Sydney

Today was our last day in Sydney. We took the bus out to Bondi Beach. A nice beach but not what we are used to in the US. A small crescent with a deep beach of very fine cool sand. It is a great surfing beach. We took the bus back along the coast to the central station and then walked back to hotel from there, about a 1 1/2 hour walk through the city, very interesting. We saw a long line outside a chocolate shop, thought this must be good, got in the Que and bought some very good Easter chocolate. Tonight we had a dinner in the small town of Rose Bay on the water at sunset. Yesterday we took a tour out to the blue mountains. They get their name from the blue haze that hangs over the area. We took a couple of nail biter cable car rides and a ride on the steepest cable railway (almost straight up) in the world. On the way back to Sydney we stopped at the site of the 2000 Olympics and then took a boat down a river back to the heart of town near the Opera House. We also did our own mini tour of the rocks area, which is the original area of Sydney where the prisoners were left to found a colony, then a city and eventually a nation. They seem to erect statues here to outlaws, many of whom did many good things toward the formation of this country, even though they were scoundrels.

Tomorrow we head home after a wondeful time in NZ and OZ. We have seen so much of these amazing countries, and met so many people from all over the world, and have had so many positive experinces that it is amazing we were able to do so much in such a short period of time.

Eileen on the Bridge

Eileen Climbs the Bridge

We arrived in Sydney yesterday and promptly started walking the town. We are staying near the harbor, so we explored the are called the rocks which includes the opera house and the Sydney harbour bridge. There is quite a bit going on especially since it is St Patricks day. They were practicing yesterday and we are right next to the oldest Irish pub in Australia. What they do here is put barricades around the pubs to keep the revelers contained. This morning was Eileen's big day. She climbed to the top of the Sydney Harbour Bridge, up ladders, over catwalks and up and down over 1337 steps. At the top she was 134m(approx 45ft) above the water. While she was climbing the bridge I walked the bridge to the other side and walked down to the water and took some pictures looking back to Sydney. I then walked back to the pylon on the Sydney side and got there just in time to see Eileen climb the ladder to the bridge arch. After that we took the "Hop On -Hop Off" bus around Sydney getting off when we saw something interesting. Sydney is a very energetic city, we are glad we took and extra day here, there is so much to see.

Pictures from Reef and Palm Cove

Palm Cove

We are in Palm Cove just up the coast from Cairns. It is a tropical paradise with a beach, palm trees and a rainforest just across the main highway. It has rained both mornings here but by the afternoon everything clears up and is fine. You can't swim here this time of year because of sting rays, posionous jellyfish, sharks and crocodiles, other than that, no worries. Yesterday we went out 50 miles in the Coral Sea to a large pontoon on the Great Barrrier Reef. You can scuba, snorkel or take a semi-submersible sub to see the reef. The snorkeling wasn't good, so we took the sub twice. The reef is beautiful with all different types and colors of coral and fish, it was a real fun time. Tomorrow we are on to Sydney.

Uluru (Ayers Rock)

We are just outside of the middle of nowhere, 1300km from the nearest large city. Alice Springs is 300km away, but it is just a small town in the desert. Over 400,000 people come here to see Ayers Rock and a formation of rocks called Kata Tjuta also known as the Olgas. We walked among the Olgas yesterday being constantly buzzed by large flies. Not really a lot of fun. These are sacred places to the Aborigines and they are supposed to hold many secrets. The big secret is how they get so many people to come here to see a few big rocks. We saw the sunrise this morning at Ayers Rock and will do a dinner under the stars tonight. Tomorrow on to Cairns and civilization. p.s. You can double click on the pictures to enlarge them.

Somehow we uploaded the commentary half way. We had a great day walking around town and seeing everything even though the temp's were in the mid 90's. Eileen has always said that she wanted to come here and see the Roo's Jump,we not only saw Roo's jump we also saw Koala Bears in the wild along with Emu's, Kangaroo mobs in the hundreds, plus various birds and wildlife. We took a walk in the bush in 100 degree temps, and really didn't expect too see much. Well, were we surprised, we saw more wild Kangaroo than we hoped for, we came upon a mob of over 200 Kangaroo and when the saw us they ran in all directions so fast I almost didn't get my camera turned on in time. We also saw Koala's up in the trees, it was so hot they weren't very active, but I did manage to get some good pictures of them. The Emu's are huge birds, larger than me. I was a little nervous at first walking among such large animals, but they won't attack you unless they feel threatend. We had a fun day walking in the bush and seeing so many animals native to Australia.

We arrived in Melborne yesterday. We walked all over town, it is a city with very old looking buildings and very modern buildings. There were all kins of festivals going on, food, music, and waterfront with waterski contests, distance jumping off a platform with wings and helium baloons attach

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Christchuch

We are now in Christchurch. This is a very English city, I can even hear bagpipes playing out on the street.

Eileen is shopping so I thought I would do an update. We took a tour of the city this morning.

Two days ago in Queenstown we took a jet boat ride up the dart river. This is where a lot of "Lord of the Rings" was filmed. The do a lot of filming here. On the way to our jetboat ride we passed this beautiful farm with hay bales out front a barn and a water tower. Our guide asked us hw old we thought it was, most of us guessed about one hundred years old. Actually it is three weeks old and is a movie set, which will be blown up in a few days as Hugh Jackman drives away on a motorcycle. We took a walk through an old growth Beech forest that looked right out of Lord of the Rings.

The jetboat was the most fun you can have on a river. Why canoe when you can get into a 400hp jetboat and fly on the river at over 70kph, barely missing boulders and rock walls by inches, in some places on only 3 inches of water. Add to that some of the most spectacular scenery in the world and you have quite a ride.

