The obligatory Opera House picture. They don't let you leave the country until you've taken one.	Solar-powered catamaran, taken from the harbor bridge. "Cats" seem very popular down there.
Just a cool-looking tree in Sydney.	"Flying foxes" (large bats) asleep in the Sydney botanical gardens.
First platypus picture, at Taronga Zoo (Sydney). This was actually a mistake; the camera had reset its flash setting.	This one was deliberate.

Spider monkeys.	Koala, in its natural (lethargic) state.
Forest kingfisher. I'm not sure if the two young are the same or a different species; many of the cages had more than one kind of bird.	Komodo dragon - the world's largest lizard.
I don't remember exactly what kind of giraffe this is, but I want to say Masai.	A very impressive gorilla. By the way he interacted with the others, this guy was very much The Boss.

A little bit of silliness at the zoo.	Clouded leopard. These guys are pretty rare.
Cindy pretending to feed a wallaby at Featherdale (near Sydney).	Peacock strutting his stuff.
Rainbow lorikeets. We'd actually seen a couple flying free in Sydney, but couldn't get a picture.	Blue Mountains...or Blue Mesas, as we called them. The roads and towns and such are all at the top, and the trails all go down.

Three Sisters, in the Blue Mountains.	They're not kidding, either, but the picture still cracked me up.
Gordon Falls, Blue Mountains. If it weren't for the worst drought in a century, there'd be a lot more water.	Jenolan Caves, west of the Blue Mountains.
No idea what this is. It was in the Botany Bay park (La Perouse section). The black part was hard, but the brown part had some give. My foot's in it for scale. If you have any idea, let me know.	Another rock formation at Botany Bay.

Botany Bay. Cindy didn't even realize it was an overhang until I showed her the picture.	View of Hobart from Mount Wellington, showing the visitor center.
Guard tower, Port Arthur.	Chapel, Port Arthur. Isolation was complete, so they have these stalls where the prisoners could see forward but couldn't see each other.
Typical flora, from Mt. Field National Park.	Russell Falls, Mt. Field NP.

Lake St. Clair NP. This gives a good idea of how small a platypus really is, and we also got to find out what its fur felt like. Don't worry; this guy wasn't killed just for display.	Waratah flower, Lake St. Clair NP. We saw lots of these, throughout our trip.
Echidna, somewhere in Tasmania. A still picture can't convey how adorable they are, despite the spiky bits.	A holographic tableau depicting extinct thylacines. I really didn't think a photo of a hologram - especially such a large one - would work, but I had to try.
More typical flora, this time in Strahan.	Some kind of flower, also in Strahan.

Fuchsia, in Strahan.	A little practical joke the Strahan natives play on tourists. We didn't see anyone that gullible.
Random items found on Ocean Beach. The one at top left is why swimming would not have been recommended, even if it had been warm enough.	A pademelon (rufous wallaby) that we found right behind our cabin when we arrived at Cradle Mountain.
Primeval-looking forest on the Dove Canyon trail in Cradle Mountain NP.	Rock formation in King Solomon's cave (day trip from Cradle Mountain).

"Palm Tree" rock formation, King Solomon's cave.	Wombat, Cradle Mountain NP.
Cradle Mountain in late afternoon.	Cradle Mountain the morning we climbed it. That's Little Horn on the left, then Weindorfer's Tower across the gap. The summit is actually at the very far right of the ridge.
Cradle Mountain reflected in Dove Lake.	Black currawong, with Wilkes Lake in the background.

Cradle Mountain from the trail on the way up. Yes, those white patches are snow.	Still on the way up, looking back toward Little Horn. Notice the well-constructed trail; this was common, even well away from roads and such.
This view through a natural "gateway" is almost the first view of what's on the other side of Cradle Mountain.	Cindy, near the top of Cradle Mountain (no, that's not it right there).
The marker at the real Cradle Mountain summit. Somewhat more elaborate than our survey markers; there was a similar one on Mount Wellington.	View from Cradle Mountain summit.

Looking back at the Cradle Mountain rockpile.	Mystery spider, from Cradle Mountain. The rangers couldn't tell me what it was.
Last look at Cradle Mountain, from Marion's Lookout. This time the white stuff underfoot is not snow, but a very white quartzy rock.	Brush-tailed opossum, near Cradle Mountain Lodge.
Last picture from Cradle Mountain NP. Besides the web, this picture gives a feel for what the scrub and "buttongrass" hummocks lin the area look like.	Sign near Burnie, Tasmania. This is for anyone who thinks New Zealand is close to Australia.

A lizard in the Grampians (west of Melbourne). This is the most common type of lizard we saw.	On the way up to the Pinnacle, in Wonderland (the most popular part of the Grampians).
Another kind of lizard in the Grampians. We might have seen one or two more of these, but not many.	A kookaburra in the Grampians. Note the coloration; this is a normal one.
Stubby-tailed lizard, Grampians.	View from one of the lookouts in the Grampians. The mountains just rise suddenly out of a totally flat plain, which you can see in the background here.

Last picture from the Grampians.	A western Victoria traffic jam.
Bay of Islands, on the Great Ocean Road.	Cindy dipping her feet in the Southern Ocean - not the Pacific, technically.
My turn.	A natural arch along the Great Ocean Road.

A platypus from behind, showing the shape of the tail. This time we're at Healesville, east of Melbourne, which is the only place to have bred a platypus in captivity.	My favorite platypus picture. These two are fighting over a "yabbie" (crayfish) which is one of the main parts of their diet.
Emu.	Tawny frogmouth. Great name, huh?
An albino kookaburra, I think. Possibly a juvenile, but he was adult size.	Flinders Street station, in downtown Melbourne.

Cindy in front of a jacaranda tree, in Melbourne's botanical gardens.

Bottlebrush - another common flower throughout our trip.