Wednesday, July 20, Des moines.  I had a 128 day around the world trip planned, but on the 118th day, Thursday, July 14th, my daughter phoned me at 7 pm, and told me my wife was very ill, and put the emergency room doctor on the phone.  He explained that Marcia had blood clots in both legs and in both lungs...  and was severely ill; by eight pm I was at the airport in Kauai, Hawaii, seeking plane transportation home, the departure desk clerk from Hawaiian Airlines saw my anxiousness and got me on a direct flight from Kauai to Phoenix and then to Des Moines on American Airlines, getting me home a day earlier than trying to return to Honolulu then to the mainland.  Leaving my large suitcases stored at the hostel in Honolulu, I arrived in Des Moines at 1:30 pm on Friday afternoon, and was at the hospital by two pm.  Now it is a week later, and I have the time to do this last blog for a while.  Marcia has committed to help me finish my round the world trip and come to Hawaii with me for those last ten days when she recovers, and is feeling up to a vacation trip.  I'm looking forward to doing that together.  As an aside, I had purchased three travel insurances, two had expired, but one was a 120 day travel policy, and this occured on the 118th day, so this time my unused five plane trips, the unused tours, the hostel nights, and the recovery of my luggage will be covered with this policy, hopefully.  I will continue this blog in some future months when Marcia and I complete my bucket list trip!

Tuesday, July 12, 7:30 pm, and I'm back on the porch of the hostel facing the ocean.  Could take a picture, but it would duplicate Yesterday's picture, and so would my comments about the soothing warm breezes, so I won't repeat that.  Today I had my tour of Kauai island, and Waimeai canyon, it has the same colors, stripes, and similar shapes as the grand canyon, but it is wetter here, so there is a lot of vegetation in the nooks and crannies of the canyon, and the contrast between the reds  yellows, browns,tans, and the green vegetation makes this a dramatically vivid scene.  it is smaller, and quite a bit less wide than the big one in arizona, but quite impressive also.  We got to see it from a viewing spot on one rim that took in just about all of the canyon.  We drove in a large bus almost thirty of us from NY, MO, Germany, France, Montreal, Australia, and a few more nations.  Drove along the eastern and southern coasts, ate at a golf course club house with the Pacific at the other end of the fairway.  Had an island hamburger with a large pineapple slice and a delicious sauce on it, with non diet root beer, followed by a very delicious coconut pie, tonite I ate a small chunk of goat cheese, half a green pepper, a tomato sliced up with herbs and seasonings.  Had to compensate for that coconut pie!  Went on a short boat ride to a spiritual grotto of the original Hawaiians, drove thru small towns, saw remains of sugar cane and pineapple  processing facilities, which now are all closed for regular commercial production due to competition from other nations with much lower labor costs.  Only small, non commercial growing is done.  They are growing high grade coffee, because there are machines to harvest the beans off the low trees, so don't have to contend with the high wages of so many workers to harvest the beans.  We saw fields where the older coffee trees had been pruned back to allow the coffee picking machines to go over them, after they recover from the severe pruning and restart producing beans again next season.  The other main crop on the islands is the care and cultivation of all of we tourists.  There are housing developments going up in former pineapple and sugar cane fields.  But be warned, the prices of stand alone houses are in the seven figures, with a 2, 3,4 or 5 in front of those zeros.  Condos usually start with a 1 in front of those six zeros.  Weekly, monthly shared vacation housing per year is becoming common.  Also visited water falls, saw sites were movie or TV shows were filmed, many of them, including Thornbirds, Elvis movies, and a number of them from the fifties and sixties, as well as more recent movies.  I can't remember all of the movie names, but they were well known movies.

the Arizona battleship memorial across pearl harbor from the bow of the foreground aircraft carrier, just under the bow of the carrier is the battleship Missouri.  The Navy has these two next to each other to emphasize the beginning and the end of WWll, the start is the bombing on December 7th 1941, the end of the war was the peace treaty that ended the war with Japan's surrender on the deck of the Missouri,  the ship chosen by the president Harry S Truman, then president of the usa at the end of the war, he was from Missouri.

Damn, four paragraphs disappeared again.  Wish I knew why, all of a sudden this randomly occurs.  ??¿????   Oh well, starting over.  Monday, July 12th, Kauai, Hawaii, at beach house hostel, about seven pm.  The view is " South Pacific-ish"  , see:

the breeze is warm with just a touch of coolness, it's intermittent, for only a second or so, then it returns, the feeling is sumptuous, just heavenly, it's glorious!!!

