Travel Photos — Australia

I really haven't had time to scan photos but have been wanting to put these two up here for ages, even though they don't tell much about the country. Just becaues they are fun.

Background on this photo:
I spent Christmas in Tasmainia at a hostel that was a working farm. One day I was down by the water collecting muscles for several fabulous meals. The next day the whole bunch of us who were staying at the hostel played Cricket. I didn't find it terribly exciting, but when our turn in the field was over, I enjoyed a sprint off the field. For a moment, that is. Until my toes landed in a gopher hole. Gotta say though, even that was good for some laughs.

So this is a photo of me after a fellow traveller wrapped my ankel and we wrapped my toes in ice. Meanwhile, the others cooked up the rest of muscles and we all feasted again. (Wow, I got that shirt in Nepal. Nice to see it again.)

This was a great place to stay. I learned how to milk cows, tasted fresh milk for the first time, and fell in love with fresh cream. (Haven't had cream like that since then, but remember it well.)
Oh, a fellow traveller was kind enough to carry my backpack on to another town so I could make my way there without the weight on my foot.

Much later, I travelled up the Gold Coast and, from Cairnes, took an actual sort-of touristy trip up to Cape Tribulation.

Deborah Shadovitz shucking a coconut in Australia There, I left the hotel-hut one morning with a couple of other gals and we hiked over the mangroves to the beach.

I love coconuts and there were several freshly fallen (or falling) on the beach.

We had not tools with us to open one, but I improvised with whatever we found.

Then I used a lesson I'd learned by watching a cobbler in India. He'd held a shoe between his feet. I held the coconut with mine. It took a while, but the reward was sweet.

More of the day's story: As we walked the beach we crossed a bit of a stream from the ocean into the mangroves. It wasn't terribly wide but we wondered about crocodiles. Seening no warning signs, we crossed and went on with out hike. There was a sign though — on the other side. Lovely, we thought. No other route back. This was before cell phones. Smoke signals were out of the question. So, with some trepidation, we crossed back.

All photos on this page are © Deborah Shadovitz 1987.
They may not be used without written permission.
This page was last updated at 9:38 PM on Tuesday, February 17, 2009