Which is probably why they don’t eat smores in Australia.  We did not attempt to makes smores with the pink ones (supposedly raspberry flavored) but even the white marshmallows were vanilla flavored.  Odd, I was under the impression that marshmallow was already a flavor.  But the Arnott’s Nice Biscuits, made a suitable replacement for Graham Crackers, and the Lindt 70% Cocoa Bar was almost too good to be combined with those highly flammable excuses for marshmallows.  Perhaps smores are best left for American camping excursions.

Our campsite, in lovely Royal National Park, like the rest of the country, was dominated by the birds.  An afternoon of pleasant twittering becomes an evening of cockatoos screeching, in dinosaur like tones, as they eat off the picnic tables and try to steal your bag of trail mix.  Be wary, their beaks are powerful enough to break the plastic within seconds.  And with the first light of dawn, what begins as one or two birds chanting their characteristic calls, quickly became what sounded like every bird in the park trying to out call  every other.  It was as if someone in master control had decided to play every track at once, while amping the volume to eleven.  Good thing I’m a heavy sleeper.

In addition to the birds, our weekend of camping introduced us to one large ring tailed possum, which I wouldn’ t have seen if he hadn’t made an audible thump as he dropped from the tree behind me in the dark, a semaphore crab, whose little red pinchers made it clear how crabby he really was, tiny little bugs that attempted to dig into my beach towel, several ants large enough to tote away whole grains of rice, and a purple stinger jellyfish which was most certainly not the harmless kind.  It’s a good thing the water is so clear here.  One particularly cheeky spider even made the journey back in my pack, and survived six sneaker stomps before the fatal seventh.  Seriously . . . tough country.

Perhaps the best part of our short lived camping adventure, in addition to the beautiful beach and clear water of Simpsons Bay, were the happy campers we shared the site with.  One man, from a large family group with lots of hyperactive kids, loaned us chairs for the night, which proved essential.  Our tiny double tent and otherwise empty plot, did seem rather pathetic compared to their multiple dining tables and Taj Mahal of tents.  It was very nice of them to share the wealth.  And the generosity did not stop there.  We decided to leave a day early, a decision which confirmed my faith in my good instincts, as a rain storm struck while we were half way to the ferry stop.  While waiting for the deluge to subside in the portico of a local gas station, and by that I mean THE local gas station, a woman materialized from the pumps next to us, and offered us a ride.  Her serendipitous offer got us to the ferry just in time to discover that it had been delayed long enough for us to pile in with all the other soggy beach goers.

Once back in Sydney, we decided to polish off our wilderness weekend with a little tour of some slightly more contained bits of it, in the Sydney Aquarium and Sydney Wildlife World.  The aquarium was great reminder of the amazing beauty just off of Australian shores, as well as a great refresher course in what can and can’t kill you.  Okay, so jellyfish stings should be flushed with vinegar, and blue bottle stings should be flushed with hot water.  Check.  And I didn’t even know what a dugong was, until I met “Pig” the dugong.   In case you were wondering, they aren’t manatees, but are also called sea cows.  I hope they don’t find that offensive.

Wildlife world offered the opportunity to pet stick bugs, snakes, blue tongue lizards, and to hold the butterflies.  It does, however, cost extra to pet the sleepy little koalas.  But perhaps that’s best, since I now know that their young have to eat their mothers droppings, to gain a resistance to the poisonous eucalyptus plants that leave them in their life long stupor.  It’s a good thing eucalyptus is breath cleansing.

Take a look at my flickr photos to see more from our weekend of close encounters.