Travelog for: Libbs

Hello everyone my name is Little Brown Bunny, or Libbs for short! After a few years of living with mommy and her loving family, mommy has decided to let me see the world! I am sooo excited. Mommy says she wishes she could come with me, but she can't because she can't fit into an envelope like I can.

Mommy says she's looking for kind hosts to host me now, then I can start my journey around the world! Mommy says she will miss me and wishes that I will come home safely after my journeys. Because I am so small and easy to lose, mommy is tying a white ribbon to me, which will make me easier to spot. Mommy says I look pretty with my ribbon. Here's how I look with my new ribbon:



Right now Mommy hasn't found any hosts yet, but I looked out of the window at the quiet little neighborhood I've been living in. I'm going to miss mommy, her family and the neighborhood.

This is the view from mommy's living room.


This is mommy's primary school.


And this is me on mommy's sister's laptop. Mommy doesn't have one yet but she wishes for a macbook.



Now mommy is bringing me off to find hosts! Seeya!

Mommy tells me she's found a host from Australia, and her name is Sara! Mommy is sending me off tomorrow in an envelope, and hopefully I will arrive in Australia soon. I will miss Mommy and her family, but i can't wait to start my travels! See you Sara!

Hi mom! I've finally arrived in Australia! :-) No pictures yet since Sara was busy all day, but since I've arrived Sara says hopefully we'll get to see a bit more of Orange soon since she hasn't done many updates on the other toyvoyagers she's hosting yet since she's been busy!

Good timing eh?! Well, write again soon! Miss you mom!

Hi mom! Sorry I haven't updated yet! It's been crazy down here, Sara hasn't been able to take us out really at all... she said she's very sorry but has a few things planned for next fortnight. Hopefully she can do a bit more sightseeing around Orange...

Since I wrote Miily and Rob Dyrduck left us for China and Libbs a tiny tiny brown bunny came to visit us. It's been quite fun... today it's been very rainy so we weren't able to go out like Sara wanted to do today... ah well! More to do in the next few weeks then!

Today we decided to help Sara make a spaghetti dinner for her Daniel and us of course... she doesn't have spaghetti very often so she always makes so much more than she needs (not on purpose just because she forgets)... whatever she and Daniel don't eat just goes to the dog, Anni.

Here I am helping with the cooking of the onion and the spaghetti, as you can tell were only in the beginning stages of the cooking at this point... were trying to rush it though so we can sit down and watch a movie... :-)


...and now we brown the meat...


...and add in the tomato and tomato sauce... yummy!


...and we drain the noodles...


...and while Sara serves up the plate (everyone eats off of one plate when it's spaghetti - hah) we sat down and watched some of Sara's favorite show lately Masterchef Australia... there are only 5 people left now (well 4 now) with two people that beat celebrity chefs so they're going to the final week... Sara's favourite is Andre, which is who is on the TV in the first photo...


...and they're in Hong Kong right now... this is Gary, one of the judges trying his dish...


...It was a very good dish Gary told Andre... sadly he didn't win the test though so he had to go through something called the 'Hong Kong Super Challenge'... sounds pretty confusing I'm sure, but Sara's been hooked right in - haha... but Sara was taping it so we watched a bit more before they turned on American Beauty and watched that...


So now you have a bit of an idea of what Sara and Daniel's average night looks like... there have been a lot of movies being played, since it's the cooler months it's much easier to snuggle up in a blanket and watch movies! I promise we'll do something more fun soon! Write again soon mom! Miss you!

We got two new visitors today! Charlis the dog, and Moxy ugly doll the... ugly doll... wait, I see Charlis but where is Moxy?...


Oh there he is! He was hiding with the much larger ugly dolls that Sara has... they're kind of cute though for being "ugly" dolls aren't they?


Sara decided since she has been lazy to show you her pets. I know of them know, crazy animals! But you don't so... here's a photo of Sara's beagle Anni. She's insane. To say the least... as you can tell that's her front "lawn" which more looks like a dirt pile because of the dog... fun! Anni has been quite a handful and very hard for Daniel and Sara to take care of when they have Sara's son Andrew, who is disabled... so I'm sure you can imagine... hah!


Next is Sara's birds... she's got an aviary in her kitchen... quite a funny place but it's the best place for the light. Here I am in front of the birds... there are nine Star finches both the red and yellow faced, four Gouldian finches, Zebra finches, two Spice finches, two Society finches, that look more like this, and two Diamond doves. She also has two bottom dwelling birds, two Button Quail, which also look more like this for the male, and without the "bib" for the female. Can you see all the different birds?


