My post is about skipping stones, well, not all of it, but some of it. If you try to skip a stone the wrong way, it rolls, which would turn it into a Rolling Stone. Oh, sorry, I didn’t mean to get off topic. Anyway, today I learned how to skip a stone. ‘Where?’ one might ask, ‘When’ another might ask, and another might ask ‘How?’ I will be answering all of those questions, but you have to sit through the whole thing. This is the way of it:

We had gone to the Waterberg National Park, which is a large plateau that is taller than everything around it for a long ways so you can see for miles. We had done that and were back at the guest farm after Eryn and I swam when I finally found the oldest of the three sons of Nadia, the owner’s daughter (or daughter in law.) I found him on the back of a truck with a knife in one hand and a stick in the other. He was whittling and trying to hollow out the center of the stick, and that wasn’t working. Just then, Mark, Nadia’s husband, drove up in his truck and asked us if we wanted to go with him to clean the road grater. We all said yes and climbed into the back of his truck and we drove to the house by the lake and started power washing the grater. We did that for a while and then got invited inside for some Coke and chips. Marsel (the oldest boy) and I took our cokes and went down to the lake. There, he taught me how to skip stones on water. The most that I could ever do was one skip, but he could do four or five. When we came back, we finished our cokes and got back into the truck for the ride back to the farm. When we got back, it was 7:00 PM.

In Namibia, there is a lot of dirt. It’s in the desert, so that’s understandable. Most of the roads are dirt, too. In our past travels here, we have been on the paved roads, and that allowed us to go quickly. Today, however, we drove on dirt.

I’m not sure if I wanted it, or even if I didn’t want it, but it still happened. We drove around on dirt roads for two hours this evening. It was a beautiful day, the sky was blue, the sun was bright, and the clouds were few. All of those things made it a good day. We had been waiting at the front building when Alex drove up in his white truck. He told us to get in the bed of the truck and to stand up so we could see all the animals. At first, we saw none, and even though we looked in every direction, we could not see a single animal. We saw lots of signs that animals had been there, like the bark scratched off the bottom of an acacia tree by a porcupine and several large warthog holes. But it was not to stay that way. The first animals that we say were some klipspringers, which are about the size of a jackrabbit. Then, after driving some more, we saw some hartebeest. Several minutes later, we saw some gemsbok, stopped, took some pictures, and when it left, moved on. Later we saw a rabbit.

Aside from birds, those were the only wildlife that we saw on our drive, though we drove around a lot more. When we got back, we had dinner and went back to our cabins to go to bed.

Weavers Rock is a guest farm in northern Namibia. We are staying here for four nights, and we have already spent one. But since the last time I wrote was in Botswana, I’ll try to catch you up to where we are now.

Yesterday we started out early and went to the Botswana/Namibia Border to get across. We got across and passed through several small towns before arriving in Windhoek, the capitol. In Windhoek, we got sim chips for the phones before heading off again, this time north. After two hours of driving, we arrived at Weavers Rock Guest Farm, and got greeted by Alex, the owner, and his medium sized dog Bonzo. We ate dinner by the pool and when I went to feel the water, I got startled by the light brown giant-of-a-dog, Tasso. He started growling, but after more time, I have come to think that it was snoring. During the rest of dinner, three dogs ran past, two of them stopping. The three dogs were Bonzo, Lille, and Nala. Nala and Lille stopped, and let us pet them. Then we went to our cabins and proceeded to go to bed.

The next day, when we woke up, we had showers and then went outside for breakfast. After that, we went back down towards the pool, and saw the four dogs on the way; Bonzo, Lille, Tasso, and Nala. I played around with them and then found a puppy named Choc, as in chocolate, who is the son of Tasso and a very cute puppy. I played around with those until I found a six year old boy named Dominic. We played around for a while, in the pool and otherwise, before I got forced to go to the water hole. We went, and when we got back, I jumped in the pool a couple of times before giving that up and going in.

Though we aren’t English and don’t drink tea regularly, and weren’t in the company of a president, we nevertheless had a presidential tea time. How we had that, is something that is better told with a back-ground.

On our second full day in Gaborone, we decided to go to the Cresta President Hotel (mentioned in the Number One Ladies Detective Agency) for tea after seeing the sign yesterday that said, on the balcony, Mma Ramotswe Tea Corner. That had caught our eye and we had decided to go. Around three o’clock pm, we left our hotel and started the three minute journey by car the the Cresta President Hotel. Once there, we went upstairs to the resturaunt and got some rooibos (red bush) tea and some chocolate cake to eat and drink. We did that and gazed down at the empty mall below, where, yesterday, there was a formidable array of shops and stalls. But then again, that’s what happens on a Sunday afternoon.

