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.

Melbourne--Feb 13-20

Melbourne is a very busy and exciting city. We can't wait to get out and explore. First, however, we hear firecrackers and a change of plans leads us to Chinatown where it is their New Year's celebration. Thousands of firecrackers go off seemingly at once, pink, blue, red or black dragons roam the streets spewing beer and champagne and tearing up cabbages for the thousands of well-wishers. A 50 foot pink dragon, manned by at least 20 men pass in front of us, and children and adults reach out to touch it for good luck. It is loud!!

In a week we manage to see the Immigration Museum, ride the antique trolley around the town quite a few times, inspect opals and learn their history, see the play "Jersey Boys" about Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons (terrific!), spend a whole day with Joe Dows (we met him and his now-deceased wife June back in 1968 in Sweden) who takes us to several wineries, have dinner with David and Kathy Patrick (we met them and their friends the Rossiters on an overnight boat trip in NZ in 2007) and take in Aboriginal art at the Ian Potter Gallery, part of the Victoria National Gallery, which was an amazing day. Plus we explore the Queen Victoria Market. Whew! We'd like to stop and rest, but tomorrow we are setting out for Adelaide along the Great Ocean Road. We hear there's no other scenery like it.

Successful Koala Hunting!! Feb 12

Paynesville is our final destination for the day, so getting off the bus in Bairnsdale and finding another to Paynesville could have been time consuming and confusing, but we are rescued by Denis Hudson's brother Cullen, who just happens to live there. He picks us up and whisks us off to Paynesville, stopping to show us the area on the way. What a help! And it gives us a chance to really see the area which we think is magnificent. There are canals everywhere with beautiful boats moored behind homes that could have been plucked from a home magazine.

We alight at the Marina Cove Resort, eager to see if we can actually find the koalas that were promised us by the Hudsons, Gilbys and others on the bus. We throw our suitcases down and take the ferry to Raymond Island, hoping to see at least one koala. I secretly hope to see a baby koala, but I don't speak it aloud for fear of jinxing our chance. There it is--our first koala just 50 feet from where we get off the ferry, its little face looking down at us with a perplexed expression, as if to ask us what the big deal is. It is a big deal, and we continue on, faces upward to hopefully see another one. We see 18 and have sore necks. The last one is a little lower on the branch and while we are watching, a little ball of fur moves and out pops a little tiny face. It's a baby! I am ecstatic and engage it in a one-way conversation punctuated with "You are sooo cute" about every 5 seconds. We watch for over an hour as it pulls at branches, nibbles leaves of the gum tree, and climbs up on its mother's back for a little higher limb with more leaves. We also see beautiful parrots, kangaroos, a giant hare, and various other birds, but nothing will take the place of seeing that little fuzz-ball.

The next day we are picked up by Elaine Gilby's brother Peter and taken to his home for tea with him and his wife Lynden who is an artist. Of course we hope to see her paintings and get to do so after our lovely snack of Lamingtons and Vanilla slice. They both then take us to see the city of Bairnsdale and especially St. Mary's Church and a couple of art galleries. We catch the noon train, ride and think about how fortunate we are to have friends whose family take such good care of us, and arrive in Melbourne right on time. We will wait for Bob and Margaret (they are our neighbors who are presently living and working in NZ) to join us at our hotel before we set out for dinner. We are starving!

The Sapphire Coast--Feb 5 to 12, 2010

The South Coast, also known as the Sapphire Coast because of the color of the water, is a jumble of cute cabins, little colorful cafes and shops, beautiful vine-covered homes with the curved roof rolled on the edges and lacy porches called "bull nose verandas" that are so typical of Australia. These are set in among bright green, rolling hills with cows and sheep for neighbors, or along golden sand beaches that have tumbling, foamy waves sizeable enough to surf. We can look down from our deck to see surfers as they rock about and skim atop water the color of aquamarine that flows into forest gree, lapis, sapphire and, finally, indigo. Around these rise rocks of various colors and shapes, some just plain huge and others fantastical with names like Camel Rock that looks like its namesake, complete with tail, on which 3 cormorants sit.

