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.