Gaborone isn’t a big city, about 250,000 residents. But still it seems to be a pretty big city. Today we have seen a lot of it, but not all. To tell where we went, I will tell you what we did.

We woke up late this morning and finished breakfast at around 11 o’clock. By noon, we were gone on a drive towards the President Hotel to look around and see the mall behind it. The mall was a large one on a street between other shops. There were lots of wooden products that were carvings and other things like that that were for sale by street vendors. There were even people selling CDs, and to make people notice, they blasted the music out of speakers, and since there were a couple of those, it created a large and uncomely din. Once finished, we went to Zebra Way and looked around, seeing as though that was the closest thing to Zebra Drive, which has a role in the series The Number One Ladies Detective Agency. We did that and then went to Kgali Hill, a hill at the edge of town. After chasing baboons with the car, we looked, but couldn’t find a way to get up the hill, and in the end just gave up and went back to town. In town again, we went to the President’s Office and looked at it, before going back to our hotel. We sat around there and then went to an Indian restaurant called Embassy for supper before going back to our hotel room to go to bed.

The waiting game is a long one. Sometimes people never show up and others keep waiting the rest of their lives, and others people are just gone a really long time. Today I had two examples of the waiting game happen to me; one was at the border crossing between South Africa and Botswana and the other one was waiting for the rental car in the Johannesburg International Airport.

How we got to that airport is probably a mystery for you. Because of that, I will tell the story. Last night we went to the airport in Perth. We waited in the lounge and then boarded a plane towards South Africa. 12 hours later, we were in South Africa. We got some mochas, some sim chips, and then headed toward the Budget Rental Car office on the other side of the airport. They had a car for us, but then decide to give us a taller car. With that upgrade in mind, they worked on it for an hour and twenty minutes, and finally finished and let us get the car. We left.

We drove 5 hours to get to the South African/Botswana border. Once there, we sat around in line for a while on the ZA (South Africa) side before heading over to the Botswana side. The main wait was when we were trying to find money we didn’t have, but eventually just remembered that we had spent it. We changed the number and then drove to Gaborone, where we are now.

Unlike at all the other places that we have been to in Perth, Kings Park had free parking and was very big. We parked and got out at least five times, and all the way through, there was no fee. Anyway, we went to the park around noon. The car entered the park and we went down the road until we reached a playground, where Eryn and I ran off and played. The playground wasn’t like any that I have been to before. It was wooden platforms with ladders and poles off to either side and slides at each end. Not at all what I expected, but still okay. We then moved on and stopped at a lookout and a garden on our way up to another playground, which was a little bit less than we thought it would be. We parked and walked toward the playground. The main part which Eryn and I wanted to use was the Space Net, one of those pyramids made of rope that you could climb. We used that for a little while before we got bored and went off to find other ways to have fun. We found some ziplines (metal, of course) and used those one handed and backwards till we got bored with that and left. Before leaving the park, we did two other things, one of those was a DNA tower that you could climb (it wasn’t that interesting) and a playground, which had a plastic tire swing, and that was about it. Then we left.

It’s hard to believe: 60 hours from now, we will be in Gaborone, the capital of Botswana.

I can’t wait.

Today we went to SciTech. SciTech is a science museum much like the OMSI in Oregon. There were lots of exhibits, from trivia machines to simulated helicopter flying, they had a lot.  When we first entered, Eryn and I went to the trivia machine. It asked questions like ‘what is the largest organ in the body?’ the answer ‘skin’. Then we moved deeper into the area. There was a ball exhibit where you pumped a crank to get a ball to go on a roller coaster-type ride, and there was one where you peddled as fast as you could to see how high you could get a ball. Moving on, there was a simulated helicopter ride, two racing rides, and a soccer (or should I say football??) kick. In one of the racing games, you peddled as fast as you could to move your little icon around the fake track and get to the finish line faster than the other person. In the second racing game, it was like one in an arcade, pedals, steering wheel, and computerized races. On the helicopter ride, you controlled the helicopter around a Google Earth simulated projection with animated cars, trying to do something. Those were probably the most fun of the exhibits, but there were lots of others that probably would have been more fun if we were younger.

We are in Perth. Perth is a big city; not as big as, say, Bangkok, but a whole lot bigger than Eugene. We are now staying in an apartment in Perth and have most of our stuff laid across our rooms. The reason: someone lost two cords, one for the GPS and one for the MP3 player. We unpacked everything, but after all of that, there were no cords to be found. On the bright side, we were able to re-fold everything in our suitcases.

