Around the World in 103 Days
Paul & Jane Olson
September 10 to December 22, 2005
Oriental to Raleigh to Hawaii to Australia to New Zealand to Australia to Hong Kong to China to London to Geneva to Madrid to Miami to Raleigh to Oriental and Home.
Sponsored in part by:
IBM Corp
Marriott Corporation
American Airlines
Resort Condominiums International
State of North Carolina
State of Wisconsin
Saturday, September 10, 2005 (Day 1)
We left on our once in a lifetime trip about noon after a hectic morning. We drove Oriental to Cary, NC with a Hertz rental I had picked up the day before, while dropping the 1992 BMW off for sale. The three hour drive was filled with our discussion on how this trip might actually be real. We spent the night with our good friends, Bruce & Jean Williams. We had a great dinner of Bruce’s ribs and Jean’s potato salad and too much wine.
Sunday, September 11 (Day 2)
What a way to celebrate your birthday! We awoke around 4:30 am and it was difficult. Bruce drove us to the airport and arriving about 5:15. Immediately there was a problem. We had five bags to check and four was maximum. Threatened with being charged an extra $80, we were able to consolidate by putting my breathing machine into a carry-on duffle. We had been put in first class to Chicago and to Honolulu. As we sat in first class enjoying our breakfast, we were again pinching ourselves on our good fortune.
Flight to Chicago –
American Airlines #583, MD80, Terminal C, 6:30 AM, First Class 2hrs.
Arrive Chicago 7:30 AM, Terminal 3
Flight to Honolulu –
American Airlines #73, 767, Terminal 3, 8:55 AM, First Class 8hrs.59min
Arrive Honolulu 12:57 PM, Main Terminal
Honolulu International is as you would expect, beautiful, with open air walk ways between airport buildings. Lugging all the baggage to the Hertz bus was a challenge, which I think we will have to get used to. I don’t know where we will put anything we buy. There will have to be something going out for everything that goes in. Great news at Hertz Number 1 club, we get a new Ford 500 sedan instead of the midsize we had asked for. I think they still have me in the system as a frequent renter from the old days. Isn’t it great. Nice car!
Hertz, Taurus Class Car, Confirmation Number is: C9734069913
Honolulu International Airport,
300 Rogers Blvd
Hawaii, United States 96819-1897
Upon leaving the airport we drove SE through Honolulu and past Waikiki Beach on H1, the main Hawiian Interstate highway. After it ended, we continued around Diamond Head, which is a park, and up the SE coast road stopping at the scenic vistas with all the other Sunday afternoon tourists. There are some great overlooks where the waves of the Pacific are crashing on the lava rocks below. Interspersed are beaches with surf boarders galore and more bikinis than I have ever seen. We cut back over the mountain range on the Pali Highway (61) which took us through tunnels and lush forest back over to Honolulu. Finding the hotel was kind of a challenge because of all the one way streets in Waikiki. We arrived at about 3:00, which was an hour to early for getting into our room. After checking in, we went next store to a small tavern to kill time and watch football until we could get in the room. The resort was a compact place with 77 units tucked into the middle of a block. It was in the shape of U with each building having three floors but no elevators. Luckily we were on the second floor with a view of the pool in the courtyard.
Celebrity Resorts Waikiki, RCI #0245
431 Nohonani Street
Honolulu, Oahu, HI 96815
808/923-7336 www.celebrityresorts.com
Check in 4:00 PM, unit # WLS42, Studio
We did get in the room about 4:00. Later we walked around Waikiki Beach checking out the street vendors, the huge hotels, the park at the beach and all the franchise restaurants. After much searching, we found a small locally owned and operated bar & restaurant right around the corner from out resort. We had a modest dinner and upon returning to the room fought to stay up until 8:30 pm, which was 2:30 am EDT. It was a long day, but the flights and service had been great fun day. We are off to a great start and what a way to celebrate your birthday.
Monday, September 12 (Day 3)
We both woke up about 4:00 am and struggled to get more sleep. At 8:00 am the resort held a welcome meeting with a “continental breakfast”. It was a good thing I had been to Starbucks for an early coffee and biscuit sandwich. They introduced us to the available Ohau sites and discussed all the tour offerings available. One young tour guide caught our attention. He discussed visiting historical and ecological sites during which he would regale us with stories of the Hawaiian cultural. We signed up for Wednesday morning. And of course, if we spent time with the timeshare salesman from the resort, we would get one ticket free.
