Reflection on Uluru, as the sun first peeped over the horizon
Rarin' to start!
A hungry great white shark?
Elephant?
Gorilla?
Taking a break somwhere around kilometre #7.
Thursday, 28 July 2016
Monday, 25 July 2016
Day 13 (July 25, 2016): Homeward Bound
Beeeep beeeep beeeep. 5:20am. I'm so used to consistent early mornings on this vacation, what's one more to wrap it up!
Nothing says Australia more than Vegemite spread. Aussies go crazy for this goo, which had a prominent presence at our breakfast buffet this morning.
Our United Airlines Boeing 787 Dreamliner to LA
Still smilin'! Here we are in Toronto. Just one more leg to go til home.
We got the airport shuttle at 6:30am and by 7:15, we had checked in, cleared border services (a totally automated process now in Australia), and cleared security. We found an American Express lounge we qualified to access, and in we went for a hot breakfast - a nice way to start our 24th wedding anniversary. And yes, I did remember. ;-)
An hour later, well fed and caffeinated, we went to the gate of our United Airlines flight to Los Angeles. Today's flight is on one of United's new Boeing 787 Dreamliners. A few maintence items delayed departure by an hour. It's amazing how flights depart Sydney for the 13-hour flight to LA like it's a mere hop across town. The route is well-plied by so many airlines these days.
The routing home takes us from Sydney to LA to Toronto to Halifax. The connections to Air Canada are excellent and will get us home by bedtime. In my first blog entry I complained about missing out on Thursday, July 14th due to the International Date Line. Well the good thing about that is that science gives back the lost time on the way home.
The other good thing about the Internaionl Date Line on the way home is that we got to enjoy our 24th wedding anniversary for an extra day, basically! Ok ok, so it was hardly a romantic thing, being squished into economy seats for 26 hours, but still, nice to be together to celebrate.
We have had quite a tour. Somehow we survived a lost wallet (Los Angeles), getting locked out on a hotel balcony (New Caledonia), a wrecked tire by running over an echidna (Tasmania), and no advance visa into Australia. But all four matters were solved easily due to the kindness of people and a willingness to help. The variety of cultural experiences, the amazing weather (despite it being winter), the unbelievable sights... it all made for the most memorable of vacations.
Thank you for your interest in the blog. I truly appreciate you following it! Until next time.
Sunday, 24 July 2016
Day 12 (July 24, 2016): Sydney has it all!
Originally we were supposed to arrive in Sydney on Sunday evening and fly home Monday morning. But we enjoyed Sydney so much in the past that we decided to shave a day off Uluru and have a full day in Sydney. We are so pleased we did.
We set out at 8:30am to find the train home our hotel near the airport to the Central Business District. It was quite a cold morning, with a meagre 11 Celsius under overcast skies. But our excitement kept us warm!
Sydney Harbour is "vibrancy on steroids". The sights, the multicultural element, the myriad of boats and ferries -- it all makes for one of the most enjoyable cities we have ever explored. Add the Opera House and the Sydney Harbour Bridge, and you have something very special indeed.
If one came to Sydney and only viewed the Sydney Opera House, one would leave feeling the trip had been worth it. Built by a Danish architect, it is meant to reflect yacht sails. We ate breakfast at the Opera House on this visit. Nothing of interest was being performed today or tonight, so we didn't get to go inside this time. But we had viewed a concert there in 2000, so we were okay with not taking one in this time.
The 'white sail' roof is made of thousands of small white tiles.
A little anecdote at this point: when we arrived in Sydney in 2000, we checked into our hotel, dropped our bags and headed directly to the Opera House. As soon as we arrived there, we bumped into one of our professors from Memorial University on the steps! Talk about a small world.
Given Sydney's history as a destination to which convicts were sent en masse from England in the 19th century, we decided to invest some time in learning about this dark chapter of its past by visiting the Hyde Park Barracks Museum. The facility housed over 50,000 men and boys convicted of crimes and sent from England between 1819 and 1848. Conditions were brutal. At one point around 1820, 1/3 of all Sydney residents were convicts!
Hyde Park Barracks Museum
Sydney is filled with place names that reflect London. For example, it has its own King's Cross. Hyde Park is another example. We spent some time exploring in and around the Hyde Park area.
Here's another view of Hyde Park and St Mary's Cathedral, as seen from the Sydney Tower Eye.
We like to "collect" viewing opportunities at towers around the world. On our last visit, we didn't do the Sydney Tower Eye, hence we decided to go up this time. The Tower provides an excellent bird's eye view of Sydney at 268 metres above street level.
The Sydney Tower Eye
To visit Sydney one must experience the ferries. We decided to randomly pick a ferry to one of the islands in the harbour and to go eat lunch there. As we arrived back at Circular Quay, a ferry was about to depart for Cockatoo Island, which was where the worst of the convicts were sent. Today it's a quiet park where you can rent a tent and "glamp" for a night or two. While we didn't "glamp", we did enjoy a pleasant lunch at a cafe.