We drove to Perth from Jurien Bay today. It wasn’t too long of a drive, but still, it took a while. When we started to see buildings again, we drove for another 30+ kilometers before turning on a tiny street that only has a street sign on the right side of the road. We went to Coles, afterwards, and bought some food for dinner before eating dinner and arriving where we are now.

Today I will write about animals. There are a lot of animals here, from alpacas to chickens to rabbits. When talking with the owners, Anne and Dennis, we have figured out most of the following about  the domestic animals:

1. Rabbits: There are two rabbits, one is white with brown, and the other is white with black. The black one is named Peter and the brown one is named Mr. Splotch or something like that. In day they can be seen wandering around in their small oval enclosure; either in their bucket or eating grass from the ground. At night they can be found in their pen that looks like it was supposed to be a chicken coop, but it accommodates them anyway. Peter is fairly small and active around his enclosure and has laid back ears (my father commented that everything about them was laid back). Mr. Splotch, however, sits around in one spot with ears off to either side and around his fat head. He is very fat. They both like to be picked up, but only if they feel secure will they not scratch you.
2. Dogs: There are also two dogs, named Millie and Sandy. Millie is an old gray dog (about 12 years old) and sits inside on her pillow most of the day. She isn’t very active most of the time, but when it is very sunny and warm, she will sit out in the grass and lie there until it gets to warm and then go sit on the concrete until she gets to cold and then goes back out to the grass to get warm again. Her fur is light gray and a bit curly in spots and she growls at people if she doesn’t know them. Her tail is very short and doesn’t wag much, if at all. Sandy, on the other hand, is completely different. She is an active 3-year-old dog about Border Collie color and size but is a sheep dog by birth. She has a long attention span and can sit all day in front of the rabbit enclosure watching them move about. I had fun with that early in the day when my sister and father were playing with Peter the rabbit and he was watching them, I stood in front of her face and when she moved her head, I would lean over that way and vice versa. Sandy goes all around the property and is an outside dog, and enjoys that. She is very nice and her long tail thumps hard against your legs when you pet her.
3. Chucks (chickens, pronounced chooks): There are about a dozen chickens in a pen down the road from the homestead. When I went down this morning, there were eight eggs in the nest. The chickens are very active and are great fox bait. Not that Anne and Dennis want them to be. They are all different colors and they are pretty big.
4. Sheep: There are two sheep that hang around with the cattle. Dennis got them for Anne a while back because she likes animals.
5. Alpacas: There are two furry alpacas that follow the sheep and cattle around; they were also from Dennis to Anne a while back. As you can see from this list, she likes animals.
6. Cattle: The station now has about 900 head of cattle on their 7000 acres of land, they used to have more, but they sold them and now predict that it will probably get smaller.

Deceased: Anne said that she used to have geese and turkeys, but they all got eaten by foxes and she doesn’t want to give more food to the foxes, which are considered

The parent’s room is called Lesueur, there is a park named Lesueur, and even a mountain in the park. Everything is called Lesueur after a topographical painter and the the natural history artist on the expedition on the French vessel the Naturaliste. The people on the boat (Frenchmen) decided to name the two prominent hills that they could see from the coast Mt Lesueur and Mt Peron.

Yes, skeletons, on a beach. Some are old, and some are new, but they all have one thing in common, they are dead. Today when we were walking along the beach, we saw bones, and lots of them. Here is how it was (or how I would like to tell it):

After a long day of sitting and playing on the beach, Eryn and I, along with our parents, went back to the station homestead and went to our cabin. Now it came to pass that every night, we have gone out on the beach to walk along the dunes and on the beach. Tonight we did that, but we saw some very different things. At first the walk was like all the other ones, walk down the hill, go through the gate, go down the road, and then climb up the dune. Every other time, we had gone to the right or straight to the beach, but today we went down and to the left. I immediately left them and went and hid in the bushes, moving even with them but staying out of sight. On my side, I saw several deposits of bones but thought nothing about them. Eventually, I ran down the side of the dune and enlisted Eryn as a partner in the business of staying out of sight, and we both crept back out of sight. We did this for some time before the parents turned around while we were resting and startled us. We ran to the first bone deposit that we found and made a skull and cross bones with a skull and crossed bones. We ran some more and when we got to the next one, I took two jawbones and laid them on the beach on a rock, trying to be sure that the parents would see them. Eryn and I had agreed that she would lay another skull and crossbones on the beach at the first deposit of bones that I had found, but when we got there, the bones looked fresh and grisly and Eryn didn’t want to touch them. When we got to the top of the dune, my father ran up behind Eryn and gave her a start before we all got back to the big dune and made way for home.