After the discussion, we headed for Pearl Harbour. We visited the memorial for the battleship the Arizona. You take a launch out to the site where is sunk and walk through the memorial. We then toured the battleship, Missouri, which was decommissioned after 50 years of service in 1992, having just come back from the Gulf War with Iraq. Those 16 inch guns are quite a sight. It was huge.
We decided to drive up the west coast of Ohau having done part of the SE corner on Sunday. Well, the west coast is quite different. The H1 ends when it meets the coast and you turn north. The rest of the coast is made up of non-descript dusty towns which have beach parks, wherever possible. Many of the beach parks have squatters living in tents. Housing is so expensive on the island that, while this is frowned upon, it is allowed. We understand that if you get kicked off of a park for some reason you cannot go back to live there for a year. The towns had very little shopping and looked quite poor. The road finally turns to rough stone and gravel allowing only four wheel drive vehicles near the NW point of the island. While we endured construction delays on the way up, our return trip was much faster, so we stopped in to see a resort which was located where the four lane motorway ended. This was below the parks with the squatters. It is Ho Olani a large golf, beach and marina resort. A J. W. Marriott Vacation Club Resort featuring it’s own lagoon for swimming is the center piece of the large property. We walked around the lobby and the two swimming pool areas, before having a drink at the bar overlooking the lagoon and the Pacific Ocean to the west. Quite a beautiful place.
Tuesday, September 13 (Day 4)
This was our big day to drive around the rest of the island and then attend the festive luau we had signed up for over the internet. Leaving the resort and taking the Pali Highway back over to the SE side of the island was hectic in early morning traffic. Once across the island and after starting North along the coast the traffic slowed. We found another local restaurant for breakfast with great pancakes. This coast has much nicer towns with quite reasonable housing and normal shopping. We stopped several times to take pictures and look at the beaches and Pacific Ocean vistas. We also stopped at one tourist ranch filled with Japanese tourists and drove around the BYU Hawaii campus.
The North coast of Ohau has the best surfing beaches in the world. There is no reef guarding the island so large surf comes right to the beaches. Forty foot waves have been noted.
Heading South inland we stopped at the Dole Pineapple plantation. A tour of the plantation on the Pineapple Express train was quite educational. The grounds also had lots of facts scattered about the display gardens. They were constructing new buildings. The current building is full of vendors wares. The pineapple icecream was refreshing. We were back in Honolulu 35 minutes later only to end up in some late afternoon traffic. We did return in time for a nap before heading over to the Hyatt Regency to catch the tour bus for Germaine’s Luau, Backyard Style.
The 4:30 pm pickup time put us right into rush hour traffic. Germaine’s is on the SW corner of the island so we had to go out H1 past the airport and Pearl Harbour and several suburbs. During the hour and a half trip our host, Greg, did his best to keep us entertained. Germaine’s Luau has it’s own beachfront property with stage, several bars, a store, buffet area and the pig cooking arena. You get three six ounce drinks with your ticket, unless you buy a $7.00 12 ounce glass at the gift store. The bartenders will fill the large glass with the three tickets. The show went on forever with amateur hula dancers to fill lots of time. Then the main show was a revue of different island nations music and dancing. Those girls could really shake it. Finally at about 9:45 in was over. The ride back was much quicker with not traffic, about 35 minutes. Wow, we stayed up until 11:00 pm.
As we have every night we checked on Ophelia on the internet. Fortunately, it doesn’t look too bad.
Wednesday, September 14 (Day 5)
We had a very interesting morning with Dominic and three other women doing a half day Eco and Cultural Tour. Dominic, a guy in his 30’s, has been in the tour or cruise business his whole life. Without straying more than five miles from Honolulu he took us to four sites: a rain forest, water fall gorge, the cemetery for Hawaiian royalty, the scenic overlook where fierce battles were fought between warring Chiefs and a ceremonial altar which overlooked a once huge fishpond of the ancients. The guy could answer any question with more, seemingly real, historical knowledge of the islands and the cultural than we could believe. A fun morning followed by an afternoon of laundry, a walk to the beach, a drink on the veranda of the Royal Hawaiian Hotel, and a great meal at Irifuni, a local Japanese restaurant just off of Waikiki Beach. Certainly not a tourist establishment, but great food and reasonably priced.
