"Stranded on a South Pacific Island"
We had heard that Doubtful Sound in Fiordland National Park in New Zealand was one of the most beautiful places in NZ and in the world, however, we could only get there by charter boat and bus through a perilous mountain pass. Sounded like an adventure to us! It was rainy and foggy the morning we left Te Ananu (the small town we were staying in)to drive to Pearl Harbor (another small town) to get on the charter boat. Doug wanted and we did take the cheaper and smaller tour. Our was $130 and the other $165 nz.
We boarded the boat along with 11 other tourists from the US, Germany, Canada, and Tasmania. The boat was very small, but our captain and owner Nigel, was very nice and seemed to know what he was doing. The boat ride across the lake was to connect wiwith a bus to cross a mountain pass and on to Doubtful Sound for another boat ride. the boat ride was about 30 minutes. The scenery was breathtaking with giant glaciers and mountains cascading into the water. Needless to say, it was cold. Nancy had on two pair of socks, gloves and a warm sweater and polartec coat and Doug was bundled up as well. When we got to the bus, there seemed to be no heat. We continued on up a steep, gravel road that ultimately turned into a snow covered road. The road was only big enough for one car or bus and you would not want to meet another vehicle on the road- no guard rails and steep cliffs.
The scenery was very interesting and beautiful with rainforest-like plants near the bottom of the mountain covered with snow and evergreen and shrub as we reached higher altitudes. We stopped about half-way up the mountain and the captain put chains on the tires. We knew then we were headed into real snow country. There were two full size buses behind us from the $165 tour carrying folks who had signed on with a bigger tour group to Doubtful Sound and were traveling on a bigger boat than us and paid more than us. We liked being with the smaller group and it was exciting. Next thing we know, our bus broke traction on a downward sloop and thankfully hit the ditch on the mountainside of the road. Of course, if we had not hit the mountain, we would have gone off the "cliff-side," and would not be here to tell the story!
We had to wait what seemed like an eternity (about 1 hour) for the bus behind us to assist in pulling us out of the ditch. All of us tourists played in the snow and took pictures while our able captain worked to free us from our dilemma. We finally got out and headed up the mountain to a place where we could turn around.One of the other big buses got stuck as well. All together we were about 3 hours on the mountain with no heat. We were not able to get to Doubtful Sound that day due to the snow. But, we could try again the next day. And, so we did.
The next day, we again traveled to Pearl Harbor to get on the boat and took the beautiful boat ride to the bus to head back up the snowy mountain to Doubtful Sound. This time it appeared again we would not make it as it was very icy. But, our able captain, Nigel, drove on and got us to Doubtful Sound. However, the two big bus tours did not make it through again and they turned back. It was exciting finally making it over the pass, but also scary in that we had no one to help us if we got stuck again. Once we got to the second boat moored at Doubtful Sound, we had a beautiful boat trip among big glacial mountains with hundreds of waterfalls cascading into the sound. We were only 25 km from the epicenter of the 7.1 earthquake that had occured the week before. We saw places on the mountains in Doubtful Sound where the trees were loosened by the earthquake and had fallen into the water. We saw penquins and seals and unusual birds as we drifted along in the water. It was rainy and foggy, but so beautiful. We were so glad to have made it to Doubtful Sound.
Two years ago, when we were in Norway on the way to the fiords there, we had car trouble and almost didn't make it. It is interesting that we were in Fiordland National Park where Doubtful Sound is located, when again, we experienced peril. The Fiords are so beautiful, but we have experienced the unexpected both times we have visited fiords in two separate parts of the world-Norway and New Zealand.
Friday, June 27, 2008
New Zealand
June 25th. We have been looking at this trip for a couple of years and on the internet for 3 months. The first real plans were the 90 day VISAs which I got 2 nights ago.
7-29. Plane-got free tickets for frequent flyer miles with American Airlines. After checking for 14 nights, I got a fairly good schedule. We leave on 7th august and spend 35 days in NZ and then 90 days in OZ, returning on 12th December. I should have reserved earlier but we did not get the miles needed until 9th of July. First place to stay: we wanted to stay in Auckland city for the first week, but did not want to pay the price.
We have a 2 bed/ 2 bath apt in a resort for $294 USD for a week. Of course, this is not the resort season. It is about an hour north of town. This is in our budget and I think we can do better when we are on the ground. NKO has consented to stay in cabins with the bath down the road!
Rental car: I settled on one that is about half of what AVIS wanted. $34nzd or $25US per day. The car is 6-10 years old and very small.August 9: We arrived in Auckland after a 12 hour flight from LA and 7 hours of flying from RDU via Miami to LA. The 12 hour flight was almost unbearable, but we did have our TV screens in our seat to keep us busy and games such as solitaire to stay awake if we wanted to stay awake. We flew on a big 747. We both slept a little, but we were pretty much zombies when we arrived at 5:30 a.m. Saturday,
August 9th. Got the car at 7:00 a.m. and headed to the Otari Market, a big market which sells all kinds of South Pacific Island goodies, along with fresh fruits, vegetables and other good food. We ate a wonderful sandwich, but we don't know what it was! Stopped in Auckland to look around and headed to our condo in Gulf Harbor, north of the city. The condo is beautiful with all the modern conveniences you could want and huge. It is right on the water with yachts out front and very modern. Went to bed at 7:30 p.m. to catch up on much needed sleep.
August 10. Attended a wonderful concert at the symphony hall in Auckland performed by the Auckland Philharmonic. Also, went shopping downtown where they have a lot of nice shops. Found a good grocery store called "New World" and stocked up on some healthy food for the condo. Also, attended a nice country fair held at a local school. Enjoyed mingling with the locals. Auckland has so many different, diverse neighborhoods to explore. It is like Seattle, San Diego and Vancouver all put together. The weather has been both sunny and rainy, but mild temperatures-55 to 60 degrees during the day.
August 13. Today is NKO's birthday and we had a wonderful lunch at an up-scale deli in a fashionable Auckland neighborhood. The food here has lots of Asian influence and is so good. But, we're not gaining weight, keeping up with WeightWatcher points and eating reasonable portions. NKO has lost 33 pounds since January 9 and DAC has lost 22 pounds since March. Yesterday, we drove way up north and saw gorgeous scenery-lush, tropical landscape with high mountains. All kinds of different flowers growing here. Visited site where the Maori people (South Pacific Island people) first landed and lived in NZ. Lots of history here related to the Maori people. Visited the art museums in Auckland on Monday. Yesterday while driving to the north, we stopped along side the road and saw dolphins playing near the beach. By the way, our rental car is a 1994 Toyota Camry with 194,000 miles on it. It works fine. Will explore the south part of the north island next week and then take the ferry to the South Island where there are huge mountains with snow, lots of volcanos and craters-place where they filmed "Lord of the Rings." Will fly to Sydney next month to begin our Australia adventure. More on NZ later!
August 14. Today we went shopping at a huge shopping center/area outside Auckland. They have different stores here and it was very interesting. Driving on the left is challenging to say the least, but DAC is doing so good, sometimes with my help or in spite of it! Only thing is he keeps turning on the windshield wipers when he wants the turn signal as they are reversed. I guess the KiWi's know we are tourists when they see our windshield wipers on when it is not raining! We are headed to the symphony tonight. Last night we had a wonderful dinner at one of Auckland's finest restaurants to celebrate NKO birthday. We ate ostrich, crayfish ravioli, white fish, polenta and the best "French cut" green beans. The meal was $65 US, but worth it. Portions were small. Also, Doug ordered "ravioli" and he received one ravioli. It was kind of big, but not that big! This was a restaurant that believed in portion control! We may stay in Auckland another week as we are enjoying it. Then head to the South island. We'll keep you posted. Also, we may change rental cars. DAC found a deal with another rental agency for a newer car at a cheaper rate. Another story, we lost a hubcap on the car we have so we have been checking around to find a replacement so the rental company does not charge us an arm and leg for one. Found one today for $13. But, yesterday DAC found a used one for $5. We put it on, drove away and when we reached our next destination it had already fallen off. Needless to say, we won't put the $13 one on until right before we return the car. New Zealand has the cleanest bathrooms we have ever seen. No matter where you go, they are clean, spacious and there are plenty of them. We rate this country tops on bathrooms!
August 16. We are going to see NZ's biggest opera diva-Melvena Majors in concert tonight at the symphony hall. Also, headed to Sky City Casino to watch the kick-off of the NZ All Blacks against the Aussies, the biggest rugby game of the season. After the kick-off, we'll head down the street to hear Melvena. DAC got up early this morning and exchanged our car for one that is a dollar cheaper per day and newer-a 2000 Toyota Camry-real nice with "cup holders." The other one did not have cup holders which made it difficult for Doug to feed his coffee habit while driving! We are headed to the south of the North Island tomorrow. We'll be back in Auckland next Friday and stay at the condo in Gulf Harbor next weekend. The scenery should be beautiful on our road trip this week. We feel pretty rested after a week here, but NKO still gets hungary at odd hours-guess we're used to eating EST, not NZ time. Another note, we are not able to get the Sunday NY Times here, but the local papers are pretty interesting.
August 27. We are in Wellington this week and off on the ferry to the south island on Friday. We have had a great road trip through the north island, stopping at many thermal baths and mineral baths which are all over the place due to the volcanic formations in NZ. We attended a Maroi concert and dinner one night which provided us with a performance of Maroi life when they first settled NZ. Doug was selected as the "Chief" for our group and got special attention all night-he was very happy! Met other travelers from Germany, Ireland, Holland and US. It was a fun evening of entertainment. We have been eating good food-bluff oysters and mussels to die for. One day we had oysters and mussels at a place along side the road delivered to us in newspaper wrapping-steamed-so delicious and a beautiful picnic table for enjoying the food and scenery. We went to a wine and food exhibition in Auckland last weekend that was fantastic. The food show was for those in the business and we got in by telling them we were partners in Sid's Barbecue in Beulaville (our favorite barbecue restaurant at home). We were treated to all kinds of different food samplings and wines. We were "happy campers" after leaving this exhibition event. We are doing fine with our Weight Watcher's program in spite of the good food we are trying here. It is cold here and we will encounter snow on the south island. Finally figured out the time change-when you all are starting your day at 8:00 a.m. we are going to sleep at midnight after experiencing the day you are about to enjoy. We went to the horse races in Auckland last weekend and Doug won $6 and I won $3. We just covered our parking and a coffee for Doug. Also, Doug won $20 in Auckland at the Casino last week playing roulette. Guess he is lucky in NZ! They have a steeplechase horse race that is unbelievable. The horses jump several bushes and run a course that lasts 5 minutes. It was truly amazing and a female jockey won the steeplechase race. Wellington is the capital of NZ and a very nice town-reminds us of San Francisco with steep mountains and houses built on the bluffs. We went to a very "artsy" play last night in Wellington. It was very unusual and probably wouldn't play well on Broadway, but for here, it was very good. We have been staying in nice holiday parks which provide one and two bedroom suites or cabins for reasonable prices-about $45-50 US per night. We usually have cooking facilities and we keep our diet cokes and healthy snacks in a box in the back of the car. We are "traveling nomads," but having a good time. The ferry ride we will take Friday to the south island may be rough as we will go through Cook's Strait in the Tasmin Sea/Pacific Ocean, but we should be fine. There was an earthquake last week on the south island that measured 7.1 and there are some aftershocks, but no one was injured. NZ has very wild, green, mountainous scenery with all kinds of jungle-like trees and foilage. It is very unique and we have been impressed with it. Looking forward to Australia next month where it will be a bit warmer. It is nice to experience winter in the summer "down under." When we get to Christchurch, we will only be about 4 hours plane ride from Antartica, but we don't plan to visit there!
August 28. Still enjoying Wellington. We visited Parliment today and observed a debate session-very interesting. Also, visited a maritime museum and found a week old New York Times in a newspaper shop for Doug-cost of $8! Last week we had some adventures. We visited the Craters of the Moon in Tapou, a very beautiful stark scenery with lots of volcanic activity-geysers and smoke coming out of the ground everywhere. Also, we saw our first kiwi bird at the aquarium in Gisborne. The kiwi is a cute furry bird with a large beak. We visited a prawn (shrimp) farm in Tapou where we got to feed baby shrimp, then we ate a delicious shrimp meal at the shrimp farm restaurant. We went to a neat city called New Plymouth where Tom Cruise has been filming his latest film, The Last Samuri. There is a huge mountain there that looks like Mt. Figi-guess they want to replicate Japan in NZ! We stayed at a lodge at Dawson Falls, half-way up a 6,000 ft. mountain that was gorgeous. It was pricey-$150 for one night with a home-cooked dinner, but worth it. Apparently, even Tom Cruise could not stay there (he wanted to, according to the innkeeper), but his private helicoptor could not land near the lodge. Being a common person does have some privileges!
Last weekend in Auckland, we went to a wonderful flea market and bought winter clothes-warm tops and sweaters for our trip down south. We bought a few things for 50 cents each and some for 20 cents. Nancy washed them and they are so nice-can't find good stuff that cheap in the US! We attended our first Rugby game last Saturday night in Albany, outside Auckland. A rougher game than US football, but very interesting. We had seats up close and personal! We drove through Rotorua this past week, a beautiful, haunting place with lots of thermal baths and smouldering ground. Visited an old bathhouse that is now a museum. In the early 1900's, this was "the place" to take mineral and mud baths to cure diseases and pamper your skin. Visited a "glowworm cave" last week where small worms glow in the dark in the intricate caves-rode through the cave in a boat. It is cold here-45 degrees, but most of the beds we sleep in have "bed warmers"-electrical cords and blanket under the bed with a control switch for keeping your bed warm-like an electric blanket, only under the mattress, not on top. We drove on a highway called the "Forgotten World Highway" last week that was so beautiful-lots of green mountains with grazing sheep everywhere-twists and turns and you thought you were on another planet! We have enjoyed the TePapa Museum in Wellington which provides lots of interactive displays on life in NZ, including earthquakes, the animals of NZ, immigration of people, etc. One of the best museums we have seen and free of charge to all!