Today the E&E Exploration Team (EEET for short) built a Lump. At the beginning, when I was building by myself, I just made it a round wall to protect a little hole in the middle against the incoming tide. When Eryn came and started helping, I came up with the idea of filling it in and making a tall tower. Eryn thought that that was stupid, but agreed to do it to humor me. We got it about two feet high and Eryn but a piece of coral on top, but in the onslaught of incoming waves, it fell, along with half of the Lump. Not the lump, thEE Lump. The Lump turned out to be a flop, literally, and most of it fell to the sea, but not before Eryn and I spent a lot of time and energy trying to fix it.

Today we went to the beach. It was called the Gnaraloo Bay and it had warm water. When we first arrived, I saw a whale breaching but no one else believed me. Eryn and I immediately went to the water and dug holes. Well, it was more like I dug a hole and Eryn waded in the water and complained about how cold it was. I dug a small hole and built a small wall around it and then dug a moat complete with its own wall. Eventually, I gave up on the middle part and just focused on another hole in the moat that needed a wall around it. Eryn showed up about then and found herself a hole adjacent to mine and did the same thing. She built a big corner and a tiny wall that kept getting washed out by the incoming tide. After watching mine flood a couple dozen times, I aided Eryn on hers and built up a decent wall. We got bored with that and walked away. 20 minutes later, when we came back, the only part that looked the same was Eryn’s original corner. After bearing Eryn bragging about that, I built a wall that went all the way around the center and dug out the middle. Then we left in the car for Gnaraloo Station.

Gnaraloo, a place of comfort, sheep, and sand. Everywhere you look, there are sheep or there is lots of sand. In the distance, there is the glittering ocean with waves that have sea snakes and poisonous octopi in them, and knowing that there are so many poisonous things around. There are bones everywhere and you can only wonder what brought upon such a death.

Being on in a seaside town has its advantages and disadvantages, and pelicans are in one of the categories, but I don’t know which?

Today we had pelicans involved in our activities, mainly, Pelican Point. Pelican Point is a point out on an island in Shark Bay, west Australia. We could have driven out to the point, but since the car has such low clearance, we probably would have gotten stuck. On the point, there are lots of pelicans and they seem to be okay with humans around them, but I guess that that is from so many people being in the beach and feeding them. On the beach, we walked for awhile before heading back to the car and driving away into the sunset.

Okay, maybe it wasn’t the sunset, but there sure was sun involved.

Animals, animals, so many animals that my father says that I have missed. From emus to lizards he says that I have been oblivious. I haven’t, cause I’m always on the wrong side of the car to see them. The only animals that I have seen are a crow, a goat, three sheep, and an emu. However, this nine hour drive hasn’t been off a waste, for we have gone a long ways up the coast and are still heading for Carnarvan.

Today was a day that had big rocks involved. Mainly, Ayers Rock. Ayers Rock is a big rock out in the middle of nowhere and is very red. People can climb the rock, but today it was closed…too bad. We did two walks today, and luckily for us, they were very short. One of them was a  walk to a waterhole,  which actually had some water in it, and the other one was to another waterhole, but this one was guided. The guide seemed to know a lot, and we walked a ways before the group broke up to leave.

We drove from Alice Springs to Ayres Rock today, and on our way, we saw something interesting. We saw a big cloud and knew that it was a fire but thought that it was just a regular small bush fire away from the road. It wasn’t. When we passed a rest stop, we saw a man shaking his head at us as we passed, we passed more cars with the same response. Finally, when we were almost to the flames, a couple flashed their lights at us and we pulled up and they told us that they had made it through and to just be careful. We took their advise and went through carefully, going fast past the worst bit and using high beams to see through the smoke and haze. All the time that we were in the smoke, Eryn was gripping my arm so hard that afterwards, I said that I would probably have bruises all up and down my arm where she had gripped me so hard.

A didgeridoo is an instrument that is used by Aboriginal Australians.

Wikipedia says that the didgeridoo (also known as a didjeridu or didge) is a wind instrument developed by indigenous Australians of northern Australia around 1,500 years ago and still in widespread use today both in Australia and around the world. It is sometimes described as a natural wooden trumpet or “drone pipe”. Musicologists classify it as a brass aerophone.