Thursday, September 15 (Day 6)
Getting to the airport was really no problem with light traffic. The Hertz people were very helpful with the bags, all six. When we got to the terminal there was a long line we worked our way around only to be told it was the line for Australia. But then the guy asked if we were in business or first class. In that line, we were next. Again the Qantas bag man helped us with all the bags and got us a bag cart. After a quick run through security we spent an hour reading in the Qantas lounge with fruit and drinks.
Flight to Sydney, Australia –
Qantas Airways, #4, 747, Main Terminal, 11:30 AM, Business Class
Arrive Sydney Friday, September 16th at 5:30 pm, Terminal 1
Ref: Z6IKF8 10 hrs.
Miraculously Thursday turned into Friday as we crossed the International Date Line. This was a great flight. We had lunch and later a dinner, with Australian and New Zealand wines, both were our first test of Australian food and it was excellent. We are certainly spoiled by these flights. Our next two trips are in steerage between Australia and New Zealand.
After a 30 minute cab ride in the rain we arrived at the Sydney Harbour Marriott and it is great. At the last moment the check clerk decided to give us a room overlooking the famous Sydney Harbour Bridge, the countries most famous landmark, other than the opera house. The room is a little small, but quite comfortable. It has the greatest bed. They have one set up in the lobby and are making it a marketing feature of the chain. We were in bed by 9:00pm, an early night after trying to watch TV for a while.
Sydney Harbor Marriott Hotel, 9/16-9/23, King Room, City View
Confirmation # 80303747
30 Pitt Street
Sydney, 2000 PH: 61-2-92597000
Saturday, September 17 (Day 8)
On Saturday the sun came out early. We took the Sydney Red Bus Experience. For $72 we rode the bus through 26 different stops for over two hours. Either the recording or the driver gave us the details about the sights. It is a beautiful city. The Harbour, the bridge, the opera house, botanical gardens, government buildings, churches, hotels, China town, The Rocks, Darling Harbour, etc. just make it a beautiful place. We walked through the street vendors in the Rocks, one of the oldest parts of town, and had a late lunch in an old pub. Later we walked around Darling Harbour to the IMAX theater to see a fighter pilot film. Our first IMAX film. Then we walked the rest of the way around the harbour to the National Maritime Museum. Very nice exhibits which included the exhibit that the US gave them in 1988 centennial celebration and a current traveling exhibit from the French Maritime museum of bow and stern sculpture from French history.
Jane settled for a meat pie and water from the local deli, while Paul went to Scruffy Murphy’s pub for a small steak. Scruffy’s is really scruffy. The best part of the evening was the talk about Australian politics and economy with the bus driver.
Sunday, September 18 (Day 9)
Sunday started with a morning of the Sunday newspaper and planning for the rest of the week. Paul listened to the first half of the UW-UNC football game being planned in Chapel Hill on Saturday night. After a late breakfast at the G Day Café, we once more went to the Sydney Visitor Centre in the Rocks. Then we strooled around the Circular Quay, which is the heart of the water ferry system in Sydney, and over to the Opera House. A beautiful day with many people and families enjoying the street vendors and performers. The views of this harbour area with the bridge on the West and the Opera House on the East are really beautiful.
The Opera House tour was really enjoyable. The tour guide took our small group into the concert hall, where the Sydney Symphony was rehearsing, and the Opera House, where we will see La Bohemme on Wednesday night. The concert hall is all euchalyptus wood native to Australia, with white cedar chairs. Designed by a Dutch architect, that was chosen from 235 worldwide entrants, and an interior finished by an Australian architect. We finished the afternoon with a slow stroll back to the hotel.
We walked to St. Mary’s Cathedral on College Street, presided over by the Australian Cardinal. Then we headed out to the Paddington area on foot. It was an interesting walk, part of which went through the predominantly gay part of town, which was evident in the pubs and café’s. After a wrong turn on Paul’s direction, we regained wits and found the Royal Hotel, where we had a great dinner or lamb and steak. The salad and green vegetables were fresh and real tasty. Our New Zealand waitress was a treat. She warned us about cool wet weather in her home country. Once we figured which direction to take the bus, we had no trouble getting back to the Circular Quay area and our hotel.