I feel so mellow, relaxed, could easily say the heck with this blog, and go for a walk, so I think I will, I'll finish the blog sometime, whenever!!!

July 10, Sunday, Waikiki, at hostel, tried to surf yesterday, took tall surf board back after I couldn't control it in calm water, after a young guy said to try shorter board first, so I did, and I couldn't really control it, but did a little better, when a wave came in it did push me back a body length, bit that wasn't surfing it was the strength of the wave pushing me.  Tried for ninty minutes, and gave up after drinking a lot of sea water, and getting my feet and ankles cut up some, only a dozen cuts two bigger ones, rest scratches.  After cleaning up, tried to do something I knew I could do, walk a lot.  So decided to walk up the diamond head volcano.  And I did it.  The hostel is at the least commercial
 Part of Waikiki Beach, across the street from the Honolulu zoo, and a short block from the beach itself.  Took the road after the zoo, and followed the residential street up, and up, and up.  Thru an army base, into the national park, and up and up the back side of diamond head away from the sea. Around and up til I was on the opposite side of the volcano from Waikiki Beach, and a couple thousand feet , or so, i think.  Went thru a road-pedestrian tunnel under the rim of the crater, into the crater itself.  No beach breezes there due to the high crater rim, another thousand(s) of feet all the way around the Crater's floor.  Took a break, then started the climb up the Crater's rim.  First gentle sidewalk ramps, then rock paths, then steep rocky paths, followed by stairs up steeper sections. A few more ramps more stairs, a narrow, low people tunnel, a long stairway, and we were almost at the summit.  Going from the wwl and the WWll military emplacements, gun mounts, pill boxes, observation platforms... we were up and down a few more stairs.  From the top, a huge section of that side if the island could be seen, was beautiful, and well worth the climb.  Because of the abrupt interruption of the many hotels stretching to the sky, where the zoo began, and behind that the residential areas, it was easy to see where the hostel was, if the surrounding hotels didn't block the view of the three story hostel in between twenty floor luxury hotels, the grand Waikiki, and queen Kai________. Hotels.  At the end of the street near where the hostel is a jetty that juts out into the Pacific with a shelter at the jetty's end.  This was easy to spot from the top of diamond head and made confirming the hostel's location a sure thing.   The comercially dense part of Waikiki begins several blocks further away from the hostel and the zoo across the street--dramatically showing how desirable the neighborhood of the hostel is.  in fact the street address of the Polynesian beach club hostel is on Lemon street, which was originally an alley with several hostel's on that 'street', but it is definitely a former alley sandwiched in between the behemoth luxury hotels.  So there I stayed, in a prime real estate area, with under $50 a nite lodgings, and pancake breakfasts to boot, and other amenities as free wifi, good wifi, beach toys to borrow, discounts for residents on tours....  I really lucked out!  Hotels are sold out, not only because it's summer and tourists galore, but the military is having Rimpac.  a communication training exercize with most Pacific rim nations, including china, participating and many officers families staying in the hotels while the men or women military folks are ashore, they go out to sea, all of them, on wednesday, if the families still stay I don't know.   after I return from my twelve days of island hopping, and with free storage of my big suitcases at the hostel, while I'm gone to see the other islands, I'll be right back here for two more nites, and three days, before my flights back to DSM.

July 8th, the second time in 2016, cause I crossed the international date line.  In fiji the internet apparently doesn't like devices that aren't cell phones, cause I couldn't get thru.  Well that's my excuse, and I'm sticking to it.    but I couldn't get connected.  So now I'm back in the usa, Hawaii this time.  And the internet is working for free at the cheap hostel, not a regular hotel where I had problems getting connected.  Another stupid happening was when I made my reservation for this hostel for July ,,8th. It went thru just fine .  When I woke up yesterday in Fiji, radically repacked do wouldn't have to pay Fiji airlines another over weight fee.  Yesterday was July 8,th.  Flew to Samoa and layed over a jour got a special examination of the plane cause we were flying into the usa.  Landed in Honolulu about,12:30 am, but, for me, that was the nite of July 8t.h, even though technically it was the next day.  Bit between Samoa and Hawaii we crossed the international date line, so I was going to live thru July 8th the second time.  Did you notice that I was going to do over July 8th.  But all the folks in Hawaii, didn't get that privelege because they were already in Hawaii, and. They didn't do July 8,th twice.    Their sequence was July ,,5,6,7,8,9...  so when I showed up at the hostel the desk clerk became perplexed with me.  For he was working the nite shift of July 7th.  I had arrived one day later for me July 8th, the first one. Well they were fully booked, and there was no room for me. Do he thinking fast put my luggage in the hostel office, gave me a pillow, blanket and a hammock in the side yard.   About eleven I was given my bed in the four bed room, showered and went to investigate the town.   The hostel is half a block from the Pacific Ocean and the waves were coming in pretty strongly.  Had McD big bkfst, and strolled the beach.  Then walked the Wiakiki area of Honolulu. Am tired, and will finish updating this blog tomarrow.  

