Sydney, Canberra and surrounds

Sydney looms up beneath us like a giant map spread out on the table. It is a huge, sprawling metropolis with bays, waterways, bridges, and beach after beach after beach........a beautiful contrast of blue water and green land (now especially since the drought of so many years looks like it's a thing of the past, hopefully). We disembark from our flight and find our Eugene, Oregon friends of the 1970's Helen and Fenton Sharpe waiting for us. We load our luggage into their car and we're off to Avalon Beach, the site of their holiday home.

The drive in the late afternoon is lovely, and we get to see many of the beaches-of-the-air now down-to-earth and there are two that are at the front and back of their home which is on a cliff high above both beaches. We eat at Starfish Restaurant and go back to the house to settle in. We are tired and need the rest to begin our rediscovery of Sydney tomorrow.

Sydney is quite a modern city, but it has pockets of old Sydney dotted in the landscape. We are able to do quite a bit of walking before getting too weary, and we manage to circle through the city, see some sites we saw on our last trip that we really enjoy (the Opera House, Sydney Bridge, Hyde Park, The Rocks) and discover some new areas that we hadn't seen earlier (Darling Harbor, Harbor Bridge, Royal Botanical Gardens, Government House). And all that in one day!

We also spend time in Canberra with Fenton and Helen who often make the trip to Australia's capital. This time the National Gallery of Art is showing Masterpieces of Paris, a collection that is on temporary loan from the Musee d'Orsay. We saw most of these pieces when we were in Paris in October, but we are very happy to view them again. They are impressionist and post-impressionist pieces and are among our favorite art selections. We could see them over and over again. We also visit Parliament (and watch the Senate and House debate health care), the War Memorial, Botanical Garden, Mt. Ainsley, and several foreign embassies. The Australian Parliament is built into a hill with grass on the roof; a tall tower rises above the hill and flies Australia's flag. It sounds strange, but it's very unique and pleasing to the eye. On the way home we pass through some towns with strange sounding names: Queanbeyan, Bungendore (a beautiful woodworking store), Tarago, Mittagong, Goulburn (with the biggest statue of a sheep I've ever seen). It is a great trip!

Speaking of great trips, this Australian trip is coming to an end. We have enjoyed this country so very much. The scenery is fantastic, the people unceasingly friendly, and the animals unique. We have had a chance to see koalas, kangaroos, wallabys, an emu, Tasmanian devils (unfortunately, though we saw at least 100, they were all dead on the road), a duck-billed platypus, more than 20 kinds of birds, many of them parrots, cockatoos or kookaburras, water dragons (big lizard), and a python. We've enjoyed being with old friends and have met some new friends. We've walked our legs off and are exhausted, but, despite the horrendously long and tiring plane ride, we'll be eager to do it again!

One more photo of Wineglass Bay

More Tassie---Hobart to Launceston

We cut our time short in Hobart because we decide we'd like to do some hiking in the Freycinet Peninsula, so we leave the capital city two days early to drive north. It looks like it will take us about 2 hours to get to the Freycinet, but 3 hours later, we finally pull in to Cole's Bay for a picnic lunch. We still aren't quite there. We have to buy a national park pass ($24.oo!!) for the day and take time to find an accommodation for the night. Bicheno is a nice sounding town that is only about 45 minutes away from the national park, so we call and luck out on a room there. We are set to hike!!

Wineglass Bay is one of the most famous places in Tasmania, and seeing photos of it makes us really want to hike there. So, we set out---300 steps up to the saddle of the mountain and 300 steps down to the bay. Our original plan is to take the loop around and back to our departure point, but because it is now 2:00 in the afternoon, we must choose a less time consuming option. The only one is to retrace our steps back up the 300+ steps and down again. But the aches and pains are worth it. Wineglass Bay is basically a 3/4 circle of cobalt blue water, about 3 miles across, that turns abruptly to green at the shallow ledge and white foam along the shoreline and is ringed by mountains all the way. The other 1/4 of the circle opens out to the Tasman Sea and the huge expanse of water that goes to the Antarctic. It is so beautiful that we just sit on a rock and look at it for quite a while, then we take off our shoes and enjoy the cool green liquid.

Now we tear ourselves away for the hike back over the mountain because if we leave much later, we'll be trying to find our motel after dark, sometimes a frustrating experience.

The next morning we drive to Launceston, stopping at the top of Elephant Mountain for delicious crepes at the Elephant Mtn. Pancake Barn, a unique little cafe all by itself at the mountaintop. Again, we miscalculate the time it will take to get to our next destination, and we pull in to Launceston around 2, in time to find a place to stay. It's a four day weekend, and all of Tassie is looking for accommodations. We are lucky to find one in the heart of the wine producing area (imagine that!) And it's right on an inlet, too.