We plan to go to the South Island tomorrow via ferry, unless we find a "weekend hotel" deal in Wellington in which case we would stay and enjoy the city life a little longer. The south island has very few people and the highlight of our trip there will be the spectacular scenery. The main towns on the south island are Christchurch, Queenstown, Nelson and Dunedin. We don't plan to bungee jump off the Queenstown bridge, but you never know!!September 7. We are in Christchurch after an exciting week and a half traveling throughout the South Island. We took a ferry from Wellington to Nelson which was beautiful-like cruising on the inland waterway passage in Alaska-big mountains and cliffs along the Cook Straits. We stayed in a very small town, Collingwood, last Saturday night in an adorable cottage called "the Bluebird," right on the sound. Tinky's Tavern was in town and we had a beer and watched the rugby game on the telly. We took a gorgeous drive through the Southern Alps to Franz Joseph and Fox Glacier. These glaciers run right into a rain forest, the only place in the world where this happens. We stayed in a cozy cabin only 4 km from the glacier. Then we headed to Milford Sound and Doubtful Sound where we stayed in a small resort town called TeAnau. This is the area where the 7.1 earthquake had occurred a week earlier. In fact, they had another last night that was 6.1 magnitude, but we had left the day before. Te Anau is gorgeous and sits on Lake Manapouri.
We took a boat ride and perilous bus trip over huge mountains to cruise in Doubtful Sound a few days ago. It was spectacular as there were hugh volcanic mountains and rain forest foilage. A story will be forthcoming on that adventure. We drove through Queenstown, but did not bungee jump or take a jet boat ride through the canyons this time! They were snow skiing in the the mountains surrounding Queenstown. We then drove on to Invercargill which brought us below the 46th parallel and closer to the Antarctic. We had the best bluff oysters in Bluff, NZ and stayed on a sheep farm in near Invercargill. We drove on to Dunedin yesterday and enjoyed the symphony there last night.
Tonight we went to the symphony in Christchurch and heard Vivaldi's Four Seasons. Some interesting NZ information-prostitution is legal in NZ. They have loads of reality TV shows, one called "The Filth File" about how restaurants are kept clean or not so clean. Another called "Border Patrol" about the inspection agents at the Auckland Airport and their stories on catching people smuggling stuff into the country. There are 4 million people in all of NZ and half of them live in Auckland while the remainder live mostly in Wellington, Dunedin, and Christchurch. The beef and lamb here is all "grass-fed" and tastes so much better than in the US. Most all of the fruits and vegetables are organic. NZ is trying to keep their meat and produce and vegetables from being genetically engineered like in the US, but things may change in the future. They have the best sweet potato here called Kumara-delicious! There are only about 3 or 4 TV channels and most people only get 7 or 8 even if they have what is called "Sky TV." Doug is still going through withdrawal from watching all his TV programs at home. It is still cold here in the Southern part of the Southern Hemisphere, but we are looking forward to warmer weather in Australia. We are flying to Sydney on Friday from Christchurch. We will be in Christchurch this week taking in the sights. A popular saying here is "no worries." Stay tuned for more news from down under and "no worries to you."
September 9. We are still in Christchurch staying at a nice two bedroom apartment in a holiday park. Only $68 NZ per night ($45 US). Christchurch is the most "English" city in NZ while Dunedin where we visted a few days ago is the most "Scottish" city in NZ. We took a scenic drive yesterday to a small town on the ocean with snow-capped mountains behind it. The town, Kaikoura is known for the blue whales that swim in the waters nearby. The town is so beautiful. We saw a seal colony on the beach this morning, up close. Also, bought a cooked crayfish for $25 NZ and had it for breakfast. The crayfish here are world famous and we just had to try it. We bought it at a fish market-at the restaurants crayfish goes for $50 and upwards. We have been eating a lot of fish here and it is very good. For lunch today we had a risotto dish with shrimp, mussels, and salmon seasoned with rosemary and thyme. Also, a scallop mousse.
The other night Doug was so desperate to watch TV he was watching a "sheep-herding tournament" on one of the three channels on TV. Very interesting how the sheep-herder and sheep dog do their job and this was a tournament, just like watching golf in the US. Also, we heard a cooking show on the radio yesterday on NZ public broadcasting. They were talking with a famous chef and giving us recipes just like on the "food channel" on TV at home! Forgot to mention that when we were in Doubtful Bay a couple of days ago, it was snowing. Doubtful Bay is in Fjordland National Park which is so beautiful.
On another note, the young folks in NZ and Australia (in their late teens or early twenties) go on what is called "OE," overseas experience. They travel to England or US or other countries for a couple of years to get some life experiences. Living on an island is an isolated lifestyle so this gives them a different perspective. Sounds like a good idea to me! We went to the big Presbyterian Church in Christchurch last Sunday-it was very nice and the people were real friendly. We met a couple from Tuscaloosa, AL. He was a visiting minister and his wife was traveling with him. He used to preach in Chapel, NC-it is a small world! They sang beautiful modern hymns-they were so poetic. A bit of trivia-there are more sheep in NZ than people! We fly to Sydney on Friday and will be there for 11 days. Then headed out on a road tour of Australia. We have rented an apartment 5 minutes walk from the Sydney Opera House. Doug plans to buy a car for us to travel around Australia. There are car auctions and lots of used cars available and it is cheaper than renting a car.
September 10. Today we went to Antarctica. The Antarctica Exhibit in Christchurch, that is. Christchurch is only about 900 miles from Antarctica and all planes going there fly from here. They have a wonderful exhibition that provides insightful information on the continent of Antarctica and gives you a real-live experience as if you were actually there. It is well worth visiting if you are in Christchurch. Last Sunday, we went to an exceptionally nice outdoor market at the race track in Christchurch. They had lots of neat new items and second-hand stuff. It was as good as the Rose Bowl outdoor market in Pasadena, CA held the first Sunday of each month.We have been taking lots of pictures here, but will get them developed when we get back and put them on a website with Walmart. There are no Walmarts here, only a big store called The Wearhouse that is like Walmart, only has less stuff and no groceries. No photo stores here provides a website for pictures and we don't have a computer with us to upload pictures. We will email everyone with the website of where our pictures will be when we get back in December and add the web address to this website at that time.
September 12. Flying to Sydney at 2:30 p.m today. We stopped off at the casino in Christchurch this morning to check it out. Bet $5NZ on black on routlette and won $5-guess it is our lucky day. During our 35 days in NZ, we averaged spending $280 NZ dollars per day which is equal to $168 US dollars per day. The gas was $26 NZ per day.We put about 8,500 kilometers on the car. Our car rental was $33 NZ per day. We met people who paid as low as $25 NZ per day, but we were satisfied with our car.Our lodging averaged $73 NZ per day or $44 US. This consisted of 10 nights in a 3 bedroom condo, 3 nights in a regular hotel room, and the rest in one or more bedroom tourist flats in holiday parks. The above expenses were relatively fixed. The food and entertainment costs would vary by the number of people and preferences. Our cost was $140 NZ per day. Our costs included no unprepared meals, but did include a lot of prepared food from groceries, deli's and such. We also enjoyed some high-class restaurant meals as well as diner food. We bought interesting cheeses, breads, and soups. We did not eat at NZ or American restaurant chains. We used frequent flyer miles for our airfare to and back home from "down under." Now we'll see if Australia is as reasonable as we hope it will be. We have heard food is less expensive in Australia than in NZ-we'll see! More adventures in Australia after we arrive there-stay tuned.
7-29. Plane-got free tickets for frequent flyer miles with American Airlines. After checking for 14 nights, I got a fairly good schedule. We leave on 7th august and spend 35 days in NZ and then 90 days in OZ, returning on 12th December. I should have reserved earlier but we did not get the miles needed until 9th of July. First place to stay: we wanted to stay in Auckland city for the first week, but did not want to pay the price.
We have a 2 bed/ 2 bath apt in a resort for $294 USD for a week. Of course, this is not the resort season. It is about an hour north of town. This is in our budget and I think we can do better when we are on the ground. NKO has consented to stay in cabins with the bath down the road!
Rental car: I settled on one that is about half of what AVIS wanted. $34nzd or $25US per day. The car is 6-10 years old and very small.August 9: We arrived in Auckland after a 12 hour flight from LA and 7 hours of flying from RDU via Miami to LA. The 12 hour flight was almost unbearable, but we did have our TV screens in our seat to keep us busy and games such as solitaire to stay awake if we wanted to stay awake. We flew on a big 747. We both slept a little, but we were pretty much zombies when we arrived at 5:30 a.m. Saturday,
August 9th. Got the car at 7:00 a.m. and headed to the Otari Market, a big market which sells all kinds of South Pacific Island goodies, along with fresh fruits, vegetables and other good food. We ate a wonderful sandwich, but we don't know what it was! Stopped in Auckland to look around and headed to our condo in Gulf Harbor, north of the city. The condo is beautiful with all the modern conveniences you could want and huge. It is right on the water with yachts out front and very modern. Went to bed at 7:30 p.m. to catch up on much needed sleep.
August 10. Attended a wonderful concert at the symphony hall in Auckland performed by the Auckland Philharmonic. Also, went shopping downtown where they have a lot of nice shops. Found a good grocery store called "New World" and stocked up on some healthy food for the condo. Also, attended a nice country fair held at a local school. Enjoyed mingling with the locals. Auckland has so many different, diverse neighborhoods to explore. It is like Seattle, San Diego and Vancouver all put together. The weather has been both sunny and rainy, but mild temperatures-55 to 60 degrees during the day.
August 13. Today is NKO's birthday and we had a wonderful lunch at an up-scale deli in a fashionable Auckland neighborhood. The food here has lots of Asian influence and is so good. But, we're not gaining weight, keeping up with WeightWatcher points and eating reasonable portions. NKO has lost 33 pounds since January 9 and DAC has lost 22 pounds since March. Yesterday, we drove way up north and saw gorgeous scenery-lush, tropical landscape with high mountains. All kinds of different flowers growing here. Visited site where the Maori people (South Pacific Island people) first landed and lived in NZ. Lots of history here related to the Maori people. Visited the art museums in Auckland on Monday. Yesterday while driving to the north, we stopped along side the road and saw dolphins playing near the beach. By the way, our rental car is a 1994 Toyota Camry with 194,000 miles on it. It works fine. Will explore the south part of the north island next week and then take the ferry to the South Island where there are huge mountains with snow, lots of volcanos and craters-place where they filmed "Lord of the Rings." Will fly to Sydney next month to begin our Australia adventure. More on NZ later!
August 14. Today we went shopping at a huge shopping center/area outside Auckland. They have different stores here and it was very interesting. Driving on the left is challenging to say the least, but DAC is doing so good, sometimes with my help or in spite of it! Only thing is he keeps turning on the windshield wipers when he wants the turn signal as they are reversed. I guess the KiWi's know we are tourists when they see our windshield wipers on when it is not raining! We are headed to the symphony tonight. Last night we had a wonderful dinner at one of Auckland's finest restaurants to celebrate NKO birthday. We ate ostrich, crayfish ravioli, white fish, polenta and the best "French cut" green beans. The meal was $65 US, but worth it. Portions were small. Also, Doug ordered "ravioli" and he received one ravioli. It was kind of big, but not that big! This was a restaurant that believed in portion control! We may stay in Auckland another week as we are enjoying it. Then head to the South island. We'll keep you posted. Also, we may change rental cars. DAC found a deal with another rental agency for a newer car at a cheaper rate. Another story, we lost a hubcap on the car we have so we have been checking around to find a replacement so the rental company does not charge us an arm and leg for one. Found one today for $13. But, yesterday DAC found a used one for $5. We put it on, drove away and when we reached our next destination it had already fallen off. Needless to say, we won't put the $13 one on until right before we return the car. New Zealand has the cleanest bathrooms we have ever seen. No matter where you go, they are clean, spacious and there are plenty of them. We rate this country tops on bathrooms!
August 16. We are going to see NZ's biggest opera diva-Melvena Majors in concert tonight at the symphony hall. Also, headed to Sky City Casino to watch the kick-off of the NZ All Blacks against the Aussies, the biggest rugby game of the season. After the kick-off, we'll head down the street to hear Melvena. DAC got up early this morning and exchanged our car for one that is a dollar cheaper per day and newer-a 2000 Toyota Camry-real nice with "cup holders." The other one did not have cup holders which made it difficult for Doug to feed his coffee habit while driving! We are headed to the south of the North Island tomorrow. We'll be back in Auckland next Friday and stay at the condo in Gulf Harbor next weekend. The scenery should be beautiful on our road trip this week. We feel pretty rested after a week here, but NKO still gets hungary at odd hours-guess we're used to eating EST, not NZ time. Another note, we are not able to get the Sunday NY Times here, but the local papers are pretty interesting.
August 27. We are in Wellington this week and off on the ferry to the south island on Friday. We have had a great road trip through the north island, stopping at many thermal baths and mineral baths which are all over the place due to the volcanic formations in NZ. We attended a Maroi concert and dinner one night which provided us with a performance of Maroi life when they first settled NZ. Doug was selected as the "Chief" for our group and got special attention all night-he was very happy! Met other travelers from Germany, Ireland, Holland and US. It was a fun evening of entertainment. We have been eating good food-bluff oysters and mussels to die for. One day we had oysters and mussels at a place along side the road delivered to us in newspaper wrapping-steamed-so delicious and a beautiful picnic table for enjoying the food and scenery. We went to a wine and food exhibition in Auckland last weekend that was fantastic. The food show was for those in the business and we got in by telling them we were partners in Sid's Barbecue in Beulaville (our favorite barbecue restaurant at home). We were treated to all kinds of different food samplings and wines. We were "happy campers" after leaving this exhibition event. We are doing fine with our Weight Watcher's program in spite of the good food we are trying here. It is cold here and we will encounter snow on the south island. Finally figured out the time change-when you all are starting your day at 8:00 a.m. we are going to sleep at midnight after experiencing the day you are about to enjoy. We went to the horse races in Auckland last weekend and Doug won $6 and I won $3. We just covered our parking and a coffee for Doug. Also, Doug won $20 in Auckland at the Casino last week playing roulette. Guess he is lucky in NZ! They have a steeplechase horse race that is unbelievable. The horses jump several bushes and run a course that lasts 5 minutes. It was truly amazing and a female jockey won the steeplechase race. Wellington is the capital of NZ and a very nice town-reminds us of San Francisco with steep mountains and houses built on the bluffs. We went to a very "artsy" play last night in Wellington. It was very unusual and probably wouldn't play well on Broadway, but for here, it was very good. We have been staying in nice holiday parks which provide one and two bedroom suites or cabins for reasonable prices-about $45-50 US per night. We usually have cooking facilities and we keep our diet cokes and healthy snacks in a box in the back of the car. We are "traveling nomads," but having a good time. The ferry ride we will take Friday to the south island may be rough as we will go through Cook's Strait in the Tasmin Sea/Pacific Ocean, but we should be fine. There was an earthquake last week on the south island that measured 7.1 and there are some aftershocks, but no one was injured. NZ has very wild, green, mountainous scenery with all kinds of jungle-like trees and foilage. It is very unique and we have been impressed with it. Looking forward to Australia next month where it will be a bit warmer. It is nice to experience winter in the summer "down under." When we get to Christchurch, we will only be about 4 hours plane ride from Antartica, but we don't plan to visit there!
