Warrawong and Melbourne Cup

Charlotte and I have been doing a lot of playing the last few days. I have been in Adelaide since Friday morning which is the longest stretch since we arrived here in Australia. Our favourite game is to move her toys from one place another and then back again. We repeat several times until Charlotte decides we have had enough. We sat in her tent this evening and read 1 book about 40 times. I tried to introduce others, but she would just throw them out of the way and pick up the same one over and over again. I tried to hide it, but she would just give me a "just read the damn book" look and we would begin reading again. I could hear Kate giggling everytime I would start the same book again.

On Sunday, we all went into the hills to Warrawong Nature reserve. It is a free nature reserve with many types of Australian animals. We saw an albino Kangaroo which was quite interesting looking. We thought we would get to see a Duckbilled Platypus, but there were none at that time of day. Charlotte chased down an emu, but quickly retreated when it turned around and looked at her. It was a good day, Kate and I agreed that we are going to try and get out and explore as much as we can.

It is Tuesday night now and today was Melbourne Cup day. It is a big deal of a horse race and there were many parties throughout the city and country. Horse racing is so huge here and this is by far the biggest race of the year. People, young and old, get dressed to the nines (ladies all have some type of god awful hat) and watch "The race that stops the nation!" I did not watch it, Kate did not watch it, Charlotte watched Barney. Australians wait all year for this day, horse racing is a big part of the culture here as you can bet on the ponies in pretty much every corner store.

-Neale