One Heck Of A Ride

206 The South Pacific Australian Safaris) and shot a Javan rusa deer and a banteng. (The deer qualified for listing in the SCI record book, but the banteng didn’t.) With my hunt over, Marty and I went fishing for barramundi. She enjoyed catching them but having to watch for crocodiles made her uncomfortable. We were having a great time, and even more fun came when we hooked up with a group of fifteen Aussie and kiwi couples who were our age on the trip south from Darwin to Alice Springs. We stopped often along the way, and did some sightseeing and ate spotted dog muffins and grubs, rode camels, and had dinner at sunset at Ayers Rock. From Ayers Rock, we flew to Sydney and got a room in a hotel where the Sydney Opera House was out our window. It was an old hotel, we were on the second floor, there was no bell captain and no elevator, but its view and its price made it memorable. Other hotels nearby cost US$400.00 per night. Ours was only US$100.00. Marty had us on a schedule that limited us to twenty-one days away from home, so we cut our stay in Sydney short and flew to Tahiti and spent a couple of days on the beach before returning to Los Angeles, Santa Maria and home. We still talk about those three wonderful weeks that began with such a bad start.