Questacon

Sunday, July 21, 2013

Sydney can see the light!

Dagan & Kristin in a kaliedescope

Look we are all taller than Adam!

Dagan loves things like this.

This morning we headed to Questacon.  It is the National Science and Technology Centre.  Dagan's class would be coming here in Term 3, so he wanted to see what it was like since he won't be in Australia for Term 3.  It was a really fun museum with lots of hands on exhibits.  The kids explored the different stations.  The different areas were called galleries.  They had a gallery on the ocean and the creatures found in the deep.  There was a gallery about the weather.  We went into an earthquake house.  It shook a lot.  I'll pass on experiencing one for real.  There was another gallery called Wonderworks.  We had to solve puzzles and figure out how things worked.  Another was on water.  Dagan worked hard to suck the water all the way up the tube that was about two stories high.  Our favorite gallery was called excite.  We played four way air hockey, and Dagan tried beating a robot in air hockey.  He said it was really difficult.

Adam & Dagan were rolling the balls
to see what would happen.

The scarves lit up when going
through the tubes.

Dagan is hanging.

Dagan let go and slid
down the ramp.

Dagan's favorite part of was the free fall.  He put on a special suit, walked to the top, hung on the bar, let go, and then slid to the bottom.  He went 4 times.  Sydney tried it two times.

Sydney is getting started.

It is a little blurry, but you can
see how high Sydney getting.

I am getting ready to go.

Then she went to the swing.  She had to put another special suit with a harness.  After being attached to the swing, it was up to her to try to get it to go up and over in 360 degree motion.  She was really close.  As I watched her, I thought it looked like fun, so I decided to try it.  Sydney told me she was really tired when she got off the swing.  Little did I know.  It really reminded me of being a kid when we stood on the swing and tried to get it to go as high as we could.  After I was strapped in, I got it going pretty quickly.  I actually got it to go all the way over 2 times.  It was a ton of work.  I ran out of steam and couldn't get over a third time.  When I got off the swing, my thighs were really burning, but it was really fun!

Adam got the perfect picture of me upside down.
I stopped a little on the top which was a
strange feeling.

We met up with Bob, Vero, & Madeline for lunch at the old Parliament Building before heading back to Wollongong.  It was great spending our last weekend in Australia with Bob, Vero, Madeline, & Peter.

Dagan's Birthday

Saturday, July 20, 2103

Happy Birthday Dagan!

Dagan got an "not birthday" cupcake.

Madeline & Sydney

We arrived at Bob and Vero's last night.  We had dinner, Madeline's cupcakes, and played some sheepshead.

Piece of the moon

Peter & Dagan working at a station.

Sydney wearing a space suit

Sydney & Madeline with a radio dish
in the background.

Today, we got up, had breakfast, skyped with our Wisconsin cousins and Grandma Pat.  Then we headed out to the Space Centre.  It was really interesting.  It is one of three in the whole world.  It is managed in Australia on NASA's behalf.  They study deep space.  They had models of the Mars Exploration Rover on display, a piece of the moon, tons of interesting information, lots of interactive stations, and huge radio dishes.

Dagan at our picnic.

Climbing rocks on our
bush walk.

Dagan, Peter, Madeline & Sydney

Off to find the platypus

Afterwards, we headed to the visitor centre at Tidbinbilla.  We looked at the exhibits before having our picnic lunch outside under the canopy because it was raining.  We saw kangaroos and emu walk by as we were eating.  It is still fascinating to see them.  We decided to try to go on a short walk since it had stopped raining.  As we drove out to the Sanctuary, we drove by at least 100 kangaroos.  They were right next to the road.  We were afraid they would hop out in front of us, but thankfully, they didn't.  On our walk, the ranger said we might be able to see a couple of platypus.  We walked down to the series of ponds.  It started raining as we reached the pond where the platypus had been seen.  We waited patiently and ended up seeing two.  It was really neat.  We walked back to the car in the rain and headed home to warm up.

Madeline, Adam, & Sydney watching
the platypus

Vero, Peter, Dagan, &
Bob watching the
platypus.

The platypus is in the center.

Happy Birthday Dagan!

Bob and Vero made a wonderful lamb dinner with chips (french fries), tomatoes, and fennel for dinner, and Madeline made him a chocolate birthday cake.  Dagan was very excited.  He has decided that lamb is one of his favorite meals in Australia, and you can never go wrong with chocolate cake.  He opened his crazy hat from us, and got a Rin Tin Tin book from Bob, Vero, Madeline, and Peter.  He said he is going to read it on our way home on the plane.  We played some Sheepshead again after dinner before heading to bed.  It was a great way for Dagan to spend his birthday.  He said it was nice to be with family.

