Adelaide, Australia

Since arriving in Australia last week, we've covered a couple thousand kilometers. Here's how:

Our first few days in Perth (West Australia) were very relaxing. We hung out at the beach, attended an Aboriginal Festival and ate some kangaroo and emu (actually both are quite good). On Tuesday, we took a ferry to Rottnest Island ("Rotto") off the coast of Perth in the Indian Ocean. Rotto is like Nantucket without the people, homes and SUV's. There's also a local island creature called a Quokka which, in addition to being a great Scrabble word, is a small rat-like marsupial that hops around like a mini kangaroo. There's a rumor that the college kids visiting the island ("schoolies") engage in the local sport of "Quokka Soccer" - this is appalling. Clearly, with their natural, oblong shape, the Quokkas are much better suited for rugby.

We rented bikes on Rotto and peddled around the island to various deserted beaches and even got in some snorkeling. We rode past big lizards, snakes and the ubiquitous quokkas. We stopped to approach one group of quokkas to get a closer look and an Aussie on the road at the time explained to us that you could go right up to them. He walked forward and stuck out his hand and the nearest quokka bit right into his finger and wouldn't let go. Needless to say, I think the average Aussie is more like Steve Irwin than he'd probably like to admit.

On Wednesday, we got up early and headed to the train station for our 50-plus hour trip across the outback. We reserved the "backpacker" seats which had about as much leg-room as coach class on an airplane. Fortunately, there was a lounge in the next car and we spent quite a bit of time hanging out with other travelers on hard couches and showing off our UNO and Trivial Pursuit skills. Most of the other travelers were Aussies traveling to see family so it was good to talk to some locals and get some advice on things to do.

The Indian Pacific train departed from Perth and made two stops before dropping us off in Adelaide. Our first stop was Kalgoorlie ("Kal"). Kal is famous as Australia's largest mining town and the only place in the country where all the bartenders are young women in their underwear ("skimpies"). I can't imagine this is a coincidence. While having a few pints of beer in a strange wild west pub that was playing hip hop videos from 5 years ago on its televisions, we met a fellow passenger on our train named Zack. Zack, it turns out, was only taking the train to our second stop, which was Cook. This is remarkable because Cook is reported to only have a population of 4. I asked Zack if he was number 5 and he said, "No mate, I'm number 6. Me dad's number 5 - he runs the souvenir shop." Sure enough when we arrived in the ghost-town of Cook on Thursday afternoon, Zack went right behind the counter at the souvenir shop and started selling random crap to the other passengers. From what we could tell, Zack's mom (either number 3 or 7) was the only girl in Cook, and therefore within 1,000 kilometers. Now I understand why he was having such a good time in Kal.

We eventually arrived in Adelaide (South Australia) after traveling the longest stretch of straight track in the world, spotting some wild kangaroos and meeting some new friends. Although all of these new friends consistently had nothing good to say about Adelaide, we've been here a day and it's awesome. There are tons of good restaurants, food markets and shops, there's a guitar festival in town with free outdoor concerts, there's a classic car rally taking place and even a casino. Tomorrow we go on a tour on the Barossa Valley to sample Australian wines and Sunday we leave on a camping/surfing/snorkeling trip to Kangaroo Island off the coast. There's even a beach outside of town that you get to on a San Francisco-style trolley. So, basically, I don't think we'll get bored here.

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