Sara decided this time to take a small video so you had some ideas of the sounds they make, since for such small birds they're very vocal... VERY vocal... hah! Here's a short video if you want to see it right here. It's not easy to tell, but the zebras are making most of the noise, where as the few chirps here and there are the society finches, the peeps at the end are the star finches. One of the male Gouldians kind of... dive bombed the star finches on the platform at the end of the video - whoops! The spice finches only make noise during the morning mainly... quite noisy birds in the morning haha! Ah well, it's always fun to watch them... they're all Australian birds except for the society finch, which isn't native to anywhere... it's a captive bred bird for mixed aviaries. :-)

Anyways, moving on... Sara's also got some mice... 3 domestic mice, and 3 wild mice (the smaller cages below since they're so small)... there's a Fawn coloured one (kind of tan/orange coloured) called Fluff, a little brown one called Bongo, that Sara believes was a domestic mouse and a wild mouse must have bred and was taken to the pet store... she's also got a long haired black mouse called Shadow... they sleep in a hamburger! How crazy is that! hehe... you can't see it though because it's in the paper at the bottom... :-)


Sara's also got some fish... don't mind the 'Sara' on the side of the tank... that was all thanks to Sara's husband Daniel. They're mostly platies, but a few Chinese barb fish that have been around since 2005 when Sara moved down! There's also a bristlenose catfish, also known as a sucker fish that are common in pet stores in the US. There's also some kuhli loaches but you'd never know.. they hide so well!


Sara's also got some... well, I wouldn't call them pets by any stretch of the mind... but Sara's getting her bathroom re modelled in a few days since it's old and well... falling apart. It's very common here for bugs to get into the houses, this includes slugs, snails, spiders... all those weird things... well, Sara had a few slugs and a snail in the back of her house so she "rescued" them so they weren't killed and is releasing them outside... here we are with the few slugs in the container... yucky slimy things eh?


Well, that was all of Sara's pets.. quite a story with all of them isn't there! haha! She's quite the animal lover, and her animals love her back! She even had a partial tame Gouldian finch baby! Well, I'll end this with a photo of me looking outside... been quite dark and dreary outside lately! Oh well, it's Winter time I suppose!


Write again soon!

Well, this was day 1 of 10... we surely didn't get up early but we tried to sleep in but the loud BANG BANG BANG! Really woke us up! What was that? Well, it was a contractor in Sara's shower area tearing everything apart... ugh! She says they really needed it since when the shower was built it was not built right and tiles were falling off... so they tore all that off and jack hammered the floor... see this is all the stuff they took off the bathroom? Can you imagine? Geez that's a lot of stuff there!...


...when the contractor was done for the day we had a bit of a look back there... it's amazing, the difference even from yesterday. The right corner of the photo was where the shower is (you can see the piping a leading to the shower head). The window, on the left side was a sink... and in front of all this... was a really big wall. He tore down the wall though, pretty quickly mind you!... it's all a big surprise even to Sara and Daniel - they're not sure what it's going to look like in the end... but I'm sure it'll be nice... interesting to watch it step by step though! Here I am in front of the now torn apart shower area...


Write again soon!

Today we went to Bathurst... on the way to somewhere else... but on the way we stopped in Bathurst and had a look to see if we could see some wildlife... and indeed we did... can you see him?


Sara had a hard time getting an actual photo of him... took a few shots and focusing again and again to get a clear one... here's a much closer shot. As you can see they're very nervous creatures... and they need to be unfortunately because a lot of kangaroos get shot by local farmers! :-(


Just as Sara was looking around a bit more for anyone else, someone behind her popped up and looked quite nervous ready to jump away at any time... thankfully she stayed there... almost posed for the camera... :-)


Right near the last one, was a much smaller one laying down next to her... Sara tried to get a photo of one laying down and just as she clicked he started to get up...


...and here he is in all his glory... pretty small kangaroo though..


Sara finally decided now that she's got some proof I've seen a kangaroo we can get in the shot... sometimes they're very nervous and bounce away before Sara can get a toyvoyager in a shot... so precautionary measures.. here I am, see them behind me?


After another 20 or so shots Sara decided to get a last shot of the first kangaroo we saw... she realizes it's the one she sees all the time in the photos - he's got very distinctive eyes...


Sara has another scan around the area and doesn't see anymore... and then... what's this? Do you see it?