And Speaking of fantastical, the names of some of these communities are other-worldly, names like Ulladulla, Burrewarra Point, Mullimburra Point, Narooma, Bermagui (where we are) and Merimbula, among many others that are Aboriginal and very fun to say. (We passed through Tumbarumba and Wagga Wagga on the way south from Wodonga).

In fact, Aussie English is a story of its own. We are learning lots of slang from our hosts Margot and Denis Hudson and Elaine and Brian Gilby and are having a great time with it. We're constantly looking at them with quizzical expressions or asking them to "translate" for us. Finally, Margot found, in Tilba Tilba, and gave to us a little slang dictionary which we now carry with us, leaving them to speak in peace without being interrupted too much. It's pretty funny just to read. They say our English is more correct, but we think their English is just plain charming and fun, much like they, themselves, are.

There is abundant bird life here. We've already heard and seen probably more than 50 species of birds; some look very much like ours, such as their magpie with black bodies and white marks in the tail and wing feathers, and small wrens and finches. But others look very different like the one that I saw on a walk earlier this week. It was mostly black with a white breast, brown head and a bright yellow beak. Or black cockatoos that flew over our house just yesterday. And the songs they sing! We wake up to a warble that sounds like a synthesizer and walk along among trees that hold very tiny impossible-to-spot birds that tinkle like dinner bells. Magnificent! And we haven't even gotten to Tasmania yet, where we understand the bird life is even more plentiful.

However, this Sapphire Coast chapter of our trip comes to a close tomorrow when we board first a V-Line Bus, transfer to a train and head farther south and west to the state of Victoria, stopping overnight in Paynesville (then on to Melbourne the next day) to pay a visit to some koalas living in the wild on Raymond Island. We sure hope they're home!

Around Wodonga--Feb 1-5

=Another long flight from Fiji to Sydney, Australia, and although it was only 4 hours, we then had to catch another flight to Albury. I imagined we would fly in a smaller plane, but I didn’t expect a 2 prop. The last time I flew in a prop plane was in 1969 when we flew to Greece from Germany. It was quite a bumpy ride, but we got to see a lot of the Australian geography and got safely to Albury where we were picked up by our friends Denis and Margot Hudson and taken to their home in Wodonga about 10 miles away. The Hudsons and Brian and Elaine Gilby, whom we met in Turkey, will be taking us to Bermagui which is down on the coast between Sydney and Melbourne.
The day after we landed, we got started seeing the countryside. The Hudsons were taskmasters and immediately planned outings for us that would show us a wide range of the land. We visited an old goldrush town, Beechworth, which looked very much like eastern California, where we stopped for a latte and a tart. Then on to Yackandandah, another goldrush town. The names of the towns are so interesting and fun to say, I just can’t resist writing them for you. (We are going through Tumbarumba tomorrow). We saw an Aussie movie called “Bran Nue Dae” which was interesting and at the same time quite funny. It was about a young Aborigine who was being forced by his mother to study for the priesthood. It was really good; besides, it was 100+ degrees and the theater was air conditioned.
The next day we drove in the opposite direction (west) to a town called Echuca where we went to a factory which manufactured truck trailers for hauling milk (this being a dairy farm area). Gary Byford, the owner of the factory, then took us to the Murray River to see the steam paddlewheeler (the “Hero”) that he rescued from the bottom of the river and completely renovated. It was a gem and resembled the steam paddlewheelers on the Mississippi. While we were there, we spotted hundreds of cockatoos, white with red feathers, that swooped down over the river and landed in the trees. We don’t have that sight in the US!!
On the way west, we passed stubbles of wheat fields with windmills that could be set down in Kansas and feel very much at home, fruit growing farms, wineries, cattle ranches and “old west” towns, all the while learning a whole new Australian vocabulary (tucker, cockeys, dead horse on a dog’s eye, fair dinkum and even more---will explain all when we see you).
Tomorrow we’re off for a week on the south coast where we will fish, walk on the beach, and enjoy the Tasman Sea. I can’t wait to see Tumbarumba!