August 28. Still enjoying Wellington. We visited Parliment today and observed a debate session-very interesting. Also, visited a maritime museum and found a week old New York Times in a newspaper shop for Doug-cost of $8! Last week we had some adventures. We visited the Craters of the Moon in Tapou, a very beautiful stark scenery with lots of volcanic activity-geysers and smoke coming out of the ground everywhere. Also, we saw our first kiwi bird at the aquarium in Gisborne. The kiwi is a cute furry bird with a large beak. We visited a prawn (shrimp) farm in Tapou where we got to feed baby shrimp, then we ate a delicious shrimp meal at the shrimp farm restaurant. We went to a neat city called New Plymouth where Tom Cruise has been filming his latest film, The Last Samuri. There is a huge mountain there that looks like Mt. Figi-guess they want to replicate Japan in NZ! We stayed at a lodge at Dawson Falls, half-way up a 6,000 ft. mountain that was gorgeous. It was pricey-$150 for one night with a home-cooked dinner, but worth it. Apparently, even Tom Cruise could not stay there (he wanted to, according to the innkeeper), but his private helicoptor could not land near the lodge. Being a common person does have some privileges!
Last weekend in Auckland, we went to a wonderful flea market and bought winter clothes-warm tops and sweaters for our trip down south. We bought a few things for 50 cents each and some for 20 cents. Nancy washed them and they are so nice-can't find good stuff that cheap in the US! We attended our first Rugby game last Saturday night in Albany, outside Auckland. A rougher game than US football, but very interesting. We had seats up close and personal! We drove through Rotorua this past week, a beautiful, haunting place with lots of thermal baths and smouldering ground. Visited an old bathhouse that is now a museum. In the early 1900's, this was "the place" to take mineral and mud baths to cure diseases and pamper your skin. Visited a "glowworm cave" last week where small worms glow in the dark in the intricate caves-rode through the cave in a boat. It is cold here-45 degrees, but most of the beds we sleep in have "bed warmers"-electrical cords and blanket under the bed with a control switch for keeping your bed warm-like an electric blanket, only under the mattress, not on top. We drove on a highway called the "Forgotten World Highway" last week that was so beautiful-lots of green mountains with grazing sheep everywhere-twists and turns and you thought you were on another planet! We have enjoyed the TePapa Museum in Wellington which provides lots of interactive displays on life in NZ, including earthquakes, the animals of NZ, immigration of people, etc. One of the best museums we have seen and free of charge to all!
We plan to go to the South Island tomorrow via ferry, unless we find a "weekend hotel" deal in Wellington in which case we would stay and enjoy the city life a little longer. The south island has very few people and the highlight of our trip there will be the spectacular scenery. The main towns on the south island are Christchurch, Queenstown, Nelson and Dunedin. We don't plan to bungee jump off the Queenstown bridge, but you never know!!September 7. We are in Christchurch after an exciting week and a half traveling throughout the South Island. We took a ferry from Wellington to Nelson which was beautiful-like cruising on the inland waterway passage in Alaska-big mountains and cliffs along the Cook Straits. We stayed in a very small town, Collingwood, last Saturday night in an adorable cottage called "the Bluebird," right on the sound. Tinky's Tavern was in town and we had a beer and watched the rugby game on the telly. We took a gorgeous drive through the Southern Alps to Franz Joseph and Fox Glacier. These glaciers run right into a rain forest, the only place in the world where this happens. We stayed in a cozy cabin only 4 km from the glacier. Then we headed to Milford Sound and Doubtful Sound where we stayed in a small resort town called TeAnau. This is the area where the 7.1 earthquake had occurred a week earlier. In fact, they had another last night that was 6.1 magnitude, but we had left the day before. Te Anau is gorgeous and sits on Lake Manapouri.
We took a boat ride and perilous bus trip over huge mountains to cruise in Doubtful Sound a few days ago. It was spectacular as there were hugh volcanic mountains and rain forest foilage. A story will be forthcoming on that adventure. We drove through Queenstown, but did not bungee jump or take a jet boat ride through the canyons this time! They were snow skiing in the the mountains surrounding Queenstown. We then drove on to Invercargill which brought us below the 46th parallel and closer to the Antarctic. We had the best bluff oysters in Bluff, NZ and stayed on a sheep farm in near Invercargill. We drove on to Dunedin yesterday and enjoyed the symphony there last night.
Tonight we went to the symphony in Christchurch and heard Vivaldi's Four Seasons. Some interesting NZ information-prostitution is legal in NZ. They have loads of reality TV shows, one called "The Filth File" about how restaurants are kept clean or not so clean. Another called "Border Patrol" about the inspection agents at the Auckland Airport and their stories on catching people smuggling stuff into the country. There are 4 million people in all of NZ and half of them live in Auckland while the remainder live mostly in Wellington, Dunedin, and Christchurch. The beef and lamb here is all "grass-fed" and tastes so much better than in the US. Most all of the fruits and vegetables are organic. NZ is trying to keep their meat and produce and vegetables from being genetically engineered like in the US, but things may change in the future. They have the best sweet potato here called Kumara-delicious! There are only about 3 or 4 TV channels and most people only get 7 or 8 even if they have what is called "Sky TV." Doug is still going through withdrawal from watching all his TV programs at home. It is still cold here in the Southern part of the Southern Hemisphere, but we are looking forward to warmer weather in Australia. We are flying to Sydney on Friday from Christchurch. We will be in Christchurch this week taking in the sights. A popular saying here is "no worries." Stay tuned for more news from down under and "no worries to you."
September 9. We are still in Christchurch staying at a nice two bedroom apartment in a holiday park. Only $68 NZ per night ($45 US). Christchurch is the most "English" city in NZ while Dunedin where we visted a few days ago is the most "Scottish" city in NZ. We took a scenic drive yesterday to a small town on the ocean with snow-capped mountains behind it. The town, Kaikoura is known for the blue whales that swim in the waters nearby. The town is so beautiful. We saw a seal colony on the beach this morning, up close. Also, bought a cooked crayfish for $25 NZ and had it for breakfast. The crayfish here are world famous and we just had to try it. We bought it at a fish market-at the restaurants crayfish goes for $50 and upwards. We have been eating a lot of fish here and it is very good. For lunch today we had a risotto dish with shrimp, mussels, and salmon seasoned with rosemary and thyme. Also, a scallop mousse.
The other night Doug was so desperate to watch TV he was watching a "sheep-herding tournament" on one of the three channels on TV. Very interesting how the sheep-herder and sheep dog do their job and this was a tournament, just like watching golf in the US. Also, we heard a cooking show on the radio yesterday on NZ public broadcasting. They were talking with a famous chef and giving us recipes just like on the "food channel" on TV at home! Forgot to mention that when we were in Doubtful Bay a couple of days ago, it was snowing. Doubtful Bay is in Fjordland National Park which is so beautiful.
On another note, the young folks in NZ and Australia (in their late teens or early twenties) go on what is called "OE," overseas experience. They travel to England or US or other countries for a couple of years to get some life experiences. Living on an island is an isolated lifestyle so this gives them a different perspective. Sounds like a good idea to me! We went to the big Presbyterian Church in Christchurch last Sunday-it was very nice and the people were real friendly. We met a couple from Tuscaloosa, AL. He was a visiting minister and his wife was traveling with him. He used to preach in Chapel, NC-it is a small world! They sang beautiful modern hymns-they were so poetic. A bit of trivia-there are more sheep in NZ than people! We fly to Sydney on Friday and will be there for 11 days. Then headed out on a road tour of Australia. We have rented an apartment 5 minutes walk from the Sydney Opera House. Doug plans to buy a car for us to travel around Australia. There are car auctions and lots of used cars available and it is cheaper than renting a car.
September 10. Today we went to Antarctica. The Antarctica Exhibit in Christchurch, that is. Christchurch is only about 900 miles from Antarctica and all planes going there fly from here. They have a wonderful exhibition that provides insightful information on the continent of Antarctica and gives you a real-live experience as if you were actually there. It is well worth visiting if you are in Christchurch. Last Sunday, we went to an exceptionally nice outdoor market at the race track in Christchurch. They had lots of neat new items and second-hand stuff. It was as good as the Rose Bowl outdoor market in Pasadena, CA held the first Sunday of each month.We have been taking lots of pictures here, but will get them developed when we get back and put them on a website with Walmart. There are no Walmarts here, only a big store called The Wearhouse that is like Walmart, only has less stuff and no groceries. No photo stores here provides a website for pictures and we don't have a computer with us to upload pictures. We will email everyone with the website of where our pictures will be when we get back in December and add the web address to this website at that time.
September 12. Flying to Sydney at 2:30 p.m today. We stopped off at the casino in Christchurch this morning to check it out. Bet $5NZ on black on routlette and won $5-guess it is our lucky day. During our 35 days in NZ, we averaged spending $280 NZ dollars per day which is equal to $168 US dollars per day. The gas was $26 NZ per day.We put about 8,500 kilometers on the car. Our car rental was $33 NZ per day. We met people who paid as low as $25 NZ per day, but we were satisfied with our car.Our lodging averaged $73 NZ per day or $44 US. This consisted of 10 nights in a 3 bedroom condo, 3 nights in a regular hotel room, and the rest in one or more bedroom tourist flats in holiday parks. The above expenses were relatively fixed. The food and entertainment costs would vary by the number of people and preferences. Our cost was $140 NZ per day. Our costs included no unprepared meals, but did include a lot of prepared food from groceries, deli's and such. We also enjoyed some high-class restaurant meals as well as diner food. We bought interesting cheeses, breads, and soups. We did not eat at NZ or American restaurant chains. We used frequent flyer miles for our airfare to and back home from "down under." Now we'll see if Australia is as reasonable as we hope it will be. We have heard food is less expensive in Australia than in NZ-we'll see! More adventures in Australia after we arrive there-stay tuned.
Australia
June 25th. We have been looking at this trip for a couple of years and on the internet for three months. The first real plans were the 90 day VISAs which I got 2 nights ago. 7-29 Plane: Used frequent flyer miles for free tickets. After checking for 14 night, I got a fairly good schedule.We left on 7th august and spent 35 days in NZ and then will spend 90 days in OZ, returning on 12th December. I should have reserved earlier but we did not get the miles needed until 9th of July. AUSTRALIA, September 15. We are in Sydney and enjoying it. Last night we spent the evening with Russell Crowe, the famous actor. In concert, that is. He has a rock band and the group was playing at a local "Working Man's Club" in the suburbs (Revesby). We took a train and bus out there and it was a great evening. A small crowd (about 200 people) in a small auditorium. We could have reached out and touched him! Russell Rocks! He is on tour with his band, but decided to play this past weekend in the suburbs of Sydney where the real folks live. After a few beers, we got into the music and even danced. What a treat to watch a Russell for over 2 hours up close and personal. He sang some of Johnny Cash's songs in his memory, but he doesn't quite sounds like Johnny Cash!
We also we went swimming at the Olympic swimming pool yesterday where the 2000 Olympics were held-a very nice swimming area now open to the public and used for big swim meets. On Friday night, we went to an avant-garde play at the Symphony Opera House and another play there on Saturday night called The Club-all about the power struggles among the folks who own and manage the rugby teams. A real "man's man" kind of play. We are staying in a real nice one bedroom apartment with a partial-harbor view and close to everything. Saturday afternoon we took a ferry to a town about 50 minutes away by water-they had a huge shopping mall and it was a very scenic town. We bought a pass that covers the trains, ferries and buses for a week for $40 AU per pass (about $28 US). Our apartment will cost about $1,000 AU or $700 US for 10 days.
Sydney is a vibrant city with a lot of different ethnic groups, especially Asians. We ate lunch yesterday in an Italian neighborhood and had great gnocchi with tomato/basil sauce. We went to a car market in the suburbs yesterday afternoon and may have found a car to buy for our road trip. We are downtown today checking out the sites and shopping. Sydney Harbor is so beautiful at night with the Opera House and other lights shining on the water. The weather is much warmer than New Zealand, in the 70's during the day and cool at night. Sunny and beautiful blue skies-reminds us of California. This would not be a bad place to live, especially if we could party with Russell every night!
September 17. Still in Sydney and enjoying it. We are walking a lot around the city and getting lots of exercise. Still keeping the weight off we have lost on Weight Watchers AND enjoying some new food-not bad! We have our bath scales with us to keep us on track! Yesterday, we went to the Maritime Museum in Sydney-very nice with displays of all kinds of boats. We had lunch at a very expensive restaurant, Aria, next to the Sydney Opera House. Several restaurants in town are offering $35 lunch specials during the month of September. This is sponsered by the newspaper as one is in NYC. We had grilled kingfish with a delicious sauce and steamed vegetables with a glass of wine-$35 each (about $24 US). To eat dinner at this restaurant would have been over $100 US so it seemed like a deal. We had a view overlooking the Opera House and the harbor-very beautiful.
Our apartment is on the 14th floor and we have a harbor view from the bedroom-nice to watch the sunset. We went in a Target store in the big mall we shopped at last weekend. Seemed bigger than our Target stores back home, but in some departments they didn't have as many products as we have. There is a beautiful building in Sydney on George Street (the main shopping street) called the Queen Victoria Building that is beautiful and has a shopping arcade. The Building is 100 years old Lots of nice and expensive shops along with interesting cafes. It is a beautiful historical building.