Monday, September 19 (Day 10)
Monday morning starts with us picking up the Packer-Brown football game over the internet in our hotel room. Ah, the benefits of technology. Jane is again sleeping. Well after the first half we headed for a Circular Quay, where we bought all day ferry tickets and then jumped on the ferry to Manly, one of the suburbs North of Sydney. On the ferry ride you pass across the mouth of the Sydney Harbour, between North head in Manly and South Head. Manly has a nice downtown, full of tourist shops, a beautiful beach and a walk along the beach out to a point which overlooks the shore to the North. We checked it out, had a great pizza overlooking the beach from a roof top pub.
We jumped back on the ferry, this one was a fast jet boat. Nice. At Circular Quay we changed to the Darling Harbour ferry. It was a cool ride under the Harbour Bridge and around to the Acquarium. We spent about two hours there finishing with a drink in the lobby. Great shark tank! The Great Barrier Reef display was also quite good.
Another ferry ride over to Rose Bay, to check out the well to do suburb. Mostly we were after a ferry ride after dark to see the city lights. This worked out quite well. From the Circular Quay ferry dock we headed up George Street to a Pub we heard about for a reasonably priced dinner. Back to the hotel to finish the Packer game.
Tuesday, September 20 (Day 11)
Tuesday was Blue Mountain National Park day. We headed for the hub of all train, bus and ferry traffic, the Circular Quay, early. Changing trains at the Central Station we headed off on the two hour (110 Kilometer) ride to Katoomba. We bought a combination ticket which provided the train up and back and the use of the Blue Mountain Explorer Bus. This was a three red double decker bus system that kept circling among 30 stops in the mountains and the two near towns of Katoomba and Leura. We started just outside the train station in Katoomba, which is about 1300 meters (4000 feet) above sea level and just over 60 degrees F today. For the next 6 hours we walked between vistas on 10- 30 minute walking trails or hopped on and off the buses. We ended the day in Leura walking through the shops, which were quite nice and on the high priced end of things.
Then we went back to Katoomba to see the Carrington Hotel, a monument in the process of restoration, but quite nice inside. Next door was the Carrington Saloon and Bistro. After a beer we decided to stay for dinner. What a treat it was. Not only did we get to eat right under the hot air register, but the shrimp starter, Jane’s fish and chips and my chicken stuffed with ham and cheese were definitely gourmet. A bottle of native Semillon topped it off. The two hour train ride back to the hotel was long.
Wednesday, September 21 (Day 12)
We tried to sleep in this morning, but it didn’t take for too long. Lot’s of early morning reading and catch up on the internet. Broadband at the hotel has been great. It will be interesting to see what we get in the rest of the country. Today was shopping center day. We headed up George Street to the Queen Victoria Building mall. This is a beautiful three or four story building with open balconies between floors. There is a display of Queen Victoria and her jewels. The great clocks hang between floors show scenes of British history. There is a great jade wedding carriage which she received as a gift on display also. But the place is filled with every shop imaginable. Then across the street to David Jones department store where they have to food hall to rival the Ka De We Berlin. Awesome. We got a sandwich to go and ate it in Hyde Park with the other thousands of workers having lunch. This is where they have been cutting down the huge trees due to disease. A shame. Beautiful city centre park.
We walked from the hotel over to the opera house, stopping for a light dinner on the way. The whole harbour side concourse is a delight. Then the La Boheme performance was beautiful. The music and singing were great. The whole experience was a lot of fun. It is such a beautiful setting.
Copenhagen ice cream on the way home capped fun day. The weather here has been great.
Thursday, September 22 (Day 13)
As the days get simpler the explanations get shorter. We road out to Watsons Bay on the jetboat ferry. We walked across the isthmus from the harbour over to the Tasman Sea shore which is a high rocky bluff. This eastern shore of New South Wales all seems very rough headlands with beaches in between. This is the South head of the Sydney Harbour entrance. The vistas were awesome. A sailboat and an Australian Navy ship were heading through the entrance as we walked the shore line. We worked up an appetitie walking through the neighborhood and watching the school kids play cricket. We had lunch at Doyle’s on the Beach. We each had seafood and shared a bottle of Semillon/Savignon Blanc blend. After a nice photo shoot ride back on the upper deck and a nap, we did a Pub crawl through The Rocks, one of Sydney’s oldest neighborhoods, finishing at the Fortunes of War, the pub with the oldest continually used license in Sydney.
