The Nist Walkabout: June 2009

Its not fair to try and compile April and May into one post, but with our trip home, work projects, Spring semester ending and summer beginning, and all of our various activities, I have just not had a chance to post! I know! I should be taken out back and shot! Anyway, here is a "running dairy" of April and May:

Clarice's triathlon: The Sunday before we were to leave on our visit back to the States, Clarice ran in a corporate triathlon with a team from her work. They had a 400m swim in Sydney Harbour in the shadow of the Opera House, a 8k bike ride and then a 4k run. B-e-a-u-t-i-f-u-l day for the event.

Funny story. Well, funny now. We stayed the night before in a hotel downtown because we had to have Clarice's bike checked in to the event by 6:30 AM. WE had a plesant Saturday evening in the city, work up ready to go, but in the shower I had the thought, "I wonder if we can get the bike out of the car from the underground parking garage?!?!" Nope. Garage was all locked up. We had to call the "emergency" number and pay $100 for someone to let us in to get the bike out. Thankfully we had woken up early so we still made it in time for Clarice to start with no problems. Just another example of Jon being an idiot.

Kind of a nice location, huh?

The Zimmer Team!

Can you find Clarice at the start of the swim?

1/2 way home!

The Big Finish!!!

Then we spent 2 weeks at home. Well, a couple of days were in Columbus visiting with my brother's family and my mom, but the rest was in Warsaw. Sorry if we did not get to see you while we were home! Those 2 weeks were crazy busy and neither of us got much sleep going to bed very late and getting up early to be in to work by 7:30AM most days.

The last weekend in April we went to Oceanworld in Manly. It is an historic site that has been an aquarium (and more) for almost 100 years. They have an excellent tunnel where you walk in a big circle with sharks, fish, rays and turtles swimming above you. Very much like the Shedd Aquarium in Chicago, but a bit smaller. We had a By One Get One coupon so it was a cheap date, too!

Jon and a blurry turtle

Clarice getting eaten!

They had a large area full of lizards, snakes and turtles as well

May was finals for my classes and Clarice was really busy with work so we did not do anything too exciting most weekends. We spent a nice day stolling the rocks on Avalon Beach and lunching on Palm Beach. May did bring us exciting news of the arrival of Ashley Landrum (the third baby born to former College Class students - that I am aware of), as well as the much anticipated arrival of another nephew - Ian Patrick Nist! Such a bummer that we were here in Aus and have not gotten a chance to meet the kiddies yet, but we will!

Last weekend was out 11th wedding anniversary. We were kindly given a voucher for discount rates at a resort north of here on Salamandar Bay - but they had to be used by the end of May. No problem, that's our anniversary! It rained in the evenings, but we were blessed with really good weather for exploring Saturday and Sunday.

Saturday we got up early and drove to various places to go hiking to lookouts over the bay. Very pretty! We had a cuppa (hot chocolate for us non-coffee people) at the Coast Guard Station on Nelson Bay, hiked to see WWII gun emplacements, watched fishermen cleaning their fish, and then played 9 holes of golf at Nelson Bay Golf Club. Well, we only got in 7.5 holes due to darkness (at 5:00!!!) but we were not playing as fast as we normally do. We played the first and were walking to the second tee when I said to Clarice, "Look! Deer! (pause) Wait, they don't have deer here... those are kangaroos!!!" Standing near the tee and up on another tee box were 6-7 red kangaroos. Some big older blokes, a few I took to be mommas, and a couple of younger joeys - one of which was still nursing from momma. Too bad we did not have the camera! After we played the second and were coming back on the third there were more! About 25-30 in all! Every time we hit a ball anywhere near them we were cautious to go and play it so as not to worry the bigger males. They pretty much ignored us, but the pleasure of watching the kangaroos made us take our time playing resulting in not having enough light to finish. And we were both playing pretty well, too!

The Port Stephens Headlands

Nelsons Bay

At Boulder Bay

The Pelicans waiting for their share of the catch

Sunday had us up early for a 4-Wheeler Sand Dune Adventure along Stockton Bight - one of the longest dunes (36k) and the fastest moving sand dune system in the world. Movies are often filmed out there to mimic a desert including Mad Max and some of the Star Wars movies! Being the off season (its winter here now) there was only one other couple with us, so the four of us got to do a lot of extra stuff and had personal attention from our two guides. They drove us 20k down the beach, set up an area for us to practice riding the 4-wheelers (little 90's so nothing that we couldn't handle easily anyway) and then took us on an expedition down to the wreck of a ship that has been stuck on the beach for 30 years. We had a great time and would totally do it again - hopefully with bigger bikes!!