We took the ferry to the fish market early yesterday morning, but didn't get there in time to watch them auction off fish. We visited the casino in Darlington Harbor and walked back to town around Miller's Point-a nice long walk along the water. The opera and symphony tickets here are very expensive-about $90 AU for symphony and $45 for "standing tickets" to the opera. We are going to a local concert at the library tonight that should be interesting-music of a local Australian who wrote songs in the early 1900's. Stay tuned and "no worries."
September 19. Still in Sydney and enjoying it. Took the ferry to Doyle's Seafood Restaurant on Watson Bay this week for lunch. Had a wonderful seafood paella with fresh prawns, mussels, kingfish, scallops and octupus with tomato sauce and basil. The restaurant is right on the water and we had a table outside two feet from the sandy beach. It is featured in the Visa commercials as not taking American Experess cards, only Visa and that is true. If you don't have Visa, you can't eat there! Also, went to the opera to see The Pearl Fishers (music by Bizet). The sound was not as good as the Metropolitan in NYC, but the staging of the opera was magnificant.
Went to the Taronga Zoo and saw lots of Australian wildlife, including the Kaola, all kinds of birds,and some big snakes. Also, walked through the beautiful botanical gardens today and went to the New South Wales Art Museum. Had dinner in Chinatown. Also, went to the Aquarium today-very nice and the biggest shark exhibit in the world or so they say. Hope we don't encounter these guys in the wild! Lots of crocodiles at the zoo and aquarium and they are supposedly around too. Don't expect to wrestle an alligator on this trip, but you never know! An interesting tidbit, the business folks here all dress up in black or navy blue suits-no business casual that we can see. The women even wear business suits with a skirt and jacket and heels. For such a casual town, it seems strange to see the "suits" out during the day in the city.
We are headed to the outback on Monday. We have rented a car, a Hyundai hatchback. Here, the Hyundai is considered better than a Toyota-we'll see! We are going to circumnavigate Australia and follow the coastline all the way up to Darwin and on around. Also, plan to go to Alice Springs and Ayres Rock or Uularoo, the Aborigine name. We will make it to Coff's Harbor on Monday night. It just happens to be where Russell Crowe lives, but I don't think we'll be staying with he and his wife, even though we did spend last Sunday night at his rock n roll band concert. We will be traveling a lot of kilometers in Australia as it is a big country, but we are looking forward to seeing all of it.
September 21. The day before leaving Sydney, Doug went to the rugby game in Sydney while Nancy did the laundry to prepare for the next phase of the road trip. We also attended a wonderful food festival in Sydney and sampled some new stuff. Still keeping the weight off and enjoying the food. On To Port Douglas.
September 28. We left Sydney in our little silver Hyundi and drove to Coff's Harbor and Nana Glen (Russell Crowe's home town). We actually drove by the guard gate of his big ranch in Nana Glen and stopped at his sister-in-law's coffee shop. We bought the best tomatoes from his neighbor! Then on to Byron Bay and Brisbane, a large city in the state of Queensland. Sydney is in New South Wales so we are now in another big state. Byron Bay has beautiful homes on the coast and reminded us of Carmel, CA. Paul Hogan, Crocodile Dundee lives in Byron's Bay.
We stopped in Mooball and had a chocolate covered banana at the Mooball Cafe, a very interesting place. Bananas are grown here, along with lots of sugar cane. We had dinner at the Lawn Bowling Club and watched the old folks bowl! The beaches are beautiful in this are and it is called the Gold Coast. It is holiday time for the children and the beaches are full of people. We headed on to Brisbane, a big, modern city and saw an avant garde play about Australia. We had the best crab sandwich on the water and stayed in a nice budget hotel.
The next day we headed north from Brisbane stopped at Steve Irwin's Australia Zoo. He is the guy who handles snakes and crocodiles on the Discovery channel in the US. He has a wonderful zoo and NKO petted a kangaroo and a kaola. By now, we were on the sunshine coast and it is very warm and sunny. Beautiful blue skies and definitely summer. Then, up the coast to Cairns and the Great Barrier Reef, where we are now.
Tomorrow we are taking a boat to Green Island to snorkle and maybe take an introductory scuba dive with an instructor holding on to us! We went to a lecture called Reef Brief on Saturday night and learned all about the animals we will see in the Great Barrier Reef. It is a truly amazing part of the world. Today, we spent the day in Daintree National Rainforest.
Got up at 6:30 a.m to take a birdwatching trip down the Daintree River with a guy who really knows his birds. Then, lunch at The Rainforest Restaurant, a beautiful place sitting outdoors in the rainforest. We wanted to stay at this resort until they quoted us a 25% discounted price of $495 for one night! Last night we stayed in a cabin at the White Cockatoo near the rainforest. We found out later in the evening that the place turns into a nudist lodging place on Octobor 1. And, there had been an article in the Cairns paper over the weekend which we had seen where they had held a "swinger's convention" at the White Cockatoo. But, when we checked in we didn't remember the article. We were in the spa and Doug looked over and saw the owner and remembered his picture from the news article. We were in the same spa he was in on the front page of the Cairns paper and the article on the big party last weekend at this very place. Needless to say, we thought it funny that we unknowingly were staying at this famous place!
Our lodging has been running about $80-90 Australian, a little more expensive than we planned, but we are in a touristy area which is very popular with Australians.We are traveling on the Bruce Highway around Australia and see beautiful mountains, sugar cane fields, ocean and blue, blue skies. We went to a wonderful open air market in Port Douglas on Sunday with all kinds of neat crafts and vegetables. The fruits here are awesome-passion fruit, mangos, star apples, and stuff we have never seen or tasted before. It is like a jungle here, so lush and parrots and interesting birds everywhere. We saw our first crocodile in the wild on the birdwatching trip this morning. He really didn't want to eat us, luckily!
We drove around Cape Tribulation today which is a beautiful drive around the Coral Sea. We are north of the Tropic of Capricorn and it is hot and humid! We are headed to Alice Springs late tomorrow afternoon. It should take a few days to get there and then we will go to Uluru (Ayres Rock) and on to Darwin. The next leg of the trip will probably take about 9 days. We will be driving in the real outback. So far we have seen lots of people, traffic and had lots of choices on where to stay. It will be nice to get out of the hustle bustle and enjoy the wilds!
In the Outback: October 4. We went snorkeling on Green Island in the Great Barrier Reef earlier this week and loved it. Saw lots of beautiful fish and coral. We decided to take scuba lessons when we return to NC. We then left Cairns and headed to Alice Springs and Ayres Rock (Uluru). It took two days to get to The Alice, as the natives call it. The roads have been one lane in places and you have to get over when a car heads at you. Especially, when a "truck train" heads at you. This is 150 feet of truck, a semi with three huge trailers which traverse the Outback hauling silver, lead, ore, and supplies for the people who live in the wilds. It reminds you of a "Mad Max" movie when you stare down one of these monsters! There are huge termite hills the size of boulders in the Outback landscape and lots of scrubby trees and shrubs. Nothing for miles, like 250-300 miles between towns.
We stayed in Georgetown, population 300, the first night out in a small motel and ate at the local pub. Real hardy people live in the Outback! The sky is beautiful at night with so many stars. The sunsets are spectacular. And, it is hot and dusty, but such an adventure. We also have to watch for kangaroos and cattle which may be in the road at any time. We even braked for a 3 ft. lizard (monitor or goana).
We reached Alice Springs after two days of hard driving. Alice is only 22,000 population, but has modern conveniences. We stayed one night and headed to Ayres Rock yesterday and stayed in the Uluru Resort area last night. We paid $150 for one night in a room with bunkbeads and some ants! No TV for Doug. They had nice tent rooms for $1,449 per night and some other rooms for $500-600. Needless to say, Uluru is expensive, but the to see the largest monolith in the world is nice. So big, red and beautiful. We went to see it at sunset last night along with all the other tourists.
Doug is adjusting to TV when he has it and now watches the Australian Idol. Today, we listened to a cricket match on the one radio station we could pick up driving back from Uluru which is 4 hours drive from The Alice. We are headed to Darwin tomorrow and it will take 3 days. We will have to backtrack a bit, but we wanted to go the the Red Centre as the Uluru area is called.
We are now in the Northern Territory, the Outback state in Australia. Darwin will be more tropical as it is in the far north. The roads are paved wherever we have gone, but as mentioned earlier, sometimes one lane with red, red, dirt for a berm. The stores in most towns close at 5:00 p.m., grocery stores close around 9:00 p.m. Malls close at 5:00 p.m. It is weird, but that is the way it is. In the small outback towns, a beautician travels around different days of the week to cut hair, etc. They put a notice on the town bulletin board announcing it.
We stayed in Mt. Isa, the largest silver and lead mining area in the western world one night on the way to Alice. Overall, the Outback is big, beautiful and desolate. You see nothing for miles and miles and miles. We drove 3,346 kilometers from Sydney to Daintree National Rainforest and another 3,330 kilometers to Alice and Uluru so far. Many more kilometers to go. We will go to Perth after Darwin and on to Melbourne and Tansmania on a ferry. We ate at the Sails in the Desert at Ayres Rock, an exclusive resort restaurant. We had a buffet for $110 AU total. Tried some kangaroo which tasted like a sweet steak. We also went to the horse races this afternoon in Alice after returning from Uluru. Nice, small track, but we lost about $5 in bets. We're okay, enjoying the summer weather and having "no worries."
October 9. G'Day Mates! We are in Darwin, the "top end" of Australia-way up north on the Timor Sea across from Papua New Guinea (which was a territory of Australia for 30 years after WWII). Lots of activities since we last updated the website. In Alice Springs, we went to a "didgeridu" performance last Saturday night. Very interesting and neat music is made with the "didgeridu." A photography slide show accompanied the music and it was quite unique. Also, we went to a local hotel for dancing. Turns out the band was 4 Aboriginals who played California surf music and country songs, sometimes singing in their native language. Also, we were the only non-aboriginal people in the place. We "shag" danced to a song and everyone seemed to love it and gave us a thumbs up and said "yabba, yabba which we think means "good moves."
Aussies love their sports-football (called footie), soccor, rugby and horseracing. In fact, they have radio stations that broadcast nothing but the horse races and racing statistics. As mentioned before, we don't get many or any radio stations in the outback, but we bought some cheap 60's music CD's to play when we get desperate! We carry a food box with healhty snacks and extra water in the car. Our little Hyundai is working great and chugs along next to these big 4WD vehicles outfitted for a long journey with tires, gas, snorkels for fording streams, and lots of luggage like they are in the Outback, which they are. We also get great gas mileage-equivalent to 27-28 mpg.
Driving across the outback to Darwin was interesting. Our first night we stayed in a small town called Elliott, population 350. We closed the pub that night at 9:30 p.m. and Doug played pool with the locals, and lost! There were only 2 places in town to stay and we stayed in a very quaint cabin with burlap drapes that had lace sewn on the bottom of them. At the bar in the pub, they had 8 1/2 x 11 sheets of paper taped to the wall. On each sheet there was the name of a person who had been barred from the bar, length of disbarment, and reason, like abusing the bar staff. On some sheets the sentence had been changed to "life" for additional misbehaviors. If you could not go to the pub,you might as well call it quits as there would be nothing else to do in this town!
There were lots of stories told that night by the locals regarding hunting and animals and the perils of the outback. A good time was had by all. These folks said they were the al "outbackers," not Crocodile Dundee! Also, even though Elliott is a thousand kilometers from anywhere, they have a 9 hole golf course in the middle of the desert with grass greens-visitors are welcome for $5.00 per game. There are cattle stations everywhere in the outback and they are the size of small European countries, yet you don't see a lot of cattle. There is just so much land it is unbelievable-you can see nothing for miles and miles and miles.
We then went to Katherine and stayed one night. A town of 20,000 population. We swam in a thermal pool set among palm trees and tropical foilage-like something out of a Tarzan movie. The water temperature is a constant 98 degrees. Even though it is very hot here, 100 plus degrees, the thermal pool was refreshing. We then headed to Kakadu National Park which is a World Heritage site. We have actually seen people bicycling across the outback, you would have to be crazy or suicidal if you ask me! Kakadu and Jabiru (very small town within Kakadu National Park are fascinating places. This is a tropical place and we are here at the beginning of the "Wet" versus the "Dry" which is April-September. Over 1/2 of all Australian animals, flora and fauna are found in Kakadu and we saw a lot of them. We stayed in Jabiru (the name of a bird) in a fancy tent with a canvas roof and screen sides for $85 AU for the night with a nice private bath located just outside the tent structure. It was beautiful and we went to sleep with the sound of the jungle-the sound of fruit fly bats and lots of whistling birds-very soothing. We awoke early yesterday morning-5:30 a.m. and went on a birdwatching boat trip down the Yellow River in Kakadu. We saw so many birds-magpie geese, cockatoo, kingfishers-and about 30 crocodiles in the water swimming right next to the boat or on the river bank sunning themselves.
We cruised on the billabong (bayou) for two hours and saw beautiful water lilies and orchids as well. The day before we went on three park ranger talks and climbed up some very big rocks to view the sunset. Also, saw very 20,000 year old Aboriginal rock paintings. The Aboriginal still live in Kakadu, but it is jointly managed by them and the Australian government.
We left yesterday afternoon from Kakadu and drove to Darwin, population 75,000-the biggest town we have seen since Sydney three weeks ago. We are staying at a nice resort in town in a two-story villa-very nice and $100 AU per night. There is a nice pool and spa to use and we can walk around town easily. Last night we went to the Indo-Marine show and had a wonderful seafood dinner there-total $150 AU. Somewhat pricey, but worth it as we got to see barrier reef fish in a natural eco-system tank. After dinner, the "tank" room was dark and we all were given flashlights to look into the water to see the florescent coral and fish-it was quite amazing and very educational.
We plan to get hair cuts here in Darwin and rest up from our "outback experiences," although we have more outback to travel. We will leave Darwin in a few days headed to "The Kimberlys" (mountains) and on to Broome, then on to Freemantle and Perth. The weather will be cooler, but nice in Perth and in the mountains. It is nice to be in the Tropics, but it would be nice to be just a little bit cooler as there are lots of bugs, flys, ants, and mosquitoes (called mozzies) in the tropics. Stay cool.
