Australia 2023 (World Barefoot Waterski Tournament)

We woke up at 6 am Wednesday to begin our travel and landed in Sydney at 7 am Friday so we just stayed up and spent the day sightseeing in the city, ending up at an evening show at the famous Sydney Opera House.  The next day we went to Torango Zoo, Manley Beach, and a few other stops around the harbor by ferry, giving us a front row seat to see the city lights after sunset.

Sunday had us on the way to the tournament site over the mountains and through the woods.  We were on a kangaroo hunt.  We finally found them deep in the bush of the Blue Mountains when they became active a couple of hours before sunset.  By the time we had our fill (or when it was too dark to get good photos) we realized that we were a long way from a place to sleep, much less top off the gas tank!  Fortunately, we found the only hotel for miles just before they closed for the night and they had a room available and reopened the kitchen to make a pizza for us.

We arrived in Mulwala Monday evening and while Andrea participated in judges' clinics, I took a drive to "find the outback."  I made it to a town with the slogan, "the edge of the outback" but didn't have time to go too far in.

During the tournament, we got tons of tips and advice from the locals about how to spend our week after the tournament.  We settled on a drive along the Great Ocean Road which did not let us down.  We found more kangaroos, birds, and the bucket-list koalas!  Not only did we see wild roos and koalas, we were treated to somewhat rare shows by both.  We drove up to a mob of roos and while we were still sitting in the car, two of them started getting riled up so I grabbed my camera and started shooting.  Unfortunately, it was after sunset and my shutter speed was way too slow for a 500mm lens hand-held!  Still, the experience was cool.  The next day we found a forest area where we managed to spot a number of koalas up in the trees.  Since they sleep 20-22 hours a day, eat the leaves of the trees they sleep in, and don't drink water, it is pretty rare to see them move much less on the ground.  We saw one walking around in the branches eating leaves, but we also spotted one climbing down to move to a different tree!  Jackpot!

The coast along the way was stunning, and the water of the Southern Ocean was crazy bluish green.  We hiked a number of scenic areas along the way before arriving at Phillip Island to watch the penguin parade where we had a front-row seat to see several "rafts" of penguins  swim up to the beach and then skittishly form "waddles" to trudge across the low-tide sand to their nests where they were greeted by mates and young.  Over 1100 penguins returned to the nesting area that night, literally walking right past us!

After a stop in the capital city of Canberra we were back in Sydney for our flight home.  Thanks to all who gave us advise for our trip and to all of the super-friendly locals who made our trip AWESOME!