Rent-a-tent "glamping" on Cockatoo Island
Upon returning to Circular Quay from Cockatoo Island, we jumped a train to explore Chinatown and to find a place to eat supper.
The entrance to Chinatown.
Chinatown should actually be called Asia Town, as every Asian ethnicity is present -- Japanese, Malaysian, Chinese, Thai, and on it goes. Of the hordes of people walking and eating, we were probably in a 5% minority as non-Asians. Lonely Planet recommended a Malaysian place called Mamak, which serves amazing roti and satay sticks. Somehow we found it amidst the maze of Chinatown. The line-up to get in attested to the Lonely Planet's recommendation and the good food, and we thoroughly enjoyed our meal.
Our roti appetizer at Mamak Malaysian.
Sydney's train network is uber modern, clean, quiet, comfortable. And cheap! We bought an "Opal" transit card and, whether it was a computer error or not, rode around on the trains and ferries all day for -- get this -- $2.50!
Sydney's amazing trains.
It was 7:30pm when we arrived back at our hotel. An 11-hour day of exploring Sydney under our belts! We will miss this wonderful city. And our day only scratched the service. Alas, all good things come to an end. It's another early rise n the morning to start the journey home. Good night from Sydney!
Day 8 (July 20, 2016): Tassie wildlife up close and personal!
When the day was done, we said to each other, "this was one of the best vacation days we have spent in years!" It was truly an amazing day – interaction with some special Aussie animals and people made it so.
About 8 AM, I went out and got a couple of the best chocolate croissants ever made on planet Earth, as well as some fruit, yogurt, juice and cappuccinos, and brought them back to our room for breakfast. We set out around 9 AM, and our first mission was to conquer the Cataract Gorge for which Launceston is best known. After walking along the gorge, we returned to the café area, where we spotted our first wallaby (basically a small-scale kangaroo). A lady came along and told us all about "Lucy" the wallaby, and another wallaby she has named "Cuddles". She comes to the park every day and knows these wallabies intimately. We talked with her for a long time and thoroughly enjoyed the exchange. She introduced us to the chairlift operator, who sent us on a return trip via chairlift over the gorge. When we arrived on the other side, his colleague operator said, "you must be the Canadians!" Everyone treated us so kindly.
When we got back to the parking lot, someone had left a note on our windshield indicating that our front tire was extremely low. We returned to town and found a garage within minutes; they took us in immediately, removed the tire, and showed us that it was filled with echidnas quills. The huge clunk we heard on the highway last night, when we ran over an echidnas (similar to a porcupine) resulted in the poor echidnas' quills puncturing the tire. It was beyond repair, so we had to purchase a new one. But the whole thing took half an hour at most, and we were on our way again.
Our next stop was a small zoo further both, quite far off the beaten track. A teacher colleague of Pam's had told her about it, as an excellent place to see Tasmanian devils. This small zoo is working hard to breed devils and to equip them for the wild to survive the cancer that has been decimating their population. A highlight was definitely watching the feeding time. Again, the staff was so kind to us and allowed us to get up close and personal with one of the Devils.
From the zoo, we continued to the north coast area of Tasmania, following the Tamar River. The forests, the agricultural land, the abundance of sheep, it was all picture-perfect. In a small village called Beauty Point, there are two very unique places to visit: a sea-horse breeding farm, and a platypus breeding facility. We visited both and thoroughly enjoyed them. Again, the staff treated us like royalty. We were blown away by the kindness and genuine hospitality we experienced from Tasmanians in all our exchanges today. Truly impressive.
Pam had very much wanted to see a platypus on our last two trips to Australia, but it did not pan out. Seeing them so closely on this trip was a definite highlight. Interesting to note that, despite their cuteness and gentle demeanor, the male platypus is equipped with two sharp horns that contain venom much more potent than any snake.
After a rich day of interaction with truly unique Australian wildlife, we returned to Launceston along the Tamar River, soaking up the sights until the sun went down. We found a diner and had roast chicken dinner to end the day.
Tomorrow we will make a very early start, and head south to Hobart, the capital.
Morning view of Launceston (population 71.000)
Cataract Gorge is the crown jewel of Launceston
Chair-lift over Cataract Gorge
Monster fern "trees" in Cataract Gorge
Irresistible koala at the rustic Tasmania Zoo
The pièce de resistance: the one, the only, Tasmanian Devil!
Feeding time for the Tassie Devils: wallaby on a stick.
This is an echidnas, which we spotted on the side of the rode - it's kind of like an Australian porcupine. This is what we ran over last night, and which punctured our tire.
Seahorses being bred in captivity
The duck-billed platypus is unique to Australia. We were fortunate to see some at a place called "Platypus House", where they study them and try to breed them in captivity.
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