It took a good trained eye to notice it... but a large kangaroo is laying there... here's a closer shot of him... he doesn't seem to mind us there - although still quite a distance I think he's more concerned about getting some shut eye than paying attention to us!


After a few more shots to make sure we got a clear shot of him, Sara goes to open the car door... and then, he got up... opening the car door must have spooked him because after a few seconds Sara looked back and saw this... look at those claws! Isn't he amazing?


Now THAT is a very large male kangaroo! Sara made a few clicks and noises to get him to look at her (in the photo above) but he decided he had had enough... you can see a (not so great quality) video of him here. Sara's never caught one laying down, let alone on video... here's a few more photos of him...




...one last look to make sure were no threat to him...


...and... BOOM! He's down again...


Sara was absolutely wrapped about getting photos of this since usually they bounce off and totally ignore me, but this huge male decided to almost pose for us... how cool is that? Definitely a first for the toyvoyagers! :-) Write again soon! :-)

While we were in Bathurst we stopped at Australia's famous Mount Panorama a V8 race track that has the famous Bathurst 1000 every October. In the beginning of October, that is all that's on TV and the entire Central West (where I live) is packed full of people coming from all over Australia and sometimes even farther to see the races... it gets pretty insane! Here I am standing in front of the starting gate of the track...


...and here I am in front of the famous 'Mount Panorama' sign in top of the mountain. If you look closely you can see the advertisements at the top of the mountain (just above the sign). Just down from that is a pretty large incline down to the end of the track...


...and here is the 'King of the mountain' - Peter Brock he unfortunately died in 2006 just after the famous Steve Irwin died... they built him a statue at the mountain in memory of him and revealed it last October. He won a record 9 times on the track...


Here's a closer version of the sign so you can see it properly...


Well, now it's time to get off to Lithgow! Write again soon!

Next stop was a small town of Lithgow which is just outside of the famous Blue Mountains which you can see in these photos. It's around 90 minutes drive from Orange and 45 minutes from Bathurst. It's around an hour from Sydney at this point... unfortunately we're not going to Sydney today... but here are some photos going into Lithgow... and the last photo on the road you can see Lithgow in the distance...





...and just as we entered Lithgow we saw the Lithgow Miner's Lamp. Also known as the tourist information centre - hah!


Unfortunately we didn't spend long in Lithgow, and on the news last night Sara found out where we were going to go was now unstable and dangerous. So we couldn't do that! It was a nice lookout where you can see the blue mountains in the distance and all of Lithgow and more. Gorgeous! Hopefully we can see it again if we go through Lithgow and it's safe... instead Sara took us somewhere else... write again soon! :-)

Last stop today was Lithgow's Lyell Lake... Sara's never been here before and since we couldn't go to a view point because it was dangerous road now Sara took us here instead...



...and here I am in front of what's left of Lyell Lake...


See how it's so much darker than in Bathurst? It's because were technically closer to the coast and Sydney and it was rainy and gloomy in Sydney today apparently... it was FREEZING! What you don't realize is how low the lake is... it's usually SO much higher than this, how do I know that when I've never been here before? Have a look at this:

See the colour change on the cement thing? That's where the water level was, and is supposed to be... around 20 feet below normal... we've had a lot of dry Summer's and very dry Winter's unfortunately... Lithgow isn't as bad, but Orange's water supply is at around 11% at the moment! :-(

Apparently this lake overflowed in 2002 so they had to build a dam, which is what you see... this the backside of the dam, as you can see there's no water there... and hasn't been for quite a while...


...and here's the other side of the dam... a sloping bit, so if it does overflow it goes in a controlled area rather than into the city... there's a little bit of water down there... from the recent rains we've had...


We also got some photos of the signs around the dam where we were standing - you can see them here:




Here's a photo in the distance of the last photo of me and the back side of the dam... here is a good photo of the Blue Mountains. Unfortunately you can't tell why they're called that since it's so dark and gloomy out - but they have a blue tinge to them on nice days... really gorgeous...


Well that was that... time to get into the car which is SO much warmer... such a cold breeze Sara's rushing to get us all back in the car and head back to the warmer Bathurst and Orange...

As we were heading home we actually got to get some Red Rooster as well - yummy! No photos with it - it went down pretty quick! We were all so very hungry!


Write again soon! Miss you! :-)

Today we took a trip to a small but quite widely known town called Parkes a lot of people know about this city... but they don't know how they know about it... it is quite a famous little town that only has around 15,000 people. You would never think this small town has quite a huge history... here is the turn off to Parkes...


