Trip to Australia – March 3-21, 2001

Here's me and Snookums on Saturday, down by the sign for "Eungai Creek" (which actually runs under the bridge we're on). Apparently on Friday the creek waters had swollen to reach the level of the road, and though it was lower now, Papa Snook said that it was still well over its banks. Scary.

Mama Snookums, who is a primary school teacher, came up with the idea that we should play Pooh Sticks. So we each had a pine cone and we dropped them off the upstream side of the bridge, and then raced across to see whose cone emerged first on the downstream side. Unfortunately pine cones all look more or less alike, but we reckoned that my pine cone had come out first and I won the prize: two shiny nickels. *grin*

This is a flooded road in Macksville, which is situated on the Nambucca River not far from Eungai. It was a pleasant little town, but most of the shops were closed and had sandbags out front in case the water rose any higher.

We rounded a corner in Macksville and I stopped dead in my tracks. "An Iga!" I squealed. I had worked in an IGA grocery story in Wolcottville, Indiana for three years in high school. I didn't even know they were an international company... yet there was one out in the middle of rural Australia. I was dumbstruck. My dad, I thought, will never believe it.

Though my birthday wouldn't be til the following Thursday, on Sunday Mama and Papa Snook decided to take us out to a nice breakfast in Nambucca Heads to commemorate that and the fact that the sun was shining for the first time in days. We went to a lovely cafe on the seashore near the "V-Wall", which was a barrier that forced the river into a V-shape and created an area safe from battering by the waves.

I think this picture conclusively shows that I was still jet-lagged at this point. Not even the site of such a large glass of freshly squeezed orange juice could wake me out of my stupor.