Hi Gram,
Today was another great day. I woke up early in our little fisherman’s cabin, did my morning routine then headed out for a walk. I enjoyed the crisp cool air as the sun was just coming over the horizon, waving like a silly tourist at the passing cars and people out walking to school or work. I never did find where people might be fishing, but had a nice stroll along what felt like a country road. I passed a school at one point, after which the sidewalk ended. It seems that the sidewalk was there so the kids had a safe path to school, but anyone just walking into the new neighborhood was left to fend for themselves.

I had some tunes playing in my earbuds as I ventured into the new neighborhood, taking note of some of the unique architecture and building methods. Well, they may not be unique here, but I hadn’t seen them before in America, so maybe unique to me. I saw one house that was built on stilts, looking like someone had setup temporary scaffolding and built a house on it. I wondered if it was temporary, maybe they had dug it out and were pouring a new basement or something. There were indications that it had been that way for a while, though, and some kids exited the front door when I walked by, so I think that’s just how the house was built. I also saw a few signs, like the very polite yield sign and the house that was selling eggs that must have been from America..

Back at the cabin, the other guys were stirring when I got back. We each made up our breakfast while we watched some cheesy 90’s tv shows before packing up our things and getting back on the road. The scenery continued to impress as we chatted and went along. I’d been trying to change my ticket to Bali to leave from Melbourne instead of Sydney. David changed his ticket easily a few days ago, but the airline and Capital One Travel had been giving me the run-around. We both booked our tickets at the same time on the same flight using the same Capital One, but somehow his ticket was easy to change for a small fee while they initially told me that mine couldn’t be changed at all, then finally told me that changing it would cost twice the cost of the initial ticket. Exasperated, I finally just booked a whole new ticket and abandoned the original fare. I’d like to dismiss it as just another aspect of the travel life, but it really irritated me that David and I had the same starting point but different agents gave us very different experiences and results.

With the airline ticket booked, I checked that off the to-do list and got back to the chat with David and Rob, already in progress. They were just talking about stopping at a petting zoo, an idea which I was totally on board with. Rob dropped the two of us off while he went and ran an errand, giving us a few hours to see animals we’d only heard about.

Inside, we went first to the Koala zone, where David got a chance to pet a Koala as we learned some interesting factoids about what they eat and how they live their little koala lives. After that, we wandered around a bit, following the path past more koalas, some ducks, a few small bird enclosures, an open area with many more ducks and other wacky looking birds, until we came upon a kangaroo near the sidewalk willing to be fed and petted.

We met some other tourists from America, all taking turns petting and feeding the kangaroo. Further along the path, we fed some more of the ducks and other birds, almost luring one of the other mammals over before it got scared and skittered away. Once we ran out of food for the animals, we finished the last little bit of the zoo and checked out the gift shop.

Happy with our time there, we messaged Rob who was just finishing his errands. He picked us up, then we all headed to a mall in town. David’s back has been hurting, so he stopped off at a massage shop in the mall while Rob and I wandered the stores. Rob got an air mattress and bedding for his long road trip back to Perth, I checked out a couple of shoe stores looking for some zero drop shoes, and we stopped off in the food court where I got some interesting Vietnamese spring rolls. Once he was done with his massage, David met up with us so we could all head to our friend Mel’s.

It’s not my proudest memory, but I panicked a little when we got to Mel’s place. She’s working on her house and hasn’t had internet or WiFi setup yet, and there was no cell service. With no internet connection, I felt isolated and got it in my head that I needed to go find a connection somewhere. Without Google maps, I just picked a direction and walked, looking for a coffee shop or something that might have a signal. I found a gas station a couple of kilometers away and downloaded a map of the area, then headed back to the house to see if David had plans. He had a call the next day and needed internet, so the two of us walked back to the gas station so he could see about buying a SIM card on a different carrier. That’s when we learned that the main carrier was just suffering an outage, and internet was expected to be back up by morning. We got some candy, thanked the gas station attendant for his help, then walked back to the house. We hung out with Mel for a bit until the hour got late and I finally went to bed.