Just finished July 4th post, pressed publish, the wheels went around as usual, but it disappeared.  Will try this, so far.  Well it took it this time.  Planes gonna be late so here I go again.  Morning after I got to Queenstown I was across the street at tourist office waiting for the bus at 6:50 am.  Dan was the tour guide and bus... now van driver, because there were only ten of us on this tour.  Queenstown is in a mountain valley surrounded by mountains in the middle of the southern island of NZ.  We drove two hours thru mountains and in the valleys...farm land in the high valleys.  Mostly sheep, deer...they export venison to Europe mainly, and grow turnips as supplemental food for the live stock.  The sheep even pull up the roots, do the farmer doesn't have to plow in the spring to plant again.  Stark mountains, with flatter areas in grass, after the scrub bush had been burnt out, and roots removed.  Also saw lots of different cattle, some Scottish breeds too.  The trip over the last mountains was on a very steep gravel road down to the sea side.  Then we took a bigger boat for our tour of Doubtful Bay, and even out on to the Pacific to see neighboring cliffs and valleys of great scenic beauty.  The we reversed the process, bus trip up the narrow gravel road, the hour long boat trip across the lake, and on to another buss for the two hour ride back thru the mountains and highland farms to Queenstown.

June30, Thursday.  In front of the hotel in Chch before 7 am,waiting suitcases and all,  for the bus to go to Mt. Cook, NZ tallest mountain.  By 1:30 pm I arrived at the Hermitage, the national park resort.  Approaching my destination, I was awe struck by the scenery.  These are called the alps of the southern hemisphere, and are aptly named.  Everyone has mentioned that they are having an unusually warm winter, no snow, snow on the mountain tops, but none at the mountains base.  My room faces Mt. cook thru a huge picture window.  Ate lunch in the sunshine thru the glass wall of the dinning room.  What a change, warm sunshine, after all of the rain in Sydney, melbourne, Hobart, Adelaide, Auckland, Rotorua and Wellington. and I was tired of being wet every time I went out to see the sights.  It's  in the lower 50's, but sunny, nice.  Went for a long walk to the base of a mountain on a well graveled trail, an hour later I was ate the trails end, at the mountains base, with glaciers almost down to the brock strewn base.  In the quiet, several times I heard the rumblings of avalanches from just around the corner of a foothill adjacent to the mountain.  Sounds like a train without any of the metal wheel or rail components, just a rumble, rumble down the mountain side. And I get four meals like that: lunch thru lunch for the 26 hours I am here.   My meals are pre-paid, and they are really something, delicious, linen tablecloths, ordering from a menu, classy.  Well that's about it for today!

Akaroa NZ and harbor!

I lost several posts, something was wrong, but what????  Can't remember those two posts contents, so as I remember them I'll stick those reflections in when I do.  Today I was on a bus tour to Akaroa, a French founded town, but they didn't know that the Brits had beat them to NZ by a month or two, so after they discovered they had a French town in a British colony, they remained, and the Brits allowed them to exist like they did in Quebec Canada, so there is a French town in English speaking NZ.  The streets are Rue, the police station is Gerdairams (French word for police).  It is quaint, sea port, tiny village, now a resort destination for NZ folks and tourists alike.  Had a harbor boat tour, cliffs really remarkable, penguins, dolphans, other sea birds...  and white specks high up on the grass cliffs with sheer drops a thousand feet to the rocks or sea below, between the rocks and trees, these were grazing sheep.  The captain of the tour boat explained that the NZ sheep farmers are breeding their sheep with the left front and rear legs shorter than the right legs, so the sheep can stand level on the 45 degree or steeper pastures.  A side effect is that the sheep can't double back to get away from the farmers on the steep slopes, when they are rounding them up at sheering time, saves a lot of time.  But when the farmers put those sheep on flat land he gets lean mutton!

