No Longer On The Beach

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Somehow, we don’t know how or why, we managed to pull ourselves away from Haad Khuad to go to the rainforest at Khao Sok National Park. Aside from the rainforest, one of the highlights is being able to stay in a treehouse 20 feet above the jungle floor. One of the highlights of our particular treehouse was the huge Golden Orb Spider in its massive bed sheet sized web right outside one of our windows. Golden Orb Spiders are sometimes called Bird Spiders because they occasionally catch small birds in their webs and eat them so having this gigantic spider right outside our screenless window meant that window stayed closed although it’s doubtful that a screen would have kept that guy out if he decided to come in.

While there, we took a 3 hour night hike through the black, steamy, sweltering, muddy, fetid jungle. The highlight of that journey came at the halfway point when we discovered LEECHES! They were particularly attracted to Michael and second half of the hike took significantly longer than the first half because we had to stop every five minutes or so to run flashlights over each other to check for the bloodsuckers. We weren’t particularly quiet so we saw few creatures on the hike. However, it became apparent to us that there were creatures that we could have seen when we arrived back at the park entrance and our guide realized he’d lost his cell phone during the hike and said he’d go back and look for it in the morning because he wasn’t going back in there alone. It got us wondering just what protection the five of us would have offered him. Perhaps it was the protection of not having to outrun the creature, just the slowest member of the group.

From Khao Sok, it was back to Bangkok then back to Australia for a few days before we head back home (sob!). Note the adjective, muddy, used in the description of the jungle in the above paragraph. Australian customs noticed our shoes when we arrived back in Sydney and judged them too muddy to enter the country so they kindly took them and gave all 10 shoes a good scrubbing before allowing us to proceed. We considered asking them to check our clothes in our packs too so we’d get all our laundry done courtesy of Australian customs but decided against it. We headed to the capital of Australia, Canberra, where there is a misplaced “er” because it is pronounced Can-bra. The National Museum of Australia there had many displays of famous Australians who were entirely unknown to us except for Rolf Harris who was famous for his wobble board and the song, “Tie Me Kangaroo Down, Sport”. Why Wayne knew of him is still a mystery to all of us, including himself.

Tomorrow, Wayne and Andy intend to climb the Sydney Harbour Bridge (there you go, Kev) if the weather cooperates before we all head to the airport to begin the final legs of our journey home to real life (sob, again!). Even though this has been a phenomenal trip, the kids are excited to get home and see their friends and our dogs. Wayne and Ellen, on the other hand, are still trying to bribe the kids to miss the plane tomorrow night.

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Photos

We Willingly Left This Place
We'll never really know why.

Tubing On The Sok River
Less crowded than the Apple River.

Comments

[Ma]

There should've been a hasmet warning or something like that at the beginning og this blog!!!!!!! Thanks, I've been shivering all day trying to get that picture out of MY MIND!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Here's some of my birthday suggestions....C O M E H O M E ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !...LOVE..Ma

[Julie Rumsey]

thanks
Thank you, Stroms! We have very very much enjoyed the tales of your travels! What a great adventure for your family! Thank you for sharing it!! (I'm sorry to hear you have to come home) Best-- Julie

[Peter Valsler]

Rolf Harris
If you think that "Tie Me Kangaroo Down Sport" was - err, "memorable", you shoudl hear some of his other hits. His version of "Stairway to Heaven" (I kid ye not) is seared in my memory. Apparrently one of the drawbacks of growing up in England was hearing his latest piece on the radio. Rolf - another Australian contribution to global culture :)

[Terry O'Connell]

Welcome back
Stom family, Since I am reading this on Sept 3rd you must already be back in Minnesota. Welcome home! Hope to talk to you and see you soon. Can you believe we are the parents of a 21.75 year old, a freshman in college and a freshman in high school!!! SCARY!!! How many more years of school do your kids have? Terry :)