Friday, September 23 (Day 14)
This was our day to check out of the Marriott. Out of the comfort of the this well positioned hotel into the real world. Our trip to Cairns is about 3000 kilometers. I picked the car up from the Hertz downtown location, just a short bus ride away on Williams Street. Driving back on the left side of the road was tenuous. You have to be careful not to let your instincts take over. Jane was ready with all bags at the door with the bellman.
Hertz, Friday, September 23, 2005 at 8:00 AM
Confirmation #C94639427A1, Toyota Camry Class
Sydney Downtown
William Street Corner of Riley Street
New South Wales, Australia
We drove out of the city and up to the Hunter Valley. We stopped at the Hunter Valley Wine Association Information Centre just north of Cessnock, a rather flat non-descript country town. We were astounded to find that within about a 15 kilometer radius there are about 174 wineries. It is amazing. The people at the centre helped us book a room at the Rose Dale B&B. The valley is bounded by small but steep hills making it look somewhat like the Napa Valley in certain places. Vines are everywhere along with olive trees and some cattle. After striking out at one café we found the McGuigan Family Winery, which also had a cheese store. We had board of assorted soft white cheese’s and one hard cheddar, with fresh bread for lunch with two glasses of white. We had our introduction to the Hunter Valley. We visited a series of small wineries and in each case we ended up having a personal conversation with the winemaker. All of them were very friendly.
Small Winemakers Centre, Pokolbin
David Hook Wines, Pokolbin
Kulkunbulla Wines, Broken Back Estate
Mistletoe Wines, Hermitage Road
Sandalyn Wilderness Estate, Lovedale
Emma’s Cottage, Lovedale
Mystic Glen, Pokolbin
With each we got into personal conversations about their travels in the US or their families. David Hook told us about exporting to the US and his marketing trip the next week covering many large US cities. Duane Roy at Kulkunbulla told us about his conversion as a parent to the teachings of the book Baby Wise. We bought a bottle or two from each of them, which we will drink during the next three weeks on the economy.
After checking into the B&B, where we found Robyn and Dave Bailey to be great hosts, we headed off to Herrigans Irish Pub for dinner. This was an interesting place with a typical dining room, a sports pub, and veranda, a covered porch and a lawn area with tables. By the time we left all were full. You ordered your food from the waitress, who would later deliver it. Unless you wanted a steak, then you were given the steak at order time, as I was, and you grilled it yourself at the indoor grill, which was quite nice. You got all of your drinks from the bar yourself. Very efficient on their part. No service tipping for your part. The other couple staying at the B&B joined us for dinner and we had a delightful chat. They were retired and lived North of Brisbane and travel a lot. They shared a great many ideas with us and provided us with a great list of to do’s in the morning. Jane and I faded fast and were back and in bed by 9:30pm.
Saturday, September 24th (Day 15)
We started Saturday with a great full breakfast of bacon, which is better than in the US, eggs, fried tomatoes, etc. After a lot of talk and goodbyes we headed off for another half day in the Hunter Valley. They were having an olive fest this weekend with olive and olive oil tastings at some of the wineries. We stopped at two such places, the second being a real delight with all the tasting and again a great personal conversation with the staff. This is so different from our last trip to Napa. It is more like my early trips to Napa Valley in the late 70’s.
Emma’s Cottage and Mystic Glen were our last two stops and both were very interesting places. Megan the wife and artist at Emma’ Cottage was delightful. She had the tasting cottage full of her canvases which she is preparing for a showing in Sydney in a couple of months. They are new to the wine business thinking that it would be a great place to raise their two children. Mystic Glen was a small place where the owner and his wife had cleared the land themselves over the last twenty years and built the whole business from scratch. In early afternoon we headed for Branxton in the NW corner of the valley and the New England Highway, the road to Coff’s Harbour. We stopped to have lunch at a local pub. Jane asked the publican where we could buy a Styrofoam cooler to store our cheese in. He responded by making several phone calls. Upon having no luck, he went in the back room and brought out an old one. He washed it out and put a bag of ice into it for us. He wouldn’t take any money for his trouble. These people are nice!
