A Pink Post Office

While we're staying in the South Coast, we will probably spend a day visiting Kiama.

So....my research topic of the day is Kiama.

I like the name. I know THAT already. Although sometimes I want to call it Kiami. I think maybe I like Kiami even better than Kiama.

It seems the highlight of Kiama is the blowhole.

Okay, in all honesty, I was privately thinking: Yeah, what's so exciting about a blowhole. Is that really something to get all worked up about? Well, Lord Wiki makes it look fun. It says that people actually sometimes get drenched. It reminds me of this ride at Six Flags (an American amusement park). The ride gets riders soaking wet. But you can also get wet by standing in a certain place near the ride.

There are beaches in the area, but we'll be staying near/on a beach and will probably need a break from beaches. Or maybe not. Who knows. We might walk along the beaches. I seriously doubt we'll swim. If we want to swim, we'll do that near our Holiday Park.

According to Lord Wiki, there is another less well-known blowhole. I guess if the main one becomes too crowded, we can go to the other one. Or if we become huge blowhole fans, we can visit both. We might even end up traveling the world looking for blowholes!

What else is in Kiama?

There is something called Cathedral Rocks. I was once telling Tim about all these famous things in Australia we should see. Uluru, Devil's Marbles, The Twelve Apostles, Wave Rock, etc. Tim said something like, what's the deal with Australia and all their rocks?

There's a pink post office that has some kind of interesting history. Fun.

Terralong Street has shops, restaurants, some more historical stuff, and a florescent whale sign. Maybe we'll go there.

Oh! There's an amusement park. Jamberoo. Maybe we'll do this. It's a big maybe. The only thing that would probably be fun for the three of us is the waterslides, and the price is a bit high for just that. I'm not sure it would be worth it for us. I guess we'll see.

What's neat is the website provides some history of the amusement park. It started out in 1974 as an unsuccessful dairy farm; and it opened its first waterslides in 1981. There's a lot more fascinating stuff on the website. I'm just giving you highlights.

If anyone has ever gone to this park, please tell me if it's good or not. And whether you think it's SAFE. I've developed a small little fear of amusement parks after seeing this website. Yikes.

Now I'm going to go look at the Kiama tourism site. I'm hoping it's more exciting than Lord Wiki. Lord Wiki kind of failed to get me excited about Kiama. Okay, the blowhole is cool. But a pink post office? It just doesn't do it for me. Maybe if it was pink with polka-dots. That might get me all excited.

Here we go.....

The word Kiama comes from the Koori word kiaram-a. This seems to mean (no one seems quite definite about it) where the sea makes a noise. I guess that blowhole is noisy, maybe?

The first white guy to visit the area seem to be George Bass. He had a whaleboat.

David Smith was the first white guy to settle there.

The main industries in the past were dairy and the mining of a blue metal called basalt. Now one of the main industries is tourism. That's why they have waterslides!

Here's another Kiama website. The last one didn't really do much for me. This one has a photograph of the pink post office. I have to admit that it does look rather lovely. I can't say I'd go out of my way to see it, but if we happen to pass it, I won't complain.

They also have a photo of the main street (probably Terralong?) that looks really nice. Although I might be saying this because it has an ice-cream shop. See...I really WOULD have a hard time going vegan.

Now here's an exciting page on the website. Controversy! The issue of urban sprawl vs. beautiful scenic land. Which would you choose?

In Fort Worth (where I live) development has been happening very rapidly. Since Tim and I moved here in 2000, there has been so much building. It's sometimes amazing to look back to when we lived in NYC, and we'd come down here to visit my parents. It was so different then. I sit there thinking to myself there was no Costco, no Target, no Babys-R-Us, no Central Market etc. This shopping center wasn't there yet and neither was that one. It seems like every month or so, something new is popping up. In a way, we like it because it's exciting to have new stores and restaurants. On the other hand, there's less and less trees and less pretty little nature areas. The other thing is, it often seems they're overbuilding. There are these shopping centers that remain empty for a long time. It's like someone builds them, but then no one wants to open up a shop there.

I do like big cities such as Sydney and New York. I LIKE dense places like that, l and I think we're going to need more and more of it, because population is growing, and global warming will probably flood millions of people from their home. But I think we still need a lot of quiet nature places.

What we really need is a pandemic to wipe out 90% of the human race. That would probably solve most of the world's problems. But you know, it's a bit nasty and depressing. I totally hate being sick and I don't think I'd like seeing all my friends and family dying.

Here's something really cool. The Kiama Family History Centre You can go here to find out about your ancestors. They provide a group tour for eight dollars. I think this gives general historical information. But if you want to dig deeper, you can pay sixteen dollars for a full day research pass. They have all kinds of goodies available: convict records, passenger lists, death and birth notices, marriage records, land records......

It's kind of like Ancestry.com, but you're not online. I think it would be fun. Well, maybe not for us since we're not Australian. And I had a really hard time with Ancestry.com. I really couldn't find anything. I'm not good at genealogy. I like the idea of it though.

Oh! Forgot to add. The center provides information for all of Australia. It's not just about Kiama people. I just wanted to make that clear.

There's a lighthouse in Kiama. That might be fun to see, and it looks like it's near the blowhole.

I'm trying to find out more about the post office. What's so historical about it? Maybe historical just means old. ???? I want something exciting--some great historical gossip.

Well.....

I'm not finding anything.

Maybe it's just famous because it's pink and old.

Maybe I'll paint my house pink and it will be famous.

I like pink. Although it has become a little bit too associated with breast cancer. It's kind of a sad color now for me. I guess I should see the positive--it's more about people wanting to CURE breast cancer.

It's funny how colors can start having such strong associations. Right now red is totally Republican to me. We live in a RED state, and we wish our state would be blue.

Remember when red and green went from being Christmas colors to Freddy Krueger colors?

And back to red. It was a very positive color in V: The Final Battle. Remember the red dust that killed all the bad reptile aliens?

What would our world be like if we

 knew for sure there 

was life after death, and 

we could easily talk to our 

dearly-departed on the Internet?

The Dead are Online a novel by Dina Roberts