Having problems with internet, this is a test blog to see if it records this entry, after two previous blogs failed to post, and totally disappeared.  Here goes!

Christchurch

Damn!  Lost a two screen blog??????
Kiwi's abbreviate this town name as Chch.  Much shorter.  Five years ago there was a severe earthquake here, and an equally bad aftershock some time later.  The 150 year old cathedral was severely damaged and in danger of collapsing so they quickly put up massive steel bracing to hold the front wall and bell tower in place.  Then that bad aftershock came, and they both fell so the steel is bent but still standing holding up air, cause the front wall and bell tower are rubble about fifteen feet deep n the church's front steps.  I was told by the shuttle driver that thousands of buildings were destroyed or severely damaged, so as to need almost complete rebuilding.  There is rebuilding everywhere in the greater downtown area, except for the cathedral which is the subject of a huge debate whether to tear down and rebuild, which is probably cheaper, or to restore the historic building... no decision yet, the same scenariois going on for a number of historic buildings, including the oldest building in Chch.  There are fenced off buildings everywhere downtown, they are bordered up, and standing there, or under construction with cranes hovering above them.  The big department store here has been in business for well over a hundred years and part of it fell in the earthquake, the part of the building that remained standing has been repaired, except for the back part which fell, where they have attached a barn like pole building to the restored part of the building and the two inside are a glamorous whole, now.  Even the outside has been doctored up to look glamorous.  This store is like Marshall Fields and Younkers looked like, and had better merchandise before being bought out and cheapened.  Really classey, even with the pole building's east end.  So many stores were out of business that they came up with an ingenious solution, they used shipping crates, fixed them up, with store display windows, some are one crate big, some are double deckers, some are connected in an "L" or ,"U", shape or other configeretions.  Where they had to tear down a couple of square blocks of destroyed buildings, they built this mall with the shipping  crates.  There are comic art works, plantings... many of them, benches, out door meeting areas.  This new mall looks great, it is do innovative.  I would think it should be a permanent fixture of the new downtown area.  There are square blocks, in a few places multi-square blocks of grass fields where buildings have been removed, one huge multi-block area is across the street from this hotel.  One square block has been converted from destroyed buildings to a great children's playground with a large number of playground structures... really nice.  Talked to a lady from the next hotel down the road, and she just gushed about the playground her kids played in much of the afternoon.  Her hotel seems to have been remodeled since the earthquake and had a three or four story half arch leaning against the whole side of the building and has small shops on both sides of the arch and a nice pedestrian mall, with the tram track down the middle.  The tram is a hop on/,off tourist vehicle running around the downtown in the repaired and boarded up sections as well as the under construction areas.  They have (present tense) a huge ww1 memorial arch in a big open area next to the shipping crate mall, on closer observation there is a picture taken maybe in the forties or fifty's with large buildings, stores and office buildings all around the arch.  All those buildings are gone, but the memorial to the doughboys is still standing all by itself in a big open area.  This was/is a beautiful city with mall's, plazas, streets intersecting at unusual angles, curvy streets, narrow alleys with store fronts and the single tram track down the middle of the pedestrian alleyway.  Really pretty.  The major Plaza in a sort of capital T shape in front of the cathedral with dramatic art works, seating areas, trees and a large "temporary" "tent" structure in front of the fence surrounding the almost destroyed cathedral's front wall with plants covering it and signs begging to save the historical cathedral, and to not tear it down and replace it with a new building.  Chch is a livable city, and even with all the damage, is still a vibrant, peopled city, not crowded, but far from vacant city, it's on the mend!  I happened to be walking down a street about five pm which has many buildings under repair, and the workers from three or four buildings were leaving work for the day and both sides of the street was a sea of yellow construction helmets and vests.  Even with all the non-functioning buildings, I've been on the streets two nites and there are people everywhere, not an abandoned city at all, far from it!