October 10. We are still in Darwin and enjoying it. Plan to stay until Sunday morning, then head to the Kimberlys, a jagged, rugged,gorge-filled landscape to the west in Western Australia (another state in the country). We will leave the Northern Territory. Tidbits-Darwin was bombed during WWII and also destroyed by cyclone Tracy in 1974. It has been rebuilt and is beautiful. It has a big Asian presence due to it's close proximity to Indonesia and Bali. The town is named after Charles Darwin, the famous scientist. We went to a neat outdoor market last night held on the harbor near the ocean and watched a spectacular sunset. It is kind of like Key West with local entertainers. We are enjoying great seafood such as barramundi steamed in banana leaves with herbs and spices and Sri Lanka and Indian food. The barramundi fish is so popular here. It is a fish originally from India and is from the perch family-very big and tasty. In fact, Doug went fishing this morning on a charter boat from the Darwin harbor hoping to catch a "barra." There is no swimming in the Darwin area due to crocodiles and stinging jelly fish so I hope Doug doesn't get in the water!
Looks like we'll stay in Darwin until Sunday morning and attend a rodeo being held nearby tomorrow. Also, plan to go to the MGM Grand Casino here in the city later today. The World Cup Rugby games start today in Australia and are being held in various cities over the next 24 days. They will be broadcast over big screens in pubs, outside, everywhere! The country goes nuts over rugby. They sing "Waltzing Matilda" after the national anthem at each game. Enjoy the fall in the States as we enjoy the summer here!
Perth, October 17. We finally made it to Perth after 6 days of driving through The Kimberlys and Pilbar range. We are a long way from anywhere, but Perth is a large city of 1 million plus people-the largest city we have seen in over a month. While in Darwin, Doug went fishing and caught a shark. We went to see a arty Aussie movie called "The Tracker" at "Deckchairs under the Stars," an outdoor movie screen in where you sit in deckchairs and watch the movie under the stars-so nice and located in Darwin. Also, went to the rodeo in Darwin. They ride bramha bulls at their rodeo.
We left Darwin last Sunday and drove through Kununurra in the Kimberly. The Kimberly is bigger than the state of California. The world's largest diamond mine is in that area and the only place where the treasured "pink diamonds" are mined. Didn't buy one, but would have been nice! There are lots of huge Boab trees in the Kimberly, big, white, fat-trunked trees that retain water; they also grow in Africa.
We stayed in a roadhouse in Warmun (Turkey Creek), 500 km from nowhere! There is only one paved road all the way around Australia, highway 1, and we are on it. We arrived in Broome, on the Indian Ocean last Tuesday and spent the night. Beautiful beaches and mango and banana plantations. We had a nice dinner under the stars at a local hotel and watched the moon rise up from the ocean. They call it "the stairway to the moon" as the moon reflects on the rocks on the beach and looks like a stairway. We went birdwatching the next morning on Roebuck Bay with our own "bird" person who pointed out all the migratory birds in the area and we watched them through a telescope and binoculars. One type of bird we saw actually flies to Alaska, 16,000 km every year and back to Broome.
We are reading a book aloud as we drive called "The Fatal Shore" by Robert Hughes about Australia's early settlement by the English prisioners transported here and to Tasmania-very good reading! We stayed in South Hedland one night in the Pilbar region and in Carnarvon. Last night we stayed in Jurien in a cottage on the Indian Ocean. We had our own private sunset and it was just beautiful. Jurien is about the size of Beulaville with 1,200 people. The landscape reminded us of Topsail Beach before it was developed.
Today, we drove through an interesting park with hugh pinnacles/big rocks growing out of the land. We will be in Perth for about a week before heading to Adelaide. A favorite saying here is "Good on ya," like saying "no problem" in the US. So, no worries and good on ya until next time.
October 20-Perth. We are enjoying Perth, better than Sydney. We have rented a charming two bedroom cottage in a quiet neighborhood-very nice. Doug found it on the internet. Only $550 AU for the week. We have traveled 14,309 km so far and about 4,500 to go. We went to Freemantle (called Freo by the locals) yesterday. It is about 20 km from Perth and a sailing community-nice, but touristy. We went to a local cabaret performance on Saturday night-they sang songs from operas and musicals. We went to several markets over the weekend. There is so much shopping in Perth-a shoppers paradise! Lots of beautiful flowers everywhere and gorgeous landscaped homes. Perth appears to be a very rich city with few poor people! We bought fresh mussels at the seafood market yesterday and I steamed them-so good. Also, lots of fresh fruits and vegetables here with many gourmet markets. Doug went to a rugby game last evening and enjoyed it-France vs. Samoa.October 23-Perth. We are still enjoying Perth-leaving tomorrow to head to Adelaide-should take 2-3 days to get there. Then on to Melbourne and an overnight ferry ride to Tasmania for a week.
We drove south of Perth on Tuesday and saw beautiful country-lots of forests with beautiful tall trees. Went to Cape Leeuwin-most southwest point in Australia where the Indian Ocean and the Southern Ocean meet each other. Had lunch in a nice town called Margaret River where they make real good cheeses and have tons of wineries. As we have headed south it has gotten cooler-warm days and cool nights here like southern California. We walked through the beautiful botanical gardens in Kings Park in Perth yesterday morning. They have breathtaking wildflowers and the gardens are high above the city looking over the Swan River. Went shopping on Hay Street in city centre and visited the art museum yesterday. Still keeping our weight down! Went to the movies today-Doug went to see "Kill Bill" and Nancy went to see "Intolerable Cruelty" with George Clooney-vey funny! Also, went to a "home show" today and visited the big casino in Perth called Burrwood. Perth is truly a paradise and a great place to live.
We hope to be in Melbourne for the "Melbourne Cup," the biggest horse race in Australia-everything stops for the Cup-the first Tuesday in November. A bit of trivia-when we were in Townsville on the "gold coast" near Cairns, Gene Pitney, the 60's singer was to appear at the local casino. Also, "Engelbert Humperdink" or "Humpy" as they call him here will appear in Perth in December. To talk Australian, just add an "ie" or "y" to the end of words and you will be talking Australian. They call the foam cups that you put around a beer can "stubby coolers" and when you want to buy a round of drinks at the pub, you say you "shout a round.
October 31-Adelaide, South Australia. We are now in Adelaide after a 7 day journey. We stayed in Kalgoorlie, a neat old town in the Outback of Western Australia one night. A big gold mining area. They advertise "skimpies" at the bars which is bikini clad ladies who dance. Doug went to see them one night, but said he saw less than what he sees at Topsail Beach! He left and was back to our cabin 30 minutes later.
There are beautiful wildflowers in WA and the area is famous for ballooning, gliding and sky diving. We then crossed the Nullarbar Plain, a desert area that is huge. We had lunch in Esperance, a beautiful bay with the bluest water and whitest sand you will ever see. We stayed in Balladonia in the desert in a roadhouse. We saw wild emu on the road, big funny birds like an ostrich. The road we drove on is actually an emergency airstrip if needed since it is the only paved road for hundreds of miles. We stayed in Ceduna, a beautiful outback town. We had a nice two bedroom cabin for $60 AU and had the best fresh oysters for $7 a dozen. We stopped twice for oysters driving around the peninsula. We ran into a guy at the gas station and asked about oysters. He owned a restaurant which was closed that day, but he opened it just for us. This was the Eyre Peninsula area.
We stayed in Port Augusta and had lunch in Broken Hill. The landscape is very much like Montana-big sky and lots of outback! We encountered a dust storm in Broken Hill that was unbelievable. Several gum trees fell over on the road and we had to figure out a new way to get out of town! We also went to Silverton, near Broken Hill, where the Mad Max movies were filmed-very desolate. We stayed in Renmark in the Murray River area and went on a bird watching boat trip yesterday morning on the Murray. The Murray is an important river to South Australia, where we are now, and has lots of birdlife. We saw kangaroos in the wild while boating on the river, along with several species of birds and ducks. We see lots of cockatoos while driving, black, white and blue-very beautiful birds and we see parrots in the wild.
Adelaide (about a million people) is beautiful and so nice. We have a two bedroom apartment right in the city for $92 AU per night. We had dinner at an Argentine restaurant last night called Gaucho's-wonderful steak! We also went to a play by Moliere, "Scarpin"-very good. Adelaide is an artsy, vibrant city. While in Australia, we shop at Woolworth's grocery stores, which we found out is owned by Walmart. But, the Woolie's are not as large as Walmart's. They also have Woolie's gas stations. We are headed to Melbourne next for the Melbourne Cup-biggest horse race of the year and Aussies love horse racing. We will be there on Monday, the Cup is on Tuesday and we plan to head out to Tasmania by ferry (with the car) on Tuesday night. We are getting near Sydney and we may get home by Thanksgiving, but no definite plans yet.
November 1-Adelaide. Forgot to mention we traveled on the longest, straightest stretch of road in the world while crossing the Nullarbor Plain. It was 152 km of straight road, no curves or turns-very weird! Also, Prince Harry (Prince Charles's son) is working as a Jackaroo on a sheep farm in Queensland, AU for six months. But, he seems to fly around on the weekends and goes to most of the world rugby games. What a life! Such is the life of a jackaroo.
Adelaide is such a nice town and has great markets-the best-very interesting food stalls with fresh veggies and fruit and cheap souviners. What a great place to live. We went to see the movie "Runaway Jury" with John Cusack yesterday afternoon-ok. Also, went to a cabaret last night that is set up like you are in 1930's Berlin. The actors interact with the audience and Lola, a singer, sang songs to Doug-he enjoyed that! It was a fun evening with good live entertainment. We went to the museums and botanical gardens yesterday. They even have a museum on winemaking here-quite interesting. Australia has so many wineries and we have seen many of them. Shopping is very good in Adelaide-even better than Perth or Sydney. Headed to Melbourne tomorrow.
November 6. Hobart, Tansmania. We are in Tasmania after leaving Melbourne on Tuesday night and taking the ferry to Tassie. We left Adelaide last Sunday and stayed in Warrnambool the first night out. We then drove along the coast to Melbourne-pretty coastline with high cliffs and curvy road. We have driven 21,247 km to date, about 500 km per day.
Doug is truly amazing. We got to Melbourne in the afternoon, the "reverse gear" on the Hyundai went out. Doug drove straight to the car rental place (somehow he found it), traded the car for a Toyota campervan (that is all they had), found us a nice hotel, and got us tickets to an opera performance that night. All in the space of 3 hours and we had never been to Melbourne before-Doug really knows how to navigate!
We stayed at the "Absolutely Faboulous Hotel (ABFAB), budget place for $130 AU for the night. Melbourne is a great city, over 3 million population with lots of pretty buildings. We went to the Melbourne Cup, the biggest horse race and event in Australia on Tuesday. It was fabulous. Nicki and Paris Hilton, the "it" girls from the US were the stars for the event, along with lots of Aussie celebreties like Sam Neill and Geofrey Rush, actors. According to the papers, Paris Hilton has fallen for the "Australian Idol" singer who was booted off the show last week. Everyone dresses up for the cup and the women wear all kinds of fancy and unusual hats and the men wear suits. Nancy bought a straw hat for $1.00 at the thrift shop and DAC bought a tie to wear with his polo shirt and khaki's. We dressed up for the event!
We scalped good tickets with a seat for the race for $75 each. The horse we bet on came in last, but we had the best time watching all the fashionable people-it was truly a unique event. We got on the Tassie ferry that night, standby, and had to take a cabin for $445 AU total to get to Tasmania. No inexpensive seats left. We left at 9:00 p.m. and arrived the next morning at 6:30 a.m.
Tasmania, is another Aussie state, but an island and has about 500,000 people total. The island is very green, lots of trees, and big mountains-like New Zealand. Lots of sheep and cows here. We stayed in a beautiful cottage in Swansea last night overlooking beautiful pink bluffs and the Southern Ocean-$120 AU for the night, but worth it. We even had a separte loft area above the cottage which gave us lots of room. Cooked dinner in and had a restful evening.
We went to Port Arthur today and toured the prison colony where the first Aussie's were transported in the early 1800's. This was a most interesting place and since we have been reading the book "The Fatal Shore" which is all about the early transports, it was neat to see what we have been reading about. We drove through Launceston yesterday, another nice Tassie town. Trivia, Erroll Flynn was a Tassie from Tasmania. We plan to go back to Melbourne on the ferry, assuming we can get a seat, in 3-4 days and spend a week or so in Melbourne. It will be a good city to catch up on culture. They have really neat electric trolley cars in Melbourne, reminds us of a European town. Stay tuned and think about us trucking down the road in our campervan! Good onya!
November 9-Melbourne. We spent 4 glorious days in Tasmania. It is so beautiful, especially the West Coast-very rugged mountains everywhere, so many different kinds of trees and ferns and flowers. We went to the museums in Hobart (population 125,000) and then headed to the West Coast where we stayed in a small town called Strahan, a harbor town. It is near Sarah Island where convicts were held in the early 1800's. Tasmania was called Van Diemen's Land back in those days. Most true Tassies are related to the early convicts. But, most the convicts sent from Britain had committed only petty crimes!
We took the ferry last night from Devonport and arrived at 6:00 a.m. this morning. Again, we had to take a cabin (more expensive) than a seat, as that was all that was available. By the way, Gene Pitney (who sang "Town Without Pity") is appearing in the casinos throughout Australia. He will be in Hobart, TA next week. Tasmania is famous for Huon Pine trees, big, tall beautiful trees. It is the most beautiful state in Australia. We have now visited them all.
We are in Melbourne, Victoria now. Today, we went to an Anglican church service downtown, to a seafood fesitval on the wharf, and to see the opera "The Magic Flute this afternoon. Doug is at the rugby game tonight between Ireland and France. We hear it will be a "rough" game-but, aren't they all! We have a real nice two bedroom apartment right in the city-we were upgraded from a one bedroom for the same price-$99 AU per night. We took the campervan back to the car rental folks and hope to get our Hyundai back before leaving Melbourne. The campervan was nice, but cost about 25% more in gas than the little car! We plan to leave Melbourne on Wednesday and then head to the Snowy Mountains (Australian Alps) and the Blue Mountains which are both between Melbourne and Sydney.
We have met so many nice people along the way-Australians are very friendly and gracious and have made our journey very enjoyable. Stay healthy and don't take any "sickies" from work, as they say in Australia.
