Hello from the Calgary
Staaaampede in Alberta, Canada....yesterday we would have been saying G’Day Mate!
After 4 Flights , 30 hours of straight travelling, and somehow two Thursdays in a row we are back in Canada safe and sound and very very sleepy!
... but what a tour
Here's what went down
down-under...
From Toronto we flew over the Grand Canon stopped in L.A and continued over the large oh
soo very large ocean that is the Pacific and arrived in
Sydney Australia. Other then a slight miss-hap in
Los Angeles involving us running full speed across the airport to catch our next flight we made it in one piece- with all of our luggage and only slightly jet-lagged.
We spent our first day in Sydney, Australia trying to see as much as we possibly could in 24 hours. We went on a ferry to Manly Island, and saw the famous Opera House.
LALALALA!
The next morning we were back in the air again and off to
Melbourne, Australia for the day. After a quick taste of Melbourne and all its great art , history and coffee we managed to get ourselves on a train and traveled 3 hours South to
Warrnambool (our final destination!!)
here's downtown Melbourne:
Warrnambool is
unlike any other place we have visited. It is right on the southern coast of Australia. Everywhere you look there is
Ocean. The beaches are some of the most beautiful in the world. Our favorite beach was called "Logan's Beach", which is also a lookout for whales. Every year
whales make their way to this area and have their calves. So with many other onlookers, we stood and watched. Although we did not see any directly, those with binoculars had 4 sightings while we there. Here is a picture of Logan’s Beach and lookout.
Our shows at the FUN 4 KIDS festival were fantastic. The Australian families welcomed our music and were singing and dancing along. The crowds were super. Although we must admit it was a bit intimidating performing right after and before international superstars:
The Wiggles:
But we quickly made friends with
Wags The Dog:
Taes asked
Captain Feathersword if he knew the
Last Pirate on Lake Ontario??:... 
and we did the
Romp Bomp A Stomp with
Dorothy The Dinosaur. Nick even brought her a
rose.Then we hit the stage:
Everyone treated us so well. We were known as
"The Canadians", and they all commented on OUR accents!!
While we were there our wonderful stage manager lent us her car to take for the afternoon… this may seem like a simple thing – however Australians tend to drive on the left side of the road. This was no easy challenge- especially while driving standard. (
Taes was a hero).
So after we found the courage to keep on driving we made it to a place we heard about called
Tower Hill, which is a actually a volcano which last erupted over 30 thousand years ago. .. it is considered dormant .. not extinct..
YIKES! When it did erupt all those years ago it made beautiful craters, lakes and mountains and is now a protected reserve. Now the rumour was that if we went, we MAY see Koala Bears, and although not likely …Kangaroos. The thought that if we might see any of these animals in the wild was worth the trip for us. Well were we in for a treat....
We headed along a nature path with our eyes scanning the trees for
Koalas… and sure enough we found the sweetest little guy. Man oh man are they cute. We were able to get
sooooo close to him. They are so round and fuzzy!
Taes wanted to take it home with us. It was so incredible.
After that we were feeling pretty lucky with our two sightings, when all of a sudden we were face to face with TWO
Kangaroos! After
Taes almost passed out with excitement- we were able to take some pictures. They just looked at us and we just looked at them. This lasted for about 5 minutes then the just hopped away using those massive back legs. WOW. It’ll be a day we’ll never forget.
The next day after our shows we headed down the windy
"Great Ocean Road" to see the
12 Apostles, which are a famous rock formation in Australia. They were created many many years ago by the erosion of the coastline. We made it just before sunset and were able to get some fantastic pictures.
After our last show we jumped back on the train to Melbourne, took 4 different planes, hit 5 major cities and 3 countries, and woke up this morning in the wild wild west that is Calgary during Stampede week.
Today we headed downtown and saw the famous Calgary Stampede Parade... there was even someone riding a BULL.. for fun!
After that we headed down to the Stampede
grounds and performed three shows.... only 33 to go, over the next 10 days....
We
love the Stampede and are very happy to be performing again at it this year.
Most of all we love all of you who come to our shows, and bring us to your cities and countries. We feel so fortunate to have a job that enables us to see so much of the world and meet so many new people.
We hope you are all having an amazing summer so far and we can see you soon.
YAHOO (
that's what everybody says during Stampede!)
Love Taes and NickSplash'N Boots