We we got back to town thery were having a parasailing contest. They were coming off the top of the mountain and had to land on the beach, not all of them made the beach, some made the water and some just disapeared somewhere on the other side of town.

Yestereday we drove here via Mt. Cook. Mt. Cook is the highest in NZ at about 13,000 feet. Edmund Hillaty used this mountain to train for his quest of Mt. Everest. The base elevation of Mt. Cook is at around 3000 ft, giving a vertical rise of the mountain of 10,000 feet, about the same vertical from Everest basc camp to it's summit.

Some observations on NZ. The people her are some of the kindest and gracrious we have ever met. There are no wild animals native to New Zealand. Therefore you can go anywhere without fear of being eaten by a wild animal. The English introduced possum and rabbits here, and with no predators to eat them, they have multiplied like, um, rabbits. So it is always open season on possum and on Easter they have a large rabbit hunt. There are over 40 million sheep here, they are everywhere. With very little snow in the lowlands the cattle graze all year long, you don't see any barns, just milking sheds. It is a wonderful country, the only one I have ever been to that I could actually live in.

Tommorow we fly to Melborne fot the start of our Australia leg of this trip.

We are still in Queenstown. Today we a going to take a jetboat for a ride on the Dart River, plus a hike and a 4WD Jeep Tour. This place is for the really adventerous, you can bunjee jump, free jump, parachute off the top of the mountain tethered to a guide jumper, this is known as tanden jumping. I would do this but Eileen is Chicken. We are even because I won't do the Bridge Climb in Sydney.

Yesterday we went to Milford Sound. It is a 300 km ride through spectacular mountians to get there. Then we did a 2 hour boat ride on the sound, actually a Fijord cut by glaciers 80,000 years ago. This area has rain 2 out of 3 days, but we had a beautiful sunny day. On the way there we passed hundreds of farms with thousands of sheep, cattle and deer, one farm was 15,000 acres.

Picture

Queenstown

Last night we went to a show and dinner put on by the Maori people of New Zealand. They showed us a lot of their tribal traditions in a Maori village. They put on a show of tribal dances and songs with the traditional drums and instruments of the South Pacific Islands. They then put on a Hangi which is similar to a Hewiian Luau. The trip back to town was quite fun. We were told that since they entertained us we now had to entertain them. People were called by their nationality to the front of the bus and they had to sing a song from their home country. We had 10 nationalities from 4 continents on board and we could sing along with most of the songs. When we reached town our driver, in complete disregard to all trafic laws went around and around and around again, a roundabout, while the whole bus sang , "She will be comming around the mountain when she comes." What a fun way to have international harmony. Today we flew to Queenstown on the South Island. We passed by the Southern Alps and could see Mt. Cook. the highest mountain in the Southern Hemisphere. We took a cable car up to the top of Bob's Peak for a great view of the whole Queenstown area. For Some reason I can't upload any pictures, it must be something to do with the connetion here.

Rototura, NZ

Yesterday we left Auckland and traveled through the most beautiful farm country you could imagine. We traveled through rolling hills, ancient volcanos, dotted with many farms and more cows than we have ever seen.

We went to the Waitomo caves and took a walk among the staligmites and staligmites. Then took a boat ride through total darkness except for thousands of glow worms above us.

Rotorua is in an area of volcanic activity. With many geysers, steam vents and hot mud pools. The local golf course has these hazards in addition to the usual hazards, play your ball where it lies, if you dare. In addtion to the mini Yellowstone tour we went to a sheep roundup and shearing exhibition and then on to see the national bird, the elusive Kiwi.

We then walked around town, and came upon a lawn bowling tournament. Kind of like bocci, except the balls are not round but weighted on one side so that the can roll in a arc. Fun to watch.

Tonight we are going to a Maori (native people) concert and hangi (Feast). The Maori people consist of 14% of the population of NZ, but 30% of the population of Rotoura.

Auckland, New Zealand

We are finally here after traveling 36 hours, 22 of them in the air. We arrived yesterday evning (Friday here) about 7:00pm, which is 1:00am Friday EST. That puts us 18 hours ahead of EST. We didn't do much last night, walked out of the hotel looked at the harbor and went to bed.

This morning it was raining and windy. Auckland is known as the city of sails due to the high number of boat ownership here. Well, the only thing sailing this morning were umbrellas. We decided to take the hop on hop off bus around town. We stoped at the Antartic museum which is a combination penguin exhibt and aquarium of southern ocean species. Then we visited a beautiful old wooden cathedral of New Zealand and it's new one next door, saw the museum, went to the artsy/schmartsy part of town. This was Bill Clintons favorite part of Auckland, I can see why, as there are many very good looking women here. We did some walking around town, and are now about eady to go out for dinner. Tomorow and Tuesday we tour the north Island. We will keep you posted.

We Are Getting Ready

We are going to try to blog our various trips so you can view our travels. We thought this would be the easiest way for all of you to keep track of us as we take our trips.



On Wednesday Feb 27 we are leaving for New Zealand and Australia. We will leave from San Francisco for for a long flight to Sydney and then on to Auckland. New Zealand. In the process we will cross the international dateline and loose Feb 28 forever, arriving in Auckland on Friday the 29th.



Our trip will take us from Auckland on the north island of New Zealand through to the South island for eight days then on to Australia. We will arrive in Melbourne. Then we will travel to Alice Springs, Ayers Rock, Cairns, Sydney and then home.



I will try to update this blog as often as possible.