November 10-Melbourne. G'Day-today we went to two museums-art museum and history museum. Also, visited the Crown casino, a very nice one and Doug won $19 playing craps and we also won $8 on the slot machines using the "free play money" they gave us for signing up with the club. They have 7-card stud poker and Doug may go back tonight and try his luck. The casino reminds us of Las Vegas-shiney lights, lots of slots and very big!
Nancy will try to get tickets for tonight to see Jane Campion, a famous NZ movie director talk about her latest film starring the US movie star Meg Ryan and a screening of the movie. Jane Campion is in town promoting the film.
Melbourne has free electric trolley cars that circle the city which makes it very convenient to get around and it is a great walking city. Lots of Italian, Greek, and Asian restaurants. The city is known for its array of restaurants. Great place to live if it weren't so far away! Aussie talk-a "stubbie" is a beer and Australia makes great beer! "Shout a round" for your friends and enjoy the day!
November 12-Melbourne. We are staying in Melbourne until Friday, 11/14. Then headed to Sydney. The other night NKO went to see "Japanese Story," a popular Aussie movie about an Australian woman and Japanese man who travel in the outback. It is a love story with a twist! Good movie. Not able to get tickets to Jane Campion's talk and preview of her new movie. Doug went back to the casino and lost the $19 he had won the day before. They have $4 and $8 Texas Hold'em poker, what some of the guys back in Beulaville enjoy!
We went to the Melbourne zoo yesterday-very nice with wonderful bird aviaries of Australian birds. We have a hot tub spa on the roof of our hotel building and relaxed in the spa in the afternoon. Nice after walking all over Melbourne. Today, we went to another market in South Melbourne-very nice with lots of interesting food and household supplies. We're doing okay with our weight, but we have eaten some new and unusal food in Australia. Aussie talk-a "singlet" is a skimpy, sleeveless T-shirt that everyone wears. We are planning to be home soon and have checked on flights for next week, but "we'll see ya when we see ya." In the meantime, "no worries" and enjoy the day!
November 13-Melbourne. We're headed home-got reservations to fly to the USA on Monday, November 17. We will fly from Sydney to LA to Dallas to Raleigh. Over 22 hours of flying time, but we gain a day! We should arrive late Monday night 11/17.
We are leaving Melbourne today for Sydney via car, plan to stay in Snowy River Mountains tonight and on to Sydney tomorrow. Plan to stay in Sydney over the weekend and explore Canberra (Australia's capital where government offices are located) and the Blue Mountains from Sydney. We will have seen more of Australia than most Aussies by the time we leave. We have really enjoyed Melbourne and when returning to Australia we would spend a month in Melbourne and a month in Sydney as both of these towns can keep us entertained for that length of time. Definitely recommend the Novagate apartment hotel in Melbourne as a place to stay. Melbourne is a blend of both modern and historical buildings and is very beautiful.
The Australian "fashion shows" are being held in Melbourne this week and Paris Hilton is "walking the catwalk." Lots of fashionable people in town! Stay tuned and have a g'day. "See ya around," as they say in Australia.
November 13. We left Melbourne today and headed to Canberra via the Snowy Mountains. We saw the place where Ned Kelly took his "last stand." He was a famous Aussie robber in the 1890's who claimed to be a Robin Hood. A movie of his life was made in the 1970's with Mick Jagger playing Ned Kelly. We drove through several towns with ski resorts-Thredbo being one of them. The "Snowies" are beautiful mountains.
The capital of all of Australia, Canberra is a modern city, but not very interesting. They have some museums which we visited, but we were not that impressed. We stayed in Queanbeyan, a suburb of Canberra in a caravan park cabin. We drove by Parliment and the various embassies from other countries. The US Embassy in Australia is a huge sprawling spread. We drove through several beach towns and had lunch at a nice pub overlooking the ocean in Wollongong. Scarborough is a beautiful seaside town just south of Sydney.
November 14. We arrived in Sydney and stayed in a Formula One motel-very cheap accomodations-they have them all over Europe-cheap, but clean. On Saturday, we drove around Cougee and Bondi Beach, both popular with Sydney folks for swimming and surfing.
On Sunday we drove to the Blue Mountains, about 1 1/2 hours from Sydney. The mountains have a blue color to them because of so many Eucalyptus trees. On Saturday night we went to the Sydney Opera House and watched the Rugby semi-finals on a big TV screen set up outside and had dinner overlooking Sydney harbor. On Sunday night, we went to the Australian Dance Awards at the Sydney Opera House. Just like the Oscars, only for the dance community-very interesting. We stopped at Harry's Cafe on Wheels for a sandwich after the performance. It is located in Wooloomooro, just in front of Russell Crowe's $14 million penthouse. He wasn't home that night! We started our trip seeing Russell Crowe and his band and ended our trip seeing his Sydney home. We really haven't been following him-maybe he's following us!
November 17. We left Australia today for the US. We flew from Sydney to LA to Dallas to Raleigh/Durham. The flight from Sydney to LA was very bumpy and turbulent, but we survived. We were delayed in Dallas due to storms, but we finally made it to Beulaville at 2:00 a.m. Tuesday, November 18 after about 30 hours of travel time of which over 20 hours were flying in an airplane! However, our body time was 12 hours later. A wonderful trip of a lifetime and we hope to return "down under" someday. No worries and stay in touch with us!
Following is the approximate cost (in dollars) for our NZ/AU trip: transportation expenses-daily rental cost about $24 per day; fuel cost was about 10 cents per mile; ferries from north to south island in NZ and roud trip to Tasmania from Melbourne cost about $600. Loding cost was about $58 per day; cost at Uluru was $110 and Sydney & Melbourne about $75 per day; most nights we stayed in one or two bedroom room cabins in campgrounds. Everything else cost about $100 per day. Admissions and tours averaged $19 per day. We attempted to chargee all restaurant and grocery purchases over $10. These charges totaled $38 per day. Undefined "out of pocket" cash expenditures equaled $42 per day. With free (frequent flyer points were used)airfare, the total trip expenditure for 3 1/2 months was approximately $19,000 for the two of us.
We also we went swimming at the Olympic swimming pool yesterday where the 2000 Olympics were held-a very nice swimming area now open to the public and used for big swim meets. On Friday night, we went to an avant-garde play at the Symphony Opera House and another play there on Saturday night called The Club-all about the power struggles among the folks who own and manage the rugby teams. A real "man's man" kind of play. We are staying in a real nice one bedroom apartment with a partial-harbor view and close to everything. Saturday afternoon we took a ferry to a town about 50 minutes away by water-they had a huge shopping mall and it was a very scenic town. We bought a pass that covers the trains, ferries and buses for a week for $40 AU per pass (about $28 US). Our apartment will cost about $1,000 AU or $700 US for 10 days.
Sydney is a vibrant city with a lot of different ethnic groups, especially Asians. We ate lunch yesterday in an Italian neighborhood and had great gnocchi with tomato/basil sauce. We went to a car market in the suburbs yesterday afternoon and may have found a car to buy for our road trip. We are downtown today checking out the sites and shopping. Sydney Harbor is so beautiful at night with the Opera House and other lights shining on the water. The weather is much warmer than New Zealand, in the 70's during the day and cool at night. Sunny and beautiful blue skies-reminds us of California. This would not be a bad place to live, especially if we could party with Russell every night!
September 17. Still in Sydney and enjoying it. We are walking a lot around the city and getting lots of exercise. Still keeping the weight off we have lost on Weight Watchers AND enjoying some new food-not bad! We have our bath scales with us to keep us on track! Yesterday, we went to the Maritime Museum in Sydney-very nice with displays of all kinds of boats. We had lunch at a very expensive restaurant, Aria, next to the Sydney Opera House. Several restaurants in town are offering $35 lunch specials during the month of September. This is sponsered by the newspaper as one is in NYC. We had grilled kingfish with a delicious sauce and steamed vegetables with a glass of wine-$35 each (about $24 US). To eat dinner at this restaurant would have been over $100 US so it seemed like a deal. We had a view overlooking the Opera House and the harbor-very beautiful.
Our apartment is on the 14th floor and we have a harbor view from the bedroom-nice to watch the sunset. We went in a Target store in the big mall we shopped at last weekend. Seemed bigger than our Target stores back home, but in some departments they didn't have as many products as we have. There is a beautiful building in Sydney on George Street (the main shopping street) called the Queen Victoria Building that is beautiful and has a shopping arcade. The Building is 100 years old Lots of nice and expensive shops along with interesting cafes. It is a beautiful historical building.
We took the ferry to the fish market early yesterday morning, but didn't get there in time to watch them auction off fish. We visited the casino in Darlington Harbor and walked back to town around Miller's Point-a nice long walk along the water. The opera and symphony tickets here are very expensive-about $90 AU for symphony and $45 for "standing tickets" to the opera. We are going to a local concert at the library tonight that should be interesting-music of a local Australian who wrote songs in the early 1900's. Stay tuned and "no worries."
September 19. Still in Sydney and enjoying it. Took the ferry to Doyle's Seafood Restaurant on Watson Bay this week for lunch. Had a wonderful seafood paella with fresh prawns, mussels, kingfish, scallops and octupus with tomato sauce and basil. The restaurant is right on the water and we had a table outside two feet from the sandy beach. It is featured in the Visa commercials as not taking American Experess cards, only Visa and that is true. If you don't have Visa, you can't eat there! Also, went to the opera to see The Pearl Fishers (music by Bizet). The sound was not as good as the Metropolitan in NYC, but the staging of the opera was magnificant.
Went to the Taronga Zoo and saw lots of Australian wildlife, including the Kaola, all kinds of birds,and some big snakes. Also, walked through the beautiful botanical gardens today and went to the New South Wales Art Museum. Had dinner in Chinatown. Also, went to the Aquarium today-very nice and the biggest shark exhibit in the world or so they say. Hope we don't encounter these guys in the wild! Lots of crocodiles at the zoo and aquarium and they are supposedly around too. Don't expect to wrestle an alligator on this trip, but you never know! An interesting tidbit, the business folks here all dress up in black or navy blue suits-no business casual that we can see. The women even wear business suits with a skirt and jacket and heels. For such a casual town, it seems strange to see the "suits" out during the day in the city.
We are headed to the outback on Monday. We have rented a car, a Hyundai hatchback. Here, the Hyundai is considered better than a Toyota-we'll see! We are going to circumnavigate Australia and follow the coastline all the way up to Darwin and on around. Also, plan to go to Alice Springs and Ayres Rock or Uularoo, the Aborigine name. We will make it to Coff's Harbor on Monday night. It just happens to be where Russell Crowe lives, but I don't think we'll be staying with he and his wife, even though we did spend last Sunday night at his rock n roll band concert. We will be traveling a lot of kilometers in Australia as it is a big country, but we are looking forward to seeing all of it.
September 21. The day before leaving Sydney, Doug went to the rugby game in Sydney while Nancy did the laundry to prepare for the next phase of the road trip. We also attended a wonderful food festival in Sydney and sampled some new stuff. Still keeping the weight off and enjoying the food. On To Port Douglas.
September 28. We left Sydney in our little silver Hyundi and drove to Coff's Harbor and Nana Glen (Russell Crowe's home town). We actually drove by the guard gate of his big ranch in Nana Glen and stopped at his sister-in-law's coffee shop. We bought the best tomatoes from his neighbor! Then on to Byron Bay and Brisbane, a large city in the state of Queensland. Sydney is in New South Wales so we are now in another big state. Byron Bay has beautiful homes on the coast and reminded us of Carmel, CA. Paul Hogan, Crocodile Dundee lives in Byron's Bay.
We stopped in Mooball and had a chocolate covered banana at the Mooball Cafe, a very interesting place. Bananas are grown here, along with lots of sugar cane. We had dinner at the Lawn Bowling Club and watched the old folks bowl! The beaches are beautiful in this are and it is called the Gold Coast. It is holiday time for the children and the beaches are full of people. We headed on to Brisbane, a big, modern city and saw an avant garde play about Australia. We had the best crab sandwich on the water and stayed in a nice budget hotel.
The next day we headed north from Brisbane stopped at Steve Irwin's Australia Zoo. He is the guy who handles snakes and crocodiles on the Discovery channel in the US. He has a wonderful zoo and NKO petted a kangaroo and a kaola. By now, we were on the sunshine coast and it is very warm and sunny. Beautiful blue skies and definitely summer. Then, up the coast to Cairns and the Great Barrier Reef, where we are now.
Tomorrow we are taking a boat to Green Island to snorkle and maybe take an introductory scuba dive with an instructor holding on to us! We went to a lecture called Reef Brief on Saturday night and learned all about the animals we will see in the Great Barrier Reef. It is a truly amazing part of the world. Today, we spent the day in Daintree National Rainforest.
Got up at 6:30 a.m to take a birdwatching trip down the Daintree River with a guy who really knows his birds. Then, lunch at The Rainforest Restaurant, a beautiful place sitting outdoors in the rainforest. We wanted to stay at this resort until they quoted us a 25% discounted price of $495 for one night! Last night we stayed in a cabin at the White Cockatoo near the rainforest. We found out later in the evening that the place turns into a nudist lodging place on Octobor 1. And, there had been an article in the Cairns paper over the weekend which we had seen where they had held a "swinger's convention" at the White Cockatoo. But, when we checked in we didn't remember the article. We were in the spa and Doug looked over and saw the owner and remembered his picture from the news article. We were in the same spa he was in on the front page of the Cairns paper and the article on the big party last weekend at this very place. Needless to say, we thought it funny that we unknowingly were staying at this famous place!
Our lodging has been running about $80-90 Australian, a little more expensive than we planned, but we are in a touristy area which is very popular with Australians.We are traveling on the Bruce Highway around Australia and see beautiful mountains, sugar cane fields, ocean and blue, blue skies. We went to a wonderful open air market in Port Douglas on Sunday with all kinds of neat crafts and vegetables. The fruits here are awesome-passion fruit, mangos, star apples, and stuff we have never seen or tasted before. It is like a jungle here, so lush and parrots and interesting birds everywhere. We saw our first crocodile in the wild on the birdwatching trip this morning. He really didn't want to eat us, luckily!
We drove around Cape Tribulation today which is a beautiful drive around the Coral Sea. We are north of the Tropic of Capricorn and it is hot and humid! We are headed to Alice Springs late tomorrow afternoon. It should take a few days to get there and then we will go to Uluru (Ayres Rock) and on to Darwin. The next leg of the trip will probably take about 9 days. We will be driving in the real outback. So far we have seen lots of people, traffic and had lots of choices on where to stay. It will be nice to get out of the hustle bustle and enjoy the wilds!