We arrived at the Boambee Bay Resort in Coff’s Harbour, about 700 kilometers North of Sydney, at about 8:00pm. This is the first of seven RCI resort condominium trades we have made. It turns out to be a nice place with two bedroom, two bath, full kitchen, screened porch, washer and dryer and a couple of TV’s. Just no high speed internet. It does have a great pool and it is right next to a preserve through which a wide creek runs down to the beach. The pub, restaurant, lounge, pool room, coffee shop and outdoor grilling areas are all very nice. The staff is friendly. If all of our places are this nice, we will be quite happy.
Boambee Bay Resort, Reservation # 97670801, 9/23-9/30, 2BR
8 Barber Close
Toormina PH: 0266532700
Coffs Harbor, NSW 2452 Australia www.boambeebay.com
PH: 0266532700
Sunday, September 25th – Thursday, September, 29th (Day 20)
Our resort is actually situated between the towns of Coff’s Harbour and Sawtell. Coff’s Harbour is quite a bit larger and has a great harbour and beach area, whereas Sawtell is just a little town with a great beach area. Both are very nice.
The week started slow with Mass and brunch in Coff’s Harbour. The rest of the day was pretty rainy, which is much needed in all of Australia. We spent the next few days enjoying the slow peaceful pace of the country. Compared to Sydney this is the country. We tried the Big Banana on Monday. The train has been closed for renovation so we didn’t get to see the plantation. Ah, something to save for the next trip.
More interesting was the Dorrigo National Park about 50 kilometers inland. We passed through Bellingen on the way and discovered Flying Foxes! Bat like, but much larger, these little guys (the size of a cat) hang from their feet sleeping in trees by day and go out and eat fruit and pollenate trees by night. Quite harmless, but very interesting. They make a lot of noise for the neighborhood.
Up the road 20 kilometers and a couple of hundred kilometers in elevation is the Dorrigo National Park. It is actually a rainforest and is designated as a World Heritage area. There are only two of those in the US, the Grand Canyon and the Statue of Liberty. We walked out on the skywalk viewing area and hiked down into the rain forest. It is quite a place and very hard to describe. It is surprising that so close to a very arid coastline you would find this very dense forest full of vines, ferns, etc. with a canopy so thick the light can’t get through.
We went back to Bellingen for dinner in hopes of seeing the Flying Foxes fly at night fall, but it was raining too hard. The town is full of old buildings with tourist shops in all. Bakeries and butcher shops abound. The oldest pub building, The Federal, has been renovated and we ate in the bistro in the rear. Quite a nice meal. Jane had fettuccini with fresh vegetables and olives, while I a dinner of Calamari with vegetables. I took the main road home rather than the adventure we had on the way up. Another day done.
Wednesday was our real first day off. We went to Sawtell to wander the main street and really found nothing to spend time on. We did stop in the RSL club, which is for all retired service people, much like the American Legion, but anyone can join. They have large clubs up and down the coast with restaurants, pubs, gambling, entertainment centers. Quite nice. We spent the afternoon at the pool reading, swimming and sleeping. The Southern sun is hot. Later Jane played trivia with all the families on the veranda. Paul did his bit of socializing at the outdoor grill, sharing a grill with a couple living in Sydney, originally from Africa. Ironically the wife had been to Jacksonville, NC to visit a friend. The lamb chops and prawns came out well.
Thursday morning turned into a planning session for the rest of the Eastern coast of Australia. There are a million places to stop and things to see. We have eight days and seven nights to get from Coff’s Harbour to Cairnes. We have more maps and books than a travel store. For lunch we went out to the Bonville International Golf Resort. It has beautiful entrance, clubhouse and proshop. The course also looked beautiful, but was $90 to play. That is why we were only having lunch. It is cutd through rainforest type woods just under these small mountains. Quite nice. So was the lunch.
On our return we stopped at the Sawtell Lawn Bowling club. We watched for awhile. It looks quite difficult, but a sport that can be played by any age person. We had dinner out and Pictionary with the adults at the resort after dinner. We finished with Russell Crowe’s Cinderella Man at the local cinema. Coff’s Harbour turned out to be the relaxing we wanted.
