The Sydney Harbour Bridge.

The Sydney Opera House.

Sydney skyline at night.

Sydney Harbour Bridge. The large white sphere is used for the New Year's Eve celebration.

Why doesn't Sydney look like it does in The Matrix?

That was my first thought of this city as we drove across the Sydney Harbor Bridge to the south side. Yesterday, I spent the day wandering around a Brisbane that was finally open for business after the Christmas holiday. It's a very nice clean city with tons of trees and parklands (as is Sydney, for that matter). I also visited the Queensland Museum in Brisbane, as Brisbane is the state capital. I finally saw the dreaded "Box Jellyfish" that is in the beachwaters this time of year. It's huge (about the size of your head, except with tentacles), and it's shaped like a box. Go figure. The most interesting thing I saw and read about was a "camel spider". Yes, this is the internet mail that has been going around for the past two years. The museum actually had a printed copy of the internet email and the photo with the American servicemen in the background. Verdict? Totally debunked. The photo is a play on perspective. The camel spider (which also lives in the States) only grows to the size of a child's palm and is in no way dangerous. Go tell your friends all about it. I also walked through the Art Gallery, which mostly had modern art pieces. It was sort of comical. They had video art pieces. One was called "60 second sculptures". It was an hour long video showing a person (head out of frame) doing stupid stuff and holding that pose for about a minute. I saw him go behind a chalkboard and grip eitherside of the chalkboard so that only his fingers were showing, and then he lifted his legs off the ground. He managed to hold that pose for about five seconds. Another one was where he took a chair and set it so that the legs were against the wall, and he pretended to sit in it, facing the floor, but he tried to support himself with his hands on the floor, of course, out of frame. That lasted about half a second. Art, I am not worthy!
Basically yesterday was an attempt to kill time before my 7pm bus to Sydney. The ride was 18.5 hours long. Can you say it with me? "Awwwwwwwwesome." It was freezing at night wherever it was we stopped. I was warned that the weather would get cooler as I went south; they weren't kidding. I was freezing on the bus all night long. I met a nice German girl (whose name I couldn't understand); we chatted about our travels along the way. I swear, I have met more people here just off the street than anywhere else. I only had a last minute reservation for a room tonight, and I was going to wing it for the rest of my time here in Sydney. My attempts at finding additional nightstay in Sydney were at places that were either too expensive or required an hour trainride. I didn't really worry about it, because you know, ya just gotta wing it. Plus, I knew my friend Fineberg would come through for me in the end.
Well, as it turns out, the place I'm staying at DOES hold rooms off the record, for people who want to stay longer, so I've got four nights in Sydney. So, no sleeping on park benches like I had planned. Who lives a charmed life?
As I left Queensland, I noticed that most Australians wear SHOES in New South Wales. All my observations of Australians prior will have to be directed towards Queenslanders. My apologies to any who were offended.
Happy New Year's everyone! We'll be celebrating it 16-19 hours ahead most of you in the States, two hours ahead of my relatives in Taiwan, and 10 hours ahead of you in the UK.

Brisbane's South Bank has a man-made beach and lagoon for the masses. And it's all free...

Yard dogs herd the sheep by standing on them when the sheep are in the pen ("yard").

I saw a sheep herding demonstration at the Lone Pine Sanctuary. The herd uses simple calls and whistles to control the dogs and thereby the sheep.

The three phases of koala bear activity: eating, resting, and sleeping.

Awww...it's a koala looking stoned. Actually, they look stones because they're using 20% of their metabolism to detoxify the eucalyptus leaves.

Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary. Please don't feed the kangaroos...

The Fraser Island crew back at Rainbow Beach, celebrating our return.

Carlos Sandblow over Rainbow Beach. It's a huge sand dune about 100 yards above the water.

The wreck of the Maheno on Fraser Island. It's been there since the 1930's when the Japanese were towing it back to Japan, a cyclone (hurricane) blew it to shore.

Packing up our last camp. Yes, that's how we load the landcruiser.

Making Christmas dinner stirfry.

Hey, look, it's a shark feeding frenzy!

Lake Wabby. The sand goes down about 70 meters at a 45 degree angle. Dwayne had to rest halfway up.

Lake Wabby is surrounded by a mile of sand that goes to the beach.

December 24 is Christmas in Sweden. We're tooting Christmas carols with party favors.