Hobbiton

Sunday, June 26th, Wellington NZ.  Flew from Rotortua to Wellington, got into hotel.  Went to national parliament buildings, got a one hour tour with about a dozen other people.  NZ has no written constitution, it's condition is precedent of prior laws.  Their voting is done twice on each ballot: the vote for the person they want to represent them in their house of representing, and the vote for the party whose policies they feel best represents what they want in government.  The Percentage of people voting for that party, get appointed representatives by that party's chair in addition to the elected representing.  And if the appointed representitives don't vote the way the chair of the party he/she can replace them anytime the chair wants.  The tour guide said that this is the model that the Allies forced Germany to have after WWll.  The mnp model.  It's purpose is to prevent any one party from gaining control of the Parliament like the Nazi party did in the thirties, but it's not working as intended in NZ, because one party has control of the Parliament today.  Good tour, fantastic government building for prime minister and his cabinet, the beehive, which is just what it looks like, a beehive. Had a venison burger, really good.

A display kiwi bird,

 A Mouri dance

Facial tattoos left side represents his mother's heritage, the right side of his face his father's.

Wednesday, June 23rd, Auckland, NZ.  Arrived about 8pm, felt grubby, showered, washed clothes, ate at Denny's, to bed.  Thursday the 24th, city tour, the ferry ride in Auckland harbor, then follow up trip to Devonport, a small town, suburb of Auckland, across the harbor, which has strict laws against external building remodeling, so everything is Victorian, houses, stores hotels...  very quaint, interesting.  On the Friday the 25th I was up at 5am, ate, bus at 6:15, on road south.  Got to Hobbiton, home of the movie Hobbits.  Spent four hours, including lunch.  One description that made a lot of sense was the differing sizes of the Hobbit hole-homes.  They ranged from two or three feet high, some taller, and a few were seven feet tall.  That's so when the actors were supposed to be small, they performed in front of a taller Hobbit hole, and when an actor was supposed to be tall he acted in front of a smaller Hobbit hole.  A few of the Hobbit holes were identical, but came in various sizes, so a tall actor stood and did his acting bit, in front of a small Hobbit hole, but when he went to enter, the cameras shifted as he turned to go inside, but not just the actor but the location changed to a larger hole, so he could enter.  None of the internal shots inside a Hobbit home were shot in Hobbiton, they were shot on a regular movie stage, where each Hobbit home's internal rooms were designed and built.  All in all enjoyed it very much.  Got lots of pics, most on camera, but a good choice of shots on this tablet to share with you.  The NZ weather changes more than Iowas, in five minutes from a downpour to bright sunshine,  this variability is due to the proximity of the ocean winds and weather.  So we were all wet by the time lunch was served from the intermittent rain.  Later we went to a glow worm cave and underground river.  In the boats under ground in the caves, we floated down the river entranced by the caves ceiling of glow worms, magically we were in a cave with a star speckled cave top.

Saturday, the 26th, and less than a month before my vacation is over, I'm home July 25, about noon when I land in Des Moines.

 Arrived at Rotortua,  NZ about 8pm Friday the 25th, next morning at 6:45 am i was on a city tour, saw a sheep show, sheering....  a volcanic boiling mud pools, mini guizers, at least while we were there... then a nature preserve, the highlight was to try to see the national bird of NZ, the kiwi.  It is being saved from extinction, it is a nocturnal bird, so lives in the daytime in dark enclosures with windows so hopefully we could see them.  But like seeing Mars in Uluru, where I couldn't see the red color, here I couldn't see the kiwis here either, too dark.  Later on at another stop, they had kiwi's too, and I did see one scurrying around, but not clearly at all, a very fast moving blob.  Last night went to a Mouri village, saw a show of their dances and, bits on their culture, climaxed with a dinner cooked under ground.  Was good.  The Moori are naturally humorous, at least all the ones I met!  Great way to live life, laughing all the time.