We don't have much time in Lauceston, but the next morning we visit Cataract Gorge, the city's most well-known site and enjoy hiking around, seeing wallabys and parrots. Our plane leaves in the early afternoon, so we have just enough time for one more winery and lunch. Then it's off to Sydney on JetStar.

Tasmania--Southeast

Tassie is a compact, picturesque and interesting state in Australia. We fly into Hobart just before another storm and have to endure a few days of rain and wind. We decide we'd better go where we had planned anyway, because we have only 9 days here, so we head out to Port Arthur on Sunday without an umbrella (silly us) and come face-to-face with sideways rain. Fortunately, after about 2 hours, it settles down and allows us to enjoy the area which wasn't so enjoyable for the early inhabitants. They were mostly convicts sent from England to a most inhospitable land and expected to work off their sentences in a number of ways, all of them gruesomely difficult with harsh penalties for disobedience. A number were sent for very petty crimes and second offenses. In some cases, they were taught a skill and sent back. But often times the offender died without returning home to England or any of their colonies. But the grounds of the early settlement are beautiful and buildings nicely restored.

We are staying in Seven Mile Beach, a small community about 30 minutes out of Hobart, the capital city, and it is a good place for us since we are visiting places both north and south. We like the southern part, specifically the Tahune Air Walk out of Huon town. It is a large expanse of walks and suspension bridges around 150-200 feet off the ground through old growth eucalptus and allows for walking among the treetops along the Huon and Picton Rivers. We finally get to see a platypus in Huon after waiting for about an hour, looking under logs and around high banks. We didn't know quite what to expect, but he appeared just at dusk. Very cute, busy diving and feeding. What a fun little guy to watch!

Hobart's waterfront is a very low key place with several upscale restaurants and a pretty famous market, Salamanca Market, which carries just about everything. We wander through its colorful stalls and walkways and buy some fresh fruit and vegetables, jam and a few souvenirs.

Bruny Island is an area that was recommended to us, so we decide we can't miss it. We drive there early but not early enough to avoid waiting in the ferry line. But we make it on the next ferry, get to the island and hike the isthmus where we can see both bodies of water (Adventure Bay and Isthmus Bay) at the same time from a high lookout. There are hundreds of fairy penguin nests, but they are all empty because the animals are out to sea. It is a gorgeous, clear sea, and we would like to be out there, too. We continue around Adventure Bay to the peninsula that found at least 6 whaling stations on our hike to Fluted Cape, part of South Bruny National Park. These whalers were tough men who worked hard and wiped out anything that got in their way, like the native Aborigine people who were actually obliterated from Tasmania. Lots of really sad stories about this period of time. We drive to Cloudy Bay across a rough track and come to a gorgeous spot. It's really isolated on a southern peninsula of Bruny Island which leads directly to Antarctica by boat. Huge, noisy waves crash into the rocks below. But our ferry leaves in just one hour, so we jump in the car and head out back across the bumps and washboard road, back over the isthmus, and back around the many curves that lead to the ferry dock. We are the next to last car on and the ferry takes off as soon as we turn off the motor.

Adelaide and the Barossa Valley, Feb 23-26

It was clear that 3 days in Adelaide and the surrounding area would not be enough, and as we drive into the city limits of this intriguing spot, we wonder how we'll fit it all in. We can't. The next best thing is to pick out one favorite each. Lucky for us, Bob and Margaret's friends, Kay and Robert, had already made arrangements for one choice: The South Australian Art Museum. We make our way there to meet their friend and our guide Rosie who takes us on a personal tour to the early colonial section of the museum where we try to absorb the early history of Adelaide through art. It's an amazing accumulation of paintings including the earliest view of the city as well as art featuring early convicts and Aborigines.

We also are able to visit the special exhibition of Aboriginal artifacts--the largest collection anywhere, I'm told. It includes painted spears, boomerangs, hunting implements, baskets, interview videos, videos of early ceremonies and everyday life, medicinal herbs, a map of the 200+ clans found in Australia and many other items that have slipped from memory already. It is truly a magnificent collection.

The next day Terry gets his choice: the Barossa Valley wineries, a very famous area which has produced some excellent wines that he has tried and also some that have no export to the US. We start off pretty early in the morning as it takes over an hour to get there, and we want to stop and taste the famous German pastries of the area. Apple streudel it is with great coffee. It is a beautiful, sunny day, and we are eager to see the vineyards, so we can't linger too long over coffee.

