Danger on the Hawkesbury

Oh Australia, how charming and harmless you seem from afar with you sparkling beautiful beaches, gloriously sunny weather and plethora of outdoor activities. I did not know that once I got here I would constantly be bombarded with crap weather and DANGEROUS ANIMALS. Seriously, how do they disguise this fact from us so well?

Ok, the crap weather is just this year...or so they say, though they could be lying I would never know. Although it is nice and officially summer weather now so I'll quit whining about the constant rain, but seriously, I'm from Oregon and it's been a lot of rain EVEN FOR ME.

Moving on.

I've told you all about the dangerous animals in Queensland, but there are dangerous animals here in NSW (that's New South Whales for all of you non-Aussies, the state in which Sydney is located) as well. First up we have the funnel web spider, which is one of the most venomous spiders in the world. Awesome. Luckily I have never had the misfortune of running into one of these guys, but just the knowledge that they're here is enough for me.

Also here in Sydney are sharks, now of course I know you're all thinking, well duh of course there are sharks there, you're on the ocean. But did you know, that there are more shark attacks IN THE HARBOUR than on the beaches. Crazy shit, no? And did you also know that there are SHARKS IN THE RIVER.

Seriously, you can't even go houseboating without fear of BEING EATEN BY A SHARK.

Oh Australia.

So, anyway, the point of this post is...we went houseboating on the Hawkesbury River and luckily it was nice and CLOUDY, again because the weather in Sydney is so awesome, so it wasn't even warm enough to get in the river but once. Which means, I did not get eaten by a shark IN A RIVER.

Another little interesting tidbit about Australian wildlife, apparently there are jellyfish in the river as well. What? Jellyfish in the river? Yes, jellyfish in the river. Now, luckily these little suckers are not venomous and don't even have stingers, but holy hell they're big!

This is our boat.

Now, my pictures I warn you are going to portray the weather as deceptively sunny. This was purposeful, mostly because I was not the photographer the majority of the time, and Dom only whipped it out when the weather was nice.

The camera, he only whipped out the camera when the weather was nice! Dirty minds. Oh, was that just me when I read back the sentence?

Anyway.

I am a fabulous boat driver.

See the jellys?

Pretty sunset.

Waterfall.

Now, about the waterfall. We decided to climb it. I don't know why we decided to climb it, but we decided to climb it.

But we successfully made it to the top! And my thighs hurt for a full week afterward. Fantastic workout.

T-minus 14 Days, that's just 2 weeks to home!