Wednesday, June 23rd, Auckland, NZ.  Arrived about 8pm, felt grubby, showered, washed clothes, ate at Denny's, to bed.  Thursday the 24th, city tour, the ferry ride in Auckland harbor, then follow up trip to Devonport, a small town, suburb of Auckland, across the harbor, which has strict laws against external building remodeling, so everything is Victorian, houses, stores hotels...  very quaint, interesting.  On the Friday the 25th I was up at 5am, ate, bus at 6:15, on road south.  Got to Hobbiton, home of the movie Hobbits.  Spent four hours, including lunch.  One description that made a lot of sense was the differing sizes of the Hobbit hole-homes.  They ranged from two or three feet high, some taller, and a few were seven feet tall.  That's so when the actors were supposed to be small, they performed in front of a taller Hobbit hole, and when an actor was supposed to be tall he acted in front of a smaller Hobbit hole.  A few of the Hobbit holes were identical, but came in various sizes, so a tall actor stood and did his acting bit, in front of a small Hobbit hole, but when he went to enter, the cameras shifted as he turned to go inside, but not just the actor but the location changed to a larger hole, so he could enter.  None of the internal shots inside a Hobbit home were shot in Hobbiton, they were shot on a regular movie stage, where each Hobbit home's internal rooms were designed and built.  All in all enjoyed it very much.  Got lots of pics, most on camera, but a good choice of shots on this tablet to share with you.  The NZ weather changes more than Iowas, in five minutes from a downpour to bright sunshine,  this variability is due to the proximity of the ocean winds and weather.  So we were all wet by the time lunch was served from the intermittent rain.  Later we went to a glow worm cave and underground river.  In the boats under ground in the caves, we floated down the river entranced by the caves ceiling of glow worms, magically we were in a cave with a star speckled cave top.

Sunday, the26th, and less than a month before my vacation is over, I'm home July 25, about noon when I land in Des Moines.

 Arrived at Rotortua,  NZ about 8pm Friday the 25th, next morning at 6:45 am i was on a city tour, saw a sheep show, sheering....  a volcanic boiling mud pools, mini guizers, at least while we were there... then a nature preserve, the highlight was to try to see the national bird of NZ, the kiwi.  It is being saved from extinction, it is a nocturnal bird, so lives in the daytime in dark enclosures with windows so hopefully we could see them.  But like seeing Mars in Uluru, where I couldn't see the red color, here I couldn't see the kiwis here either, too dark.  Later on at another stop, they had kiwi's too, and I did see one scurrying around, but not clearly at all in the dark, a very fast moving blob.  Last night went to a Mouri village, saw a show of their dances and bits on their culture, climaxed with a dinner cooked under ground.  Was good.  The Moori are naturally humorous, at least all the ones I met!  Great way to live life, laughing all the time.

Another blog catch-up!  At Sydney airport waiting flight to Auckland new Zealand.  Last two days were at Adelaide Australia area.  Had tour of kangaroo island, Tasmania is Australia's largest island, second largest is in far north, and it is just slightly larger than kangaroo island which is third in size.  Two hour bus ride to port, an hours trip on ferry to island, then two hours by second bus to first tour destination, a seal colony on the southern ocean (the bottom ocean under the Pacific, Atlantic and Indian Oceans, surrounding the Antarctic continent).   We didn't just look at the seals, but we walked on the beach amount them.  Usually very hum-drum, but while we were strolling on the beach by circling around the seals so as not to get too close to them, which they usually tolerate and just ignore the strollers...us. there is a flattish beach with maybe fifty seals, with only two huge beach masters which we were not near,  when down the hill thru the underbrush crashed a third huge male, apparently on his way to challenge one of  the two beach master dominant males with a harem of female seals.  But our group of tourists were inbetween these two huge, maybe 400 pound, seals, the forest ranger and bus driver-guide got us moving but fast.  We'd had a cautionary lecture on beach safety, and the what ifs this and what if that occurs what we were to do.  #1, stay in a group in order to make a large mass of people, and not to become separated, one by one, because when the bulls are enraged they are very aggressive and get rid of anything in the way to his goal the other male.  But these two guides broke that rule and separated the group to make a space for the raging bull to go between us on his way to his opponent.  Two thirds of us with one guide went further away up the beach, and a third of us made a hasty retreat back to the wooden stairway.  And the bull just continued his charge down the beach inbetween .  We had strung out a little and were in a line, rather than in a huddle together.  That's why the pette female guide split us up, to make a hole for that charging bull.   After he roared past the other part of the tourists made a dash for the stairway.  And walking on sand, you don't have great footing, it is slower going than on packed earth or a pavement.   All were safe.  The beach guide from the park service, said later that we had done very well and listened to her commands.  Truthfully, I never heard or saw him til he was roaring down the beach, and I just followed the bus driver guide to the stairway.  The park guide before hand and afterward had been telling us the different signals the seals give to show their emotions, snorts, facial whiskers up, head positions....   upon reflection the park service guide had already been bunching us up into a group rather than a line just before the attack!   She really was so happy no one had gotten hurt.  She hadn't had an encounter this potentially dangerous in years, and this incidence was one of the worst she seen or had heard of.  The rest of the day was more anticlimactic after the bull incident.  I didn't see it myself, but the bull on the beach rose up and the Challenger coming downhill ran off at a tangent.  I was so intent at looking at the people in our group that I never noticed the after math with the bulls.  From start to finish I doubt it took a full minute, but I never noticed the time while the action was going on.  Then we had a great lunch, visited several rock formations on different parts of the sea shore, viewed the burnt results of a huge forest fire eight years previous.  The climbs down the beach, with the fierce winds, and sea spray to see the admirals arch and some ancient granite rocks right on the shore, with the ocean side wet and slippery from the pounding waves was dramatic too.  We visited an animal reserve for kangaroos and koalas, and I got pretty good pictures of both, even though I was soaked to the skin while pursuing the kangaroo pictures, a cats and dogs rainfall came down for less than ten minutes, but those were the ten minutes I was several blocks from the bus.   the following 'breezes' on the previously mentioned sea shore rock viewing dryed me off pretty quickly.  We rode buses, and ferry's for nine hours, leaving the hotel at 6:15 am and returning at ten to eleven pm.  Didn't see much of aidelaide, except for the stroll I took looking for dinner the first nite, and the rides on the bus through the city.  Oh saw a Target, Kmart and Woolworths.  The first two are clothing stores, and the Target had better styles than out Targets, but had nothing else but clothes and bedding. Didn't get into the Kmart, but Woolworths is a food store not too different than our HyVees.