Well if that doesn't give it away... Parkes has a huge radio telescope (if you click that link you can see the telescope at Parkes that I saw!)...


The telescope here actually assisted in the Apollo 11 mission to the moon! How cool is that? Here I am in front of the telescope... can you believe how huge it is?


Well... it is quite famous, a lot of people didn't know that this is where the transmission from Neil Armstrong to Houston went through Parkes... crazy huh? There was even a movie made about this radio telescope and it's role in the Apollo 11 mission called The Dish... here's another photo of it without me in it...


Sara said she and Toothy Walrus had been here a few months before... the radio telescope was facing the opposite direction... you're not allowed to use any GPS systems or cell phones and you need to turn your engines off when you get close to it as it's still working... pretty cool huh?

Write again soon!

We also visited a small town 30 minutes South of Parkes called Forbes. Unfortunately Sara's never been there before, and was getting there just as the sun was setting so we weren't able to see anything - besides what we saw out the windscreen... here are a few photos driving through Forbes....





Write again soon! :-)

Today we took another trip to Bathurst... this time was quite unexpected. So we went to Bathurst, it was a very very sunny day. This time we had a bit of time so we got an ice cream at a local ice cream shop and spent some time at the local park, Machette park.

First we got to pose in front of this huge statue... it is to commemorate the exploration and opening of the West in 1813.


...Here's what the sign says...


Next we went into the centre of the park... they've got a very large duck pond with a fence so the ducks and swans can have a bit of privacy if they want to. Good idea I think... here I am in front of the duck pond...


Wow... look at this... I found a swan! It's not the normal white swans you see though... it's a black swan which are only native to Australia and some parts of New Zealand... I even got a small video of one of the swans, you can see it right here... you can hear a few of the honking noises they made... how cute!


While we were in the park we got to see one of the old houses that used to be very common in Bathurst - and you can still see quite a few around the area... although usually in not the greatest condition. You can see it was built in 1890...


Last thing of course before we left Bathurst, we went to the kangaroo hill to see if we could see any kangaroos... and we didn't think we did and then... whoa, there they are. They were quite close to the fence... so Sara had to be very careful... this is the first photo Sara took outside of the car... notice that the kangaroo on the far right is taller than the others? Well, he was standing on his toes... apparently that's a bit of a threat, and that's what they do just before they kick... SO glad I wasn't much closer to that 'roo!


Here I am in front of the kangaroos... there are quite a few today aren't there?


Here are a few more photos of the kangaroos... and if you'd like Sara got two more videos of the kangaroos today... here and here - the second video is heaps better! So definitely check 'em out!









You can see there was even a baby joey there... the third photo down shows how small he really was... although standing upright he looked like the regular kangaroos... just a bit smaller. Sara thought it could have been a wallaby from that photo which are also pretty common around here, just not as common as the Eastern Grey's.

Anyways I hope you liked the update! Sara says were taking another couple trips in the next few days so I get to see a bit more of the Central West... awesome! Write again soon!

Today we took a trip to a small town with a population of 3,000 called Blayney. It's around 30 minutes drive from Orange and is really the only town after Orange, except Millthorpe, which is a town with around 600 people... so you can see it's very rural out here...

It was very cold and rainy today unfortunately so we didn't get a nice view, but Sara took a photo of us on top of Church Hill which has a view over the town...


...since Sara was freezing and just wanted to get in the warmth of the car she got the view from the top of Church hill, the photos are in order from left to right...






In the second to last photo you can see a big factory... it's the Friskies factory for Australia. Lots of the people that live in Blayney work in the factory. There's also a lot of those huge boxes that sit on the back of trains - it's a huge transportation town for cargo trains...

...and we also got to see a magpie!


Unfortunately that's really all that Blayney has to offer. Sara lived here for 10 months before she moved to Orange, coming from Seattle to Blayney was a massive culture shock as you'd imagine.

Write again soon!

Next stop was just outside of Blayney, near a smaller town called Carcoar, population just over 200. We got to visit the Blayney wind farm and Carcoar dam...

Here I am in front of the wind farm... unfortunately you can't see it that well with the rain and fog... this is what it looks like normally...


...and here I am in front of what is left of the Carcoar dam...


This used to be a huge "hot" spot in the Summer time... people would take their kids, but unfortunately the drought has taken a toll on the area, including the dam. This photo will give you an indication of where the water level used to be...

See the big line underneath the tree? That used to be the water level... amazing how much the drought has taken from this area...

Write again soon!