem to have a reasonable amount of room. Everyone has been telling us how cheap stuff is in South America so we are planning on stocking up there.

Ally and Rhiannon have both had fevers in the last few days so between our recent bouts of sickness and all our vaccinations (cost almost as much as the plane tickets!) we figure that there is nothing left for us to possibly get sick with while we are away. Heres hoping.

Trip Preparation

It's Sunday 16th December. In 5 days we leave Pine Cliff at the start of a two month overseas trip to 5 countries. I have not begun to pack. We still have vaccinations to get and lots of things to organise. Instead of doing any of these I am instead setting up this blog. I am the king of procrastination!

This trip has evolved over the last six months or so to now include America, Ecuador, Peru, Chile, back to America and then Japan to finish off. The trip started around an idea that it would be great to go and visit our friends Barb and John and their kids who are Canadians currently living in Chile (more explanation later). From that initial thought we moved on to "well we should really see a bit more of South America if we are going to go that far" then on to "how can we get there cheaply". As a result we now find ourselves getting to South America via Japan and America (very long way round) and leaving at 10pm on Christmas Eve. Needless to say the girls are not impressed with the idea of having Christmas on a plane but are somewhat reconciled with the idea that we will actually have Christmas day twice.

We will be experiencing South America at the height of Summer, North America in the grip of winter and skiing in Japan. Part of the reason we have not begun to pack is because it is going to be a nightmare. The fact that harvest only just finished two days ago, school/sport/music is as frantic as ever, Tammy had to have a wisdom tooth out last week and I got sick from my yellow fever vaccination has also added to our general state of unpreparedness.

Anyway here's hoping this blog is reasonably interesting and we manage to keep it up to date!