We stop first at Jacob's Creek, then we proceed to Rockford, a very small winery featuring hand picked grapes. The workers are just pitching the picked grapes from the truck to the de-stemmer as we walk in. It's an interesting process as they move the grapes into the primary fermenters which are huge concrete bins open with grape skins floating on top. We could stay and watch, but we must cover more territory and won't get to if we spend too much time at any one place. So, we scamper back to the car and drive to Grant Burge, Charles Melton, and eat at a restaurant called 1918 in the town of Tanunda. After lunch we visit Peter Lehmann Winery and stop off at Maggie Beers' Farm Shop. We then push on to quick stops at Penfolds and Wolf Blass. Normally, we drink the entire samples of wine, but this time we couldn't manage that and drive back, too. So, our tasting was for a small amount in a bunch of places and gave us a feel for the wide variety of wines that Australia offers. It reminds us of the Napa and Sonoma Valleys in California with its many boutique wineries intersperced with medium to large ones, with some very fancy tasting rooms and architecture.

The next day Friday we hike through Torrens River Park and enjoy the many song birds and parrots (as we did every day we were there) and beautiful landscape. With that, Bob and Margaret return to New Zealand after two fun weeks traveling together, and we bid new friends Kay and Robert goodbye with hopes of meeting again soon. We finish in Adelaide and hop aboard Tiger Air's flight to Hobart, Tasmania.

Photos of the Grampians

Traveling the Great Ocean Road, 2/19-2/23

It's a famous piece of geography, and now I know why. The Great Ocean Road is quite spectacular--mile after mile of beautiful blue water and golden beaches with rocky cliffs occasionally thrown in. We begin by leaving Melbourne and driving through the Mornington Peninsula where we are given a guided tour by friends of Bob and Margaret (our neighbors in Mukilteo who live 6 months in NZ and who have come to meet us in Australia). We can see both bodies of water at the same time from a hill atop the peninsula; both beaches are spectacular.

Next we drive to Port Philip Bay and find our ferry, drive on and off we go to the other side of the Barwon Heads to a town called Queenscliff where we meet our friends Kathy and David and Michelle and Steven at the Vue Grand. These are people we met in NZ on the overnight boat trip we took out of Doubtful Sound. We get a guided tour of this amazing piece of land and water where ships come through to get to Melbourne. It's a beautiful day to drive around and look at this area where Dave and Kathy have a holiday home. Lucky us, they have invited us to stay there as it is on our way to the Great Ocean Road. What a darling town they live in! It's called Barwon Head, and they have a home between the ocean and town, so we can walk everywhere. We walk to dinner in the evening and then take a morning walk along the entire peninsula the next morning. We could live in this little town, we all agree, but we must pull ourselves away and get going.

Our first day is glorious, looking at the gorgeous water, hearing the waves roll in and the sea birds overhead. Every place we stop is fantastic with beautiful rock formations, some sticking out like big noses or giant shelves, others hugging the coast or rolling down to mix with the white foam as it splashes and shoots high above them. We stop to see lighthouses and the rainforest where we walked through beech tree groves, avenues of giant ferns and towering eucalyptus trees with their pungent smell. We walk out on headlands to view the famous Twelve Apostles, scattered rocks that stick up as much as 200 feet above the Bass Straits, and the London Bridge, a huge natural rock arch. Unfortunately, in the 1990's it fell down, stranding some tourists on the part farthest out. They were rescued eventually, but the bridge now has a huge gap, still beautiful, however, surrounded in its solitude by the cobalt blue sea, rimmed by white waves. At night we can see thousands of stars, including the Southern Cross, which seem to bend down and twinkle at us.

After two days, we turn inland at Port Fairy, an old fishing port and picturesque town, where we take in an old volcano nearby at Tower Hill. It is there that we spot more koalas, wallabys, an emu and a big snake crossing the road. It's a beautiful scene in this big caldera, and we enjoy the forest and flowers which eveutually morph into sheep ranches and wheat fields. The predominat color is now golden yellow in this area called The Wimmera. The Grampions Mountain Range now juts up on the horizon. We reach Halls Gap around 4 pm, just in time to have a short "bush walk" before dinner.

The next morning we wake to a cacophony of bird sounds! And when we look outside, we can see many, many wallabys mosying around our cabin. As we walk to the car, clouds of white cockatoos shoot overhead and kookaburras hide in the trees, laughing their unmistakable laugh. We find the trail to the Pinnacles, hike through the narrow Grand Canyon, watch youngsters learn to rock climb, scramble up large rocks (I know I'll be sore tomorrow) and scuttle out on a huge rock high above the valley we just left that morning. Stunning view!

But there's no rest for the weary, so we retrace our steps, back down the mountains to our car and it's off to Adelaide for us. We arrive around 8:30 just in time to see the sun set. Tomorrow we'll go to the city with some friends of Bob and Margaret's, but meanwhile, we are in need of a deep sleep.