Dagan's hat and new book

The girls are braiding Dagan's new hat.

Dale & Gabbie's last day

Tuesday, July 16, 2013

Dale crossing the water.

The four of us by the waterfall.

Dagan playing in the sand.

Sydney searching for
a good shell.

A family photo

A different view of the water
we crossed.

Kristin & Adam

Today was Dale & Gabbie's last full day in Australia.  We decided to go to the Royal National Park and followed the Grand Pacific Drive south to Wollongong.  Our first stop was the boatshed.  We had a snack and watched the cockatoos steal food off the picnic tables.  Then we went to one of our favorite beaches called Wattamolla.  No one was there, and the weather was sunny and warm.  The cliff where people were jumping in January was now a waterfall.  We followed the path down to the water.  There was so much water that it covered the sand bar, so we had to wade through a shallow part to get from the rocks to the sand.  It was amazing how quick the current was in this small area of water.  It pulled on all of our legs.  We wandered back to the waterfall.  We could see fish in the water.  We think they were trout.  The cormorants were trying to caught them which made the fish jump out of the water.  It was fun to watch.  After looking at the waterfall, we went to the ocean.  Sydney searched for shells, and Dagan dug a hole in the sand.  It was a nice place to sit and enjoy our surroundings.  We waded back through the channel of water and headed to a few lookouts before stopping at the Scarborough Hotel for a drink.  It was a great last day with Dale & Gabbie.

Dale & Gabbie at Bald Hill.

The train to Sydney is in the
background.

Jenolan Caves

Friday, July 12, 2013

The funny sign

The hotel in the middle
of the mountain.

The road went through
this part of the cave.

The five of us in the first chamber.

The ladder shows on tall
cave was.

The stairs used on
the early tours.

Some of the formations

This shows on steep the
stairs were.

After spending the night in Blackheath, we headed towards Jenolan Caves.  It was a beautiful drive.  We went down into the valley, and then back into the mountains.  At one point, we saw a logged field. The sign in front of it stated it was a state forest and the forest was in good hands.  It was funny.  The last part of the drive was interesting.  The road was really narrow, next to the side of the mountain, and very curvy.  Gabbie could look over the edge on the way down.  I realized how steep it was when I was next to the edge on the way back up.  There was no room for error. When we were closer to the bottom, we came to the cave.  You drove through it to get to the parking lot.  On the other side of the cave, all six of us went "Ohh" because there was a hotel and restaurant.  It looked like a little village.  It was strange to see.  We signed up for the Lucas tour.  There were over a dozen tours to choose from.  The Lucas is the biggest and on of the guides thought it would provide us with the best overall cave tour.  It was really interesting.  We climbed up a lot of stairs to get into the cave.  Then went up and down a few more to get into the cave.  The cave was huge and had lots of formations.  The crystals sparkled.  In one chamber in the cave, they hold concerts and weddings.  She played part of a Metallica song which totally made Adam's day.  The acoustics were great.  We learned that the caves are over 350 million years old and the rocks in the them are over 400 million years old.  These are some of the oldest caves in the world.  She also told us stories of people adventuring into the cave in the early 1900's in their Sunday best.  It was a three day trip round trip.  They had to climb on rock steps, use candles for light, and slide down rock walls on a potato sack where if the guide didn't catch you, you would smash into full stop rock at the end of the slide.  Crazy!  Adam and I both said we had never been in a cave like this one before.  We were really glad we came here.

Dagan thought this looked
like a rhino.

More formations

The formations were
beautiful above them.

Another view of the stairs.

A view of Nettle Cave.

Sydney & Dagan
heading up the
stairs to the top.

Adam & Kristin with
a view of the cave
in the background.

 Once our tour was finished, we wandered through Nettle Cave and Devil's Coach House.  The Nettle Cave was huge.    It really was amazing to see.  The Devil's Coach House had stairs that wound to the top of the cave.  It provided beautiful views.  We were all ready to get back in the car after visiting the caves.  We had gone up and down over 900 steps.  On our way back to Wollongong, we stopped at Govetts Leap and Harry de Wheels hotdog stand.  It was a fun couple of days.

Climbing the stairs
to the Devil's Coach
House.

Adam & Dale

View from Govetts Leap