In the Outback: October 4. We went snorkeling on Green Island in the Great Barrier Reef earlier this week and loved it. Saw lots of beautiful fish and coral. We decided to take scuba lessons when we return to NC. We then left Cairns and headed to Alice Springs and Ayres Rock (Uluru). It took two days to get to The Alice, as the natives call it. The roads have been one lane in places and you have to get over when a car heads at you. Especially, when a "truck train" heads at you. This is 150 feet of truck, a semi with three huge trailers which traverse the Outback hauling silver, lead, ore, and supplies for the people who live in the wilds. It reminds you of a "Mad Max" movie when you stare down one of these monsters! There are huge termite hills the size of boulders in the Outback landscape and lots of scrubby trees and shrubs. Nothing for miles, like 250-300 miles between towns.
We stayed in Georgetown, population 300, the first night out in a small motel and ate at the local pub. Real hardy people live in the Outback! The sky is beautiful at night with so many stars. The sunsets are spectacular. And, it is hot and dusty, but such an adventure. We also have to watch for kangaroos and cattle which may be in the road at any time. We even braked for a 3 ft. lizard (monitor or goana).
We reached Alice Springs after two days of hard driving. Alice is only 22,000 population, but has modern conveniences. We stayed one night and headed to Ayres Rock yesterday and stayed in the Uluru Resort area last night. We paid $150 for one night in a room with bunkbeads and some ants! No TV for Doug. They had nice tent rooms for $1,449 per night and some other rooms for $500-600. Needless to say, Uluru is expensive, but the to see the largest monolith in the world is nice. So big, red and beautiful. We went to see it at sunset last night along with all the other tourists.
Doug is adjusting to TV when he has it and now watches the Australian Idol. Today, we listened to a cricket match on the one radio station we could pick up driving back from Uluru which is 4 hours drive from The Alice. We are headed to Darwin tomorrow and it will take 3 days. We will have to backtrack a bit, but we wanted to go the the Red Centre as the Uluru area is called.
We are now in the Northern Territory, the Outback state in Australia. Darwin will be more tropical as it is in the far north. The roads are paved wherever we have gone, but as mentioned earlier, sometimes one lane with red, red, dirt for a berm. The stores in most towns close at 5:00 p.m., grocery stores close around 9:00 p.m. Malls close at 5:00 p.m. It is weird, but that is the way it is. In the small outback towns, a beautician travels around different days of the week to cut hair, etc. They put a notice on the town bulletin board announcing it.
We stayed in Mt. Isa, the largest silver and lead mining area in the western world one night on the way to Alice. Overall, the Outback is big, beautiful and desolate. You see nothing for miles and miles and miles. We drove 3,346 kilometers from Sydney to Daintree National Rainforest and another 3,330 kilometers to Alice and Uluru so far. Many more kilometers to go. We will go to Perth after Darwin and on to Melbourne and Tansmania on a ferry. We ate at the Sails in the Desert at Ayres Rock, an exclusive resort restaurant. We had a buffet for $110 AU total. Tried some kangaroo which tasted like a sweet steak. We also went to the horse races this afternoon in Alice after returning from Uluru. Nice, small track, but we lost about $5 in bets. We're okay, enjoying the summer weather and having "no worries."
October 9. G'Day Mates! We are in Darwin, the "top end" of Australia-way up north on the Timor Sea across from Papua New Guinea (which was a territory of Australia for 30 years after WWII). Lots of activities since we last updated the website. In Alice Springs, we went to a "didgeridu" performance last Saturday night. Very interesting and neat music is made with the "didgeridu." A photography slide show accompanied the music and it was quite unique. Also, we went to a local hotel for dancing. Turns out the band was 4 Aboriginals who played California surf music and country songs, sometimes singing in their native language. Also, we were the only non-aboriginal people in the place. We "shag" danced to a song and everyone seemed to love it and gave us a thumbs up and said "yabba, yabba which we think means "good moves."
Aussies love their sports-football (called footie), soccor, rugby and horseracing. In fact, they have radio stations that broadcast nothing but the horse races and racing statistics. As mentioned before, we don't get many or any radio stations in the outback, but we bought some cheap 60's music CD's to play when we get desperate! We carry a food box with healhty snacks and extra water in the car. Our little Hyundai is working great and chugs along next to these big 4WD vehicles outfitted for a long journey with tires, gas, snorkels for fording streams, and lots of luggage like they are in the Outback, which they are. We also get great gas mileage-equivalent to 27-28 mpg.
Driving across the outback to Darwin was interesting. Our first night we stayed in a small town called Elliott, population 350. We closed the pub that night at 9:30 p.m. and Doug played pool with the locals, and lost! There were only 2 places in town to stay and we stayed in a very quaint cabin with burlap drapes that had lace sewn on the bottom of them. At the bar in the pub, they had 8 1/2 x 11 sheets of paper taped to the wall. On each sheet there was the name of a person who had been barred from the bar, length of disbarment, and reason, like abusing the bar staff. On some sheets the sentence had been changed to "life" for additional misbehaviors. If you could not go to the pub,you might as well call it quits as there would be nothing else to do in this town!
There were lots of stories told that night by the locals regarding hunting and animals and the perils of the outback. A good time was had by all. These folks said they were the al "outbackers," not Crocodile Dundee! Also, even though Elliott is a thousand kilometers from anywhere, they have a 9 hole golf course in the middle of the desert with grass greens-visitors are welcome for $5.00 per game. There are cattle stations everywhere in the outback and they are the size of small European countries, yet you don't see a lot of cattle. There is just so much land it is unbelievable-you can see nothing for miles and miles and miles.
We then went to Katherine and stayed one night. A town of 20,000 population. We swam in a thermal pool set among palm trees and tropical foilage-like something out of a Tarzan movie. The water temperature is a constant 98 degrees. Even though it is very hot here, 100 plus degrees, the thermal pool was refreshing. We then headed to Kakadu National Park which is a World Heritage site. We have actually seen people bicycling across the outback, you would have to be crazy or suicidal if you ask me! Kakadu and Jabiru (very small town within Kakadu National Park are fascinating places. This is a tropical place and we are here at the beginning of the "Wet" versus the "Dry" which is April-September. Over 1/2 of all Australian animals, flora and fauna are found in Kakadu and we saw a lot of them. We stayed in Jabiru (the name of a bird) in a fancy tent with a canvas roof and screen sides for $85 AU for the night with a nice private bath located just outside the tent structure. It was beautiful and we went to sleep with the sound of the jungle-the sound of fruit fly bats and lots of whistling birds-very soothing. We awoke early yesterday morning-5:30 a.m. and went on a birdwatching boat trip down the Yellow River in Kakadu. We saw so many birds-magpie geese, cockatoo, kingfishers-and about 30 crocodiles in the water swimming right next to the boat or on the river bank sunning themselves.
We cruised on the billabong (bayou) for two hours and saw beautiful water lilies and orchids as well. The day before we went on three park ranger talks and climbed up some very big rocks to view the sunset. Also, saw very 20,000 year old Aboriginal rock paintings. The Aboriginal still live in Kakadu, but it is jointly managed by them and the Australian government.
We left yesterday afternoon from Kakadu and drove to Darwin, population 75,000-the biggest town we have seen since Sydney three weeks ago. We are staying at a nice resort in town in a two-story villa-very nice and $100 AU per night. There is a nice pool and spa to use and we can walk around town easily. Last night we went to the Indo-Marine show and had a wonderful seafood dinner there-total $150 AU. Somewhat pricey, but worth it as we got to see barrier reef fish in a natural eco-system tank. After dinner, the "tank" room was dark and we all were given flashlights to look into the water to see the florescent coral and fish-it was quite amazing and very educational.
We plan to get hair cuts here in Darwin and rest up from our "outback experiences," although we have more outback to travel. We will leave Darwin in a few days headed to "The Kimberlys" (mountains) and on to Broome, then on to Freemantle and Perth. The weather will be cooler, but nice in Perth and in the mountains. It is nice to be in the Tropics, but it would be nice to be just a little bit cooler as there are lots of bugs, flys, ants, and mosquitoes (called mozzies) in the tropics. Stay cool.
October 10. We are still in Darwin and enjoying it. Plan to stay until Sunday morning, then head to the Kimberlys, a jagged, rugged,gorge-filled landscape to the west in Western Australia (another state in the country). We will leave the Northern Territory. Tidbits-Darwin was bombed during WWII and also destroyed by cyclone Tracy in 1974. It has been rebuilt and is beautiful. It has a big Asian presence due to it's close proximity to Indonesia and Bali. The town is named after Charles Darwin, the famous scientist. We went to a neat outdoor market last night held on the harbor near the ocean and watched a spectacular sunset. It is kind of like Key West with local entertainers. We are enjoying great seafood such as barramundi steamed in banana leaves with herbs and spices and Sri Lanka and Indian food. The barramundi fish is so popular here. It is a fish originally from India and is from the perch family-very big and tasty. In fact, Doug went fishing this morning on a charter boat from the Darwin harbor hoping to catch a "barra." There is no swimming in the Darwin area due to crocodiles and stinging jelly fish so I hope Doug doesn't get in the water!
Looks like we'll stay in Darwin until Sunday morning and attend a rodeo being held nearby tomorrow. Also, plan to go to the MGM Grand Casino here in the city later today. The World Cup Rugby games start today in Australia and are being held in various cities over the next 24 days. They will be broadcast over big screens in pubs, outside, everywhere! The country goes nuts over rugby. They sing "Waltzing Matilda" after the national anthem at each game. Enjoy the fall in the States as we enjoy the summer here!
Perth, October 17. We finally made it to Perth after 6 days of driving through The Kimberlys and Pilbar range. We are a long way from anywhere, but Perth is a large city of 1 million plus people-the largest city we have seen in over a month. While in Darwin, Doug went fishing and caught a shark. We went to see a arty Aussie movie called "The Tracker" at "Deckchairs under the Stars," an outdoor movie screen in where you sit in deckchairs and watch the movie under the stars-so nice and located in Darwin. Also, went to the rodeo in Darwin. They ride bramha bulls at their rodeo.
We left Darwin last Sunday and drove through Kununurra in the Kimberly. The Kimberly is bigger than the state of California. The world's largest diamond mine is in that area and the only place where the treasured "pink diamonds" are mined. Didn't buy one, but would have been nice! There are lots of huge Boab trees in the Kimberly, big, white, fat-trunked trees that retain water; they also grow in Africa.
We stayed in a roadhouse in Warmun (Turkey Creek), 500 km from nowhere! There is only one paved road all the way around Australia, highway 1, and we are on it. We arrived in Broome, on the Indian Ocean last Tuesday and spent the night. Beautiful beaches and mango and banana plantations. We had a nice dinner under the stars at a local hotel and watched the moon rise up from the ocean. They call it "the stairway to the moon" as the moon reflects on the rocks on the beach and looks like a stairway. We went birdwatching the next morning on Roebuck Bay with our own "bird" person who pointed out all the migratory birds in the area and we watched them through a telescope and binoculars. One type of bird we saw actually flies to Alaska, 16,000 km every year and back to Broome.
We are reading a book aloud as we drive called "The Fatal Shore" by Robert Hughes about Australia's early settlement by the English prisioners transported here and to Tasmania-very good reading! We stayed in South Hedland one night in the Pilbar region and in Carnarvon. Last night we stayed in Jurien in a cottage on the Indian Ocean. We had our own private sunset and it was just beautiful. Jurien is about the size of Beulaville with 1,200 people. The landscape reminded us of Topsail Beach before it was developed.
Today, we drove through an interesting park with hugh pinnacles/big rocks growing out of the land. We will be in Perth for about a week before heading to Adelaide. A favorite saying here is "Good on ya," like saying "no problem" in the US. So, no worries and good on ya until next time.
October 20-Perth. We are enjoying Perth, better than Sydney. We have rented a charming two bedroom cottage in a quiet neighborhood-very nice. Doug found it on the internet. Only $550 AU for the week. We have traveled 14,309 km so far and about 4,500 to go. We went to Freemantle (called Freo by the locals) yesterday. It is about 20 km from Perth and a sailing community-nice, but touristy. We went to a local cabaret performance on Saturday night-they sang songs from operas and musicals. We went to several markets over the weekend. There is so much shopping in Perth-a shoppers paradise! Lots of beautiful flowers everywhere and gorgeous landscaped homes. Perth appears to be a very rich city with few poor people! We bought fresh mussels at the seafood market yesterday and I steamed them-so good. Also, lots of fresh fruits and vegetables here with many gourmet markets. Doug went to a rugby game last evening and enjoyed it-France vs. Samoa.October 23-Perth. We are still enjoying Perth-leaving tomorrow to head to Adelaide-should take 2-3 days to get there. Then on to Melbourne and an overnight ferry ride to Tasmania for a week.
We drove south of Perth on Tuesday and saw beautiful country-lots of forests with beautiful tall trees. Went to Cape Leeuwin-most southwest point in Australia where the Indian Ocean and the Southern Ocean meet each other. Had lunch in a nice town called Margaret River where they make real good cheeses and have tons of wineries. As we have headed south it has gotten cooler-warm days and cool nights here like southern California. We walked through the beautiful botanical gardens in Kings Park in Perth yesterday morning. They have breathtaking wildflowers and the gardens are high above the city looking over the Swan River. Went shopping on Hay Street in city centre and visited the art museum yesterday. Still keeping our weight down! Went to the movies today-Doug went to see "Kill Bill" and Nancy went to see "Intolerable Cruelty" with George Clooney-vey funny! Also, went to a "home show" today and visited the big casino in Perth called Burrwood. Perth is truly a paradise and a great place to live.
We hope to be in Melbourne for the "Melbourne Cup," the biggest horse race in Australia-everything stops for the Cup-the first Tuesday in November. A bit of trivia-when we were in Townsville on the "gold coast" near Cairns, Gene Pitney, the 60's singer was to appear at the local casino. Also, "Engelbert Humperdink" or "Humpy" as they call him here will appear in Perth in December. To talk Australian, just add an "ie" or "y" to the end of words and you will be talking Australian. They call the foam cups that you put around a beer can "stubby coolers" and when you want to buy a round of drinks at the pub, you say you "shout a round.