Sunday, June 19, tour of Port Arthur the Tasmanian prison colony for Britain's prisoners.  It's on a Peninsula, not the most southern, but close to being the most southern point of Australia , and as close as I'm gonna get to the most southern part of Australia, like I was at Cape Horn and Cape of Good Hope.  the  first prisoners arrived shortly after the conclusion of Americas war for its independence, about 1787.  Britain's goel's were full to the brim, so when Britain's inability to send prisoners to America, she began to send them to Australia.  And Port Arthur was the equivalent of  today's maximum security prison, a goel(jail) for second offenders, or third and fourth offenders too.  These were the worst of the dredges of humanity as perceived by British court system, some were murders, but many stole a loaf of bread when they, or their family was hungry, and off they went to Australia.  Sometime after WWll, Australia's image of its history changed from being ashamed of their criminal heritage to being cocky and proud of their rebel ancestors, so that was the time that the Australian government began to save, and reclaim it's true history and rehabilitate it's remaining prisons of the nineteenth century goel's.  So that is what I visited all day today, including about four hours of driving to and from.  The buildings are partial structures, no roof, maybe not even four walls were left standing, but enough was still intact to be able to see what had been there.  For those prisoners in solitary confinement, they had to attend church, hell fire and domination sermons, were an integral part of the then modern prison theory.  So if in solitary confinement, when they went  to hear the preacher in church, they still had to be in solitary confinement, so the pews were six foot tall boxes, with about eighteen inches of floor space, and the back and sides the boxes were enclosed to the top with a wooden ceiling, but the front of the boxes had an opening just big enough so each prisoner could see the expressions and gestures of the preacher giving the prisoners the weekly Christian hellfire and domination scare therapy session in his sermon, but the prisoners in the tiered boxes could only see the preacher and not one another, thus maintaining their solitary confinement, even when in church. The prisoners were smaller than are men today, but these boxes were so small there was no way I could even attempt to enter one of them.  A smaller, thin woman in the tour tried to enter one box, but she failed to get in either.  They were coffin sized with an opening at head level to see the preacher, if that big.  Took a boat trip to the Isle of the Dead, a cemetery island, where these men, the lowest of the low, would be buried in unmarked graves so they would be unidentified in death, as they had been in jail life being prisoner number 43875 not John or Jim.  Such bleakness was also the most modern prison reform theory of the day, at that time.  However the governor of the colony prison lived in a then mansion built by the prisoners.  Also the governor had a beautiful garden for the various civilian and ranking military officers, so that these privileged folk's morale would be improved, for themselves and their families.  A happy worker is a better worker, was the governor's theory.  Sure makes a guy relieved today that he was never caught in stealing a candy bar, and eligible for such justice.