Back from Down Under

After 30 days (4 of which were spent in air planes and on airports), we're back from Australia! And it's amazingly cold and dark and dreary here! Why did we ever leave the relaxed, sunny warmth of Down Under?
But before I get too sad about being home again; the trip was great, I won't describe every move we made in detail, because I've got a travel journal that runs 23 pages and I don't want to spend this day typing that over, but in broad lines we did the following:

Sydney (opera house, Harbour bridge, Taronga zoo, random jetlaggy wandering in an unfamiliar city)
Blue Mountains (National Pass hiking trail)
Abercrombie caves
Canberra (Parliament House and the War memorial on Remembrance day, very impressive ceremony)

Glenrowan (Ned Kelly's last stand)
Melbourne (little penguins at St Kilda's pier!)
Tower Hill reserve
Great Ocean Road (Twelve Apostles and several other geological rarities)
Adelaide (random wandering)
Wilpena Pound (peak climb)
Coober Pedy (slept in an 'underground' hostel)
Kings Canyon (Kings Canyon Rim walk)
Uluru (aka Ayers Rock; sunset viewing, sunrise viewing, base walk)
Kata Tjuka (aka the Olgas; very hot walk)
Alice Springs
Ghan train to Katherine
Katherine Gorge
Kakadu National Park (Nourlangie and Ubirr rock art sites)
Darwin (more random wandering)
Cairns (trip to Cape Tribulation, snorkeling at the Great Barrier Reef)

Which was all very nice, except for the Great Ocean Road which was mostly very cold and dreary. Also, I'm not really a city person, so we mostly spend our time there in the botanical gardens, which were very nice and well kept. But we did see the main stuff in each city, of course, because when are you ever going to be there again?
We saw lots and lots of wild animals, including kangaroos, wallabies, koalas, a dingo, little penguins, New Zealand fur seals, a possum, several emu and tons of other birds, all of which I have ticked off in the Australian bird book I bought. I have to add the numbers up, but it's got to be over 100 species, including both species of kookaburra, lots of water birds in Kakadu NP, and several parrots, some of which actually ate out of my hands. No cassowary, sadly. We also saw lots of reptiles, including lizards, dragons, and geckos, the best of which was the 1 meter long perentie that literally crossed our path in Kings Canyon.

Some observations on Australia and Australians:
- most people live in the cities but the countryside is the best place to be
- Australians are very polite and helpful, if you are the same
- Australians are all sports crazy, with people running and cycling up every steep incline in sight, even in 38 degrees C
- Australians are a lot more like the British than they would care to admit
- Aboriginal people have some of the best art and stories in the world
- most distances are put in time ('a 15 minute return walk') rather than distance, except for road signs
- people in Coober Pedy will call it 'humid' when there is 5% humidity
- people in Darwin will call it 'a fine day' when there is 85% humidity
- in the outback you can literally drive 50 km without seeing another car
- while camping the most annoying thing are the biting ants, and the grasshoppers falling into your food
- nothing has tried to sting us, bite us, or kill us, but we used some common sense
- there are clean, spacious public toilets everywhere, even if it's a town with only 600 people
- it is one of the most relaxed, warm and beautiful places I have ever been, and I can't wait to go back

We are sorting through the pictures now, and trying to get everything back into shape while still seriously jetlaggy and mostly very cold. The cats are unbelievably happy that we're back, and our parents probably too, although they didn't show it as much. We've still got 3 days to adapt and land, and then our travels will be truly over, until the next trip.