October 31-Adelaide, South Australia. We are now in Adelaide after a 7 day journey. We stayed in Kalgoorlie, a neat old town in the Outback of Western Australia one night. A big gold mining area. They advertise "skimpies" at the bars which is bikini clad ladies who dance. Doug went to see them one night, but said he saw less than what he sees at Topsail Beach! He left and was back to our cabin 30 minutes later.
There are beautiful wildflowers in WA and the area is famous for ballooning, gliding and sky diving. We then crossed the Nullarbar Plain, a desert area that is huge. We had lunch in Esperance, a beautiful bay with the bluest water and whitest sand you will ever see. We stayed in Balladonia in the desert in a roadhouse. We saw wild emu on the road, big funny birds like an ostrich. The road we drove on is actually an emergency airstrip if needed since it is the only paved road for hundreds of miles. We stayed in Ceduna, a beautiful outback town. We had a nice two bedroom cabin for $60 AU and had the best fresh oysters for $7 a dozen. We stopped twice for oysters driving around the peninsula. We ran into a guy at the gas station and asked about oysters. He owned a restaurant which was closed that day, but he opened it just for us. This was the Eyre Peninsula area.
We stayed in Port Augusta and had lunch in Broken Hill. The landscape is very much like Montana-big sky and lots of outback! We encountered a dust storm in Broken Hill that was unbelievable. Several gum trees fell over on the road and we had to figure out a new way to get out of town! We also went to Silverton, near Broken Hill, where the Mad Max movies were filmed-very desolate. We stayed in Renmark in the Murray River area and went on a bird watching boat trip yesterday morning on the Murray. The Murray is an important river to South Australia, where we are now, and has lots of birdlife. We saw kangaroos in the wild while boating on the river, along with several species of birds and ducks. We see lots of cockatoos while driving, black, white and blue-very beautiful birds and we see parrots in the wild.
Adelaide (about a million people) is beautiful and so nice. We have a two bedroom apartment right in the city for $92 AU per night. We had dinner at an Argentine restaurant last night called Gaucho's-wonderful steak! We also went to a play by Moliere, "Scarpin"-very good. Adelaide is an artsy, vibrant city. While in Australia, we shop at Woolworth's grocery stores, which we found out is owned by Walmart. But, the Woolie's are not as large as Walmart's. They also have Woolie's gas stations. We are headed to Melbourne next for the Melbourne Cup-biggest horse race of the year and Aussies love horse racing. We will be there on Monday, the Cup is on Tuesday and we plan to head out to Tasmania by ferry (with the car) on Tuesday night. We are getting near Sydney and we may get home by Thanksgiving, but no definite plans yet.
November 1-Adelaide. Forgot to mention we traveled on the longest, straightest stretch of road in the world while crossing the Nullarbor Plain. It was 152 km of straight road, no curves or turns-very weird! Also, Prince Harry (Prince Charles's son) is working as a Jackaroo on a sheep farm in Queensland, AU for six months. But, he seems to fly around on the weekends and goes to most of the world rugby games. What a life! Such is the life of a jackaroo.
Adelaide is such a nice town and has great markets-the best-very interesting food stalls with fresh veggies and fruit and cheap souviners. What a great place to live. We went to see the movie "Runaway Jury" with John Cusack yesterday afternoon-ok. Also, went to a cabaret last night that is set up like you are in 1930's Berlin. The actors interact with the audience and Lola, a singer, sang songs to Doug-he enjoyed that! It was a fun evening with good live entertainment. We went to the museums and botanical gardens yesterday. They even have a museum on winemaking here-quite interesting. Australia has so many wineries and we have seen many of them. Shopping is very good in Adelaide-even better than Perth or Sydney. Headed to Melbourne tomorrow.
November 6. Hobart, Tansmania. We are in Tasmania after leaving Melbourne on Tuesday night and taking the ferry to Tassie. We left Adelaide last Sunday and stayed in Warrnambool the first night out. We then drove along the coast to Melbourne-pretty coastline with high cliffs and curvy road. We have driven 21,247 km to date, about 500 km per day.
Doug is truly amazing. We got to Melbourne in the afternoon, the "reverse gear" on the Hyundai went out. Doug drove straight to the car rental place (somehow he found it), traded the car for a Toyota campervan (that is all they had), found us a nice hotel, and got us tickets to an opera performance that night. All in the space of 3 hours and we had never been to Melbourne before-Doug really knows how to navigate!
We stayed at the "Absolutely Faboulous Hotel (ABFAB), budget place for $130 AU for the night. Melbourne is a great city, over 3 million population with lots of pretty buildings. We went to the Melbourne Cup, the biggest horse race and event in Australia on Tuesday. It was fabulous. Nicki and Paris Hilton, the "it" girls from the US were the stars for the event, along with lots of Aussie celebreties like Sam Neill and Geofrey Rush, actors. According to the papers, Paris Hilton has fallen for the "Australian Idol" singer who was booted off the show last week. Everyone dresses up for the cup and the women wear all kinds of fancy and unusual hats and the men wear suits. Nancy bought a straw hat for $1.00 at the thrift shop and DAC bought a tie to wear with his polo shirt and khaki's. We dressed up for the event!
We scalped good tickets with a seat for the race for $75 each. The horse we bet on came in last, but we had the best time watching all the fashionable people-it was truly a unique event. We got on the Tassie ferry that night, standby, and had to take a cabin for $445 AU total to get to Tasmania. No inexpensive seats left. We left at 9:00 p.m. and arrived the next morning at 6:30 a.m.
Tasmania, is another Aussie state, but an island and has about 500,000 people total. The island is very green, lots of trees, and big mountains-like New Zealand. Lots of sheep and cows here. We stayed in a beautiful cottage in Swansea last night overlooking beautiful pink bluffs and the Southern Ocean-$120 AU for the night, but worth it. We even had a separte loft area above the cottage which gave us lots of room. Cooked dinner in and had a restful evening.
We went to Port Arthur today and toured the prison colony where the first Aussie's were transported in the early 1800's. This was a most interesting place and since we have been reading the book "The Fatal Shore" which is all about the early transports, it was neat to see what we have been reading about. We drove through Launceston yesterday, another nice Tassie town. Trivia, Erroll Flynn was a Tassie from Tasmania. We plan to go back to Melbourne on the ferry, assuming we can get a seat, in 3-4 days and spend a week or so in Melbourne. It will be a good city to catch up on culture. They have really neat electric trolley cars in Melbourne, reminds us of a European town. Stay tuned and think about us trucking down the road in our campervan! Good onya!
November 9-Melbourne. We spent 4 glorious days in Tasmania. It is so beautiful, especially the West Coast-very rugged mountains everywhere, so many different kinds of trees and ferns and flowers. We went to the museums in Hobart (population 125,000) and then headed to the West Coast where we stayed in a small town called Strahan, a harbor town. It is near Sarah Island where convicts were held in the early 1800's. Tasmania was called Van Diemen's Land back in those days. Most true Tassies are related to the early convicts. But, most the convicts sent from Britain had committed only petty crimes!
We took the ferry last night from Devonport and arrived at 6:00 a.m. this morning. Again, we had to take a cabin (more expensive) than a seat, as that was all that was available. By the way, Gene Pitney (who sang "Town Without Pity") is appearing in the casinos throughout Australia. He will be in Hobart, TA next week. Tasmania is famous for Huon Pine trees, big, tall beautiful trees. It is the most beautiful state in Australia. We have now visited them all.
We are in Melbourne, Victoria now. Today, we went to an Anglican church service downtown, to a seafood fesitval on the wharf, and to see the opera "The Magic Flute this afternoon. Doug is at the rugby game tonight between Ireland and France. We hear it will be a "rough" game-but, aren't they all! We have a real nice two bedroom apartment right in the city-we were upgraded from a one bedroom for the same price-$99 AU per night. We took the campervan back to the car rental folks and hope to get our Hyundai back before leaving Melbourne. The campervan was nice, but cost about 25% more in gas than the little car! We plan to leave Melbourne on Wednesday and then head to the Snowy Mountains (Australian Alps) and the Blue Mountains which are both between Melbourne and Sydney.
We have met so many nice people along the way-Australians are very friendly and gracious and have made our journey very enjoyable. Stay healthy and don't take any "sickies" from work, as they say in Australia.
November 10-Melbourne. G'Day-today we went to two museums-art museum and history museum. Also, visited the Crown casino, a very nice one and Doug won $19 playing craps and we also won $8 on the slot machines using the "free play money" they gave us for signing up with the club. They have 7-card stud poker and Doug may go back tonight and try his luck. The casino reminds us of Las Vegas-shiney lights, lots of slots and very big!
Nancy will try to get tickets for tonight to see Jane Campion, a famous NZ movie director talk about her latest film starring the US movie star Meg Ryan and a screening of the movie. Jane Campion is in town promoting the film.
Melbourne has free electric trolley cars that circle the city which makes it very convenient to get around and it is a great walking city. Lots of Italian, Greek, and Asian restaurants. The city is known for its array of restaurants. Great place to live if it weren't so far away! Aussie talk-a "stubbie" is a beer and Australia makes great beer! "Shout a round" for your friends and enjoy the day!
November 12-Melbourne. We are staying in Melbourne until Friday, 11/14. Then headed to Sydney. The other night NKO went to see "Japanese Story," a popular Aussie movie about an Australian woman and Japanese man who travel in the outback. It is a love story with a twist! Good movie. Not able to get tickets to Jane Campion's talk and preview of her new movie. Doug went back to the casino and lost the $19 he had won the day before. They have $4 and $8 Texas Hold'em poker, what some of the guys back in Beulaville enjoy!
We went to the Melbourne zoo yesterday-very nice with wonderful bird aviaries of Australian birds. We have a hot tub spa on the roof of our hotel building and relaxed in the spa in the afternoon. Nice after walking all over Melbourne. Today, we went to another market in South Melbourne-very nice with lots of interesting food and household supplies. We're doing okay with our weight, but we have eaten some new and unusal food in Australia. Aussie talk-a "singlet" is a skimpy, sleeveless T-shirt that everyone wears. We are planning to be home soon and have checked on flights for next week, but "we'll see ya when we see ya." In the meantime, "no worries" and enjoy the day!
November 13-Melbourne. We're headed home-got reservations to fly to the USA on Monday, November 17. We will fly from Sydney to LA to Dallas to Raleigh. Over 22 hours of flying time, but we gain a day! We should arrive late Monday night 11/17.
We are leaving Melbourne today for Sydney via car, plan to stay in Snowy River Mountains tonight and on to Sydney tomorrow. Plan to stay in Sydney over the weekend and explore Canberra (Australia's capital where government offices are located) and the Blue Mountains from Sydney. We will have seen more of Australia than most Aussies by the time we leave. We have really enjoyed Melbourne and when returning to Australia we would spend a month in Melbourne and a month in Sydney as both of these towns can keep us entertained for that length of time. Definitely recommend the Novagate apartment hotel in Melbourne as a place to stay. Melbourne is a blend of both modern and historical buildings and is very beautiful.
The Australian "fashion shows" are being held in Melbourne this week and Paris Hilton is "walking the catwalk." Lots of fashionable people in town! Stay tuned and have a g'day. "See ya around," as they say in Australia.
November 13. We left Melbourne today and headed to Canberra via the Snowy Mountains. We saw the place where Ned Kelly took his "last stand." He was a famous Aussie robber in the 1890's who claimed to be a Robin Hood. A movie of his life was made in the 1970's with Mick Jagger playing Ned Kelly. We drove through several towns with ski resorts-Thredbo being one of them. The "Snowies" are beautiful mountains.
The capital of all of Australia, Canberra is a modern city, but not very interesting. They have some museums which we visited, but we were not that impressed. We stayed in Queanbeyan, a suburb of Canberra in a caravan park cabin. We drove by Parliment and the various embassies from other countries. The US Embassy in Australia is a huge sprawling spread. We drove through several beach towns and had lunch at a nice pub overlooking the ocean in Wollongong. Scarborough is a beautiful seaside town just south of Sydney.
November 14. We arrived in Sydney and stayed in a Formula One motel-very cheap accomodations-they have them all over Europe-cheap, but clean. On Saturday, we drove around Cougee and Bondi Beach, both popular with Sydney folks for swimming and surfing.
On Sunday we drove to the Blue Mountains, about 1 1/2 hours from Sydney. The mountains have a blue color to them because of so many Eucalyptus trees. On Saturday night we went to the Sydney Opera House and watched the Rugby semi-finals on a big TV screen set up outside and had dinner overlooking Sydney harbor. On Sunday night, we went to the Australian Dance Awards at the Sydney Opera House. Just like the Oscars, only for the dance community-very interesting. We stopped at Harry's Cafe on Wheels for a sandwich after the performance. It is located in Wooloomooro, just in front of Russell Crowe's $14 million penthouse. He wasn't home that night! We started our trip seeing Russell Crowe and his band and ended our trip seeing his Sydney home. We really haven't been following him-maybe he's following us!
November 17. We left Australia today for the US. We flew from Sydney to LA to Dallas to Raleigh/Durham. The flight from Sydney to LA was very bumpy and turbulent, but we survived. We were delayed in Dallas due to storms, but we finally made it to Beulaville at 2:00 a.m. Tuesday, November 18 after about 30 hours of travel time of which over 20 hours were flying in an airplane! However, our body time was 12 hours later. A wonderful trip of a lifetime and we hope to return "down under" someday. No worries and stay in touch with us!
Following is the approximate cost (in dollars) for our NZ/AU trip: transportation expenses-daily rental cost about $24 per day; fuel cost was about 10 cents per mile; ferries from north to south island in NZ and roud trip to Tasmania from Melbourne cost about $600. Loding cost was about $58 per day; cost at Uluru was $110 and Sydney & Melbourne about $75 per day; most nights we stayed in one or two bedroom room cabins in campgrounds. Everything else cost about $100 per day. Admissions and tours averaged $19 per day. We attempted to chargee all restaurant and grocery purchases over $10. These charges totaled $38 per day. Undefined "out of pocket" cash expenditures equaled $42 per day. With free (frequent flyer points were used)airfare, the total trip expenditure for 3 1/2 months was approximately $19,000 for the two of us.
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