AUSTRALIA VII: A BROKEN CAMERA AND A HEADLESS LIZARD

My camera is broken. Max tore a huge lizard to pieces. Today is my last day in Cardiff. It sounds like I only have bad news for you today, but it is not as tragic as it seems to be. Every cloud has a silver lining, right?

One day mum wanted to take a picture of me, she switched on our camera… and the screen stayed black and after a few seconds it switched itself off again. We tried everything. Nothing helped. Then in a camera shop they told us it has to be sent to Portugal. Portugal! It will take ages to get it back. Mum decided to take time to think it over. She ordered us a new camera and started to pray for it arrives by the time we leave this place.

Tomorrow we are leaving Cardiff where we have spent almost a month. It was a few days ago when mum realized that time really flies, she went crazy and suddenly wanted to see everything! The start of our trip to Stockton Beach was not ideal: we jumped off the bus at 8.58 and despite the fact that I was running as fast as I could, we missed our ferry. By 10 seconds. By the time the next boat arrived we managed to climb up the wharf tower and get some nice views. On the ferry mum realized that there were no credit left on her transport car and that she had left her wallet at home. She was lucky she had me. No one lets the poor baby walk soooo faaar :-).

Our bus driver was a young American and mum talked to him all the way while I was sitting quietly watching the huge sign “Don´t speak to driver when bus is in motion”. The moment we got off and mum started walking, my eyes closed against my will and they didn´t open until we arrived to the beach. The Bowl, a small “lake” among huge sand dunes we never found. And the shipwreck mum wanted to see so much was almost entirely under water. High tide I guess. It didn´t worry me too much. There was heaps of sand to dig in and eat, which can always make me happy enough. That day we saved a lot of travel money.

The next day mum woke me up in the morning. Yes, she woke ME up! Normally it is me who wakes EVERYBODY up at 6 in the morning. But this time it was ten to five and she was getting dresses, she was dressing me and then we were off. We caught a train and then a bus and then we were 70 kilometres north of where we live, in Shoal Bay. There we climbed from 0 to 161 metres to the top of Mount Tomaree. Humpback whales are supposed to pass this place in winter but they that day they didn´t come. It´s a shame – I will turn one pretty soon and I haven´t seen any whale yet. Miserable life :-(.

There was almost no one on the beach so I took a dip in the sea. It was freezing! Walk along the shore took us to Nelson Bay where mum bought us fish & chips. Before I managed to explore around, she gobbled down all the chips and I only got to taste the fish. The chips looks sooo yummy :-(. Before we hoped on the bus back I wrote a postcard and played huge chess for a bit, then survived the long ride back and at 6.30 fell asleep before my head touched the pillow. It was my first Father´s Day and it was pretty busy.

It was supposed to be a relaxing day but then Max found a huge lizard somewhere, grabbed it and tossed it until he tore off its head, which flew five metres through the air and left the insides, at the start attached to it, half way through. It was cool, I wanted to go and check it straight away but I was not allowed. Mum shut me inside and started to google what to do in case something like that happens. She even sent an e-mail with pictures attached to our poor hosts, at the time exploring Europe, asking whether it was fine if we leave the creature where it was until Mark comes back on Friday. Of course it was not fine and she had to go out and clear it away before Max eats it and gets really sick. Eventually she did it. But she waited for the sun to go down so she didn´t have to look at it at all. Oh come on, mum. You should have let me do it!

Our new camera arrived yesterday. It has a charger for Japanese sockets. Our adaptor works with it. Phew. The manual is in Japanese. We never read manuals. Phew. The camera was in Japanese. It took us ages to find out how to change the language. We made it. Phew.

Mark is coming back tomorrow and we are leaving this place. For more days in Australia and we have many plans.

Your Annie