Quoted from Wikipedia.

Today I learned how to play a didgeridoo at the Sounds of Starlight Theatre in the Todd Mall. There were lots of didgeridoos and I got to pick which one I got to learn how to play. I choose one that was unpainted but looked regular other then that and then got to ‘toot my own horn’ for a while. Every now and then, the instructor/owner would come over and offer some more tips, which were helpful. In the end, I learned how to play a little bit, but since I don’t have a didgeridoo, I can’t ever use that skill…too bad.

Today we drove to Alice from the Old Ambalindum Homestead. It wasn’t a very long drive, but it took up a while of our day.

We woke up this morning to another clear day…We ate breakfast and got packed, and when we were all done, we left, bidding farewell to Dave as we did so. After a long drive, we arrived at Trephina Gorge, which, quoting my sister, was gorgeous. We took a loop around the rim then got back to the car and left.

Now in Alice Springs, we are staying at somewhere called Kathy’s Place and have eaten and are getting ready to go to bed.

Dave is one of the workers here at the Old Ambalindum Station, and he has some interesting things. He feeds a magpie a lot and it is called ‘Fatso’. On his porch, he has lots of rocks, like rubies and zircon. There were some rocks that were nicely polished and engraved with something that looked like an ‘R’. The interesting thing was, all of these rocks were found on the property. But then again, it isn’t that hard to say that with about 3000 square miles of land in which to look for rocks.

When we were done with that, we went over to the workshop and looked at all the things that he had. There were cow horns that were nice and shiny and smooth that where multi-colored and all polished. He also had some hooves that he was doing the same thing to, and he had one that was partially polished. On one of the boards, he had a skull hanging, and it was a saber-toothed tiger skull. Not really, though, it was a horse skull backwards with cow horns glued on either side of the neck bone.

In the heat of the day in Australia, life seems to move at a slower pace. Despite a few trials, such as snakes, dehydration, and fights among my men, I have been enjoying myself in Australia immensely. I can only hope my men benefit from it as much as I. Each day, I see everyone start to relax a bit more, even in the fear of Aboriginal people attacking; which I think a silly fear… everyone we have met on this journey has been of the friendly sort, not the attacking, contrary to my men’s imagined Australians… the nature is beautiful. There is a whole moon tonight and the sunset was magnificent. The animals are bountiful: kangaroos and wallabys and lizards and brightly-colored birds abound… it is so pleasant here that, had I my family and childhood friends with me, I would undoubtedly stay for the remainder of my life.

Extracted from A Record of My Experience in the Great Land; Australia by Geoffrey Allen Reid

That excerpt from Reid’s book is in relation to what happened today. After a relaxing sleep of about ten-and-a-half hours, I woke up to the beautiful light streaming in through the crack in my window shade.  I got up and went to breakfast before going out and looking around the Old Ambalindum Homestead premises and learning about the shearing shed and the Bushcamp, which are old dormitories that people stayed in a while ago. After that, my dad went outside and went on a walk to the Ambalindum Lake, which actually held water, though it is the dry season and on his way back saw a kangaroo. When he came back, we went in the car up to the lookout, and though we couldn’t see the station, it was a magnificent view. On the way back, we kept our eyes peeled for any sign of wildlife, but all we saw was little green budgies in flocks of thousands.  When we arrived at the station, we found that a TV crew was there and that they were filming an ad for the homestead and that they wanted us in it. Since then, we have watched horses come galloping in to the yard, damper (bread) getting cooked on the campfire, and marshmallows getting roasted (by Eryn and I). And all of it was on camera.

The Old Ambalindum Homestead is a cattle station out in the bush north-east of Alice Springs. We got there this evening after a full day’s drive from Tennant Creek, which is on the highway from Darwin to Alice Springs.

On the way, we stopped at Devil’s Marbles, a site where there are lots of round rocks. We saw a brown snake, but it moved away. In one cluster of rocks, there is a base rock that has three big rocks on top of it and a little room around those rocks on the shelf of rock. My father and I found a way to get to the other side of the rock by going through a crack that looks like it dead-ends but actually, it turns and goes to the other side. When we were done with that, we kept driving for a long time, stopping only to get fuel for the car until Alice Springs.

In Alice Springs, we went to a Woolworths and got some food for the rest of the week because the Homestead is self-contained and the closest town (Alice Springs) is a two hour drive away. After the long drive, we had luckily not seen any kangaroos in our headlights, and we arrived safe and sound (but a bit jostled) at the Old Ambalindum Homestead.