Friday, September 30 (Day 21)
Checking out of the Boambee Bay Resort was a job with all of our stuff. We had repacked so on our next stops we would only have to take in a bag or two each. Since it was a fair walk to the car park, I was tired by the time we left.
We continued up the Pacific Coast Highway. Byron Bay Head was our target and it was about 200 kilometers from Coff’s Harbour. The road took us a little inland then back towards the coast. This is big sugar cane farming country. Field after field of the dense cane. Inland we encountered on large river after another. The initial interior valley was quite fertile and a lot greener than the coast had been. At Ballina we headed on a smaller road to get us on the shore line. We encountered some beautiful beaches with high heads between them. This is the Eastern Australian coast line, as opposed to our low, wetland and barrier island format.
Byron Bay was breathtaking. We found signs leading us towards the lighthouse and parked to check out the local beach. Byron Bay Head is the most easterly point of the Australian mainland. The Head sticks out quite a bit as Byron Bay and the one to the South are quite large. We found a park to stop in and walked over to the beach. It is massive, both in scope and depth. We followed a walk out towards the Head. It wound up a hillside which looked over the shore line as the beach turned to cliff. Up the hill some 500 kilometers we came to a small peak which overlooked the next small bay on the way to the Head. It also had enormous sand and many surfers trying to catch the perfect little wave. There was only about 15 knots of wind and not much surf. Walking all the way up to the Head and the lighthouse would have taken us all day. So we went back to the car and drove up to the lighthouse. The views from around the lighthouse were tremendous. You could walk out on the spit of land outside of the lighthouse even further into the ocean. The walkway was all guarded by a rail above a cliff of several hundred feet of cliff. Humped backed whales are often seen here as they migrate North to breed and then back to Antarctica to feed for the rest of the year. This is a beautiful place standing below the large white lighthouse ocean all around you.
We had heard that Byron Bay was kind of a “hippy town”. Well it is. It was quite busy on this Saturday morning. There are about 15 square blocks of shops, cafes and pubs all nestled where the train line ends at the beach. Quite bohemian! All the inns and hotels are only three or four stories high. Like most coastal towns there is a park all along the beach. This is really a nice feature of Australia. We had a grilled sandwich on Turkish bread for lunch at one of the cafes along the main street. After a walk about it was time to move on. I certainly could have stayed for a day on the beach, but more to see.
Coolangatta was now our target, as we wanted to visit the aviary there in the morning. It is the gateway to the Gold Coast. It was about only about 45 kilometers up the coast from Byron Bay. Again many of the towns along the way are situated on rivers that dominated the development of this coastline. Coolangata is right on the border between New South Wales and Queensland. It fact the dividing line was right outside of our motel, just off the beach. This is a more developed vacation town that our last stop. A larger town with larger resorts and our first highrises, with more being constructed as we pass through. Being a school & holiday weekend most places are full, so we ended up with a very modest place for $60US. After an hour of internet, we did dinner down the road at an old hotel. As typical the food was wonderful, but the service was modest. Since these service people don’t make much with very little tipping most are understaffed. While they are pleasant and busy, things just take a while. Jane headed for bed and I headed off to see an Aussie in a film, the Cinderella Man. Quite good.
Saturday, October 1 (Day 22)
The construction crew on the neighboring highrise started early and we wanted to get to the Currumbin Wildlife Sanctuary for the early bird feeding. As well left Coolangatta, we passed Kirra which has one of the deepest beaches I have ever seen. The sanctuary, only 5 kilometers away, was really more of a wildlife park. While we did see a bunch of Lorikeets at the early feeding, the rest of the time we were there we saw Australia’s most dangerous snakes, Koalas, Crocodiles, Kangeroos, Wombats, Tanzmanian Devils, Emu’s, giant Pelicans and a few other birds. Also we did a few kilometers of walking. We headed up the beach for a late breakfast. From our roadside café we could look across the beach to see the skyline of the Australian Gold Coast.
This was our day to drive through the Gold Coast, which is a series of beach towns that are about 100 kilometers South of Brisbane and highly developed with highrise after highrise. Well we spent our time trying to think of an American rival. This area is much larger than Waikiki or Miami Beach. It goes on for quite some time. Maybe five to six blocks of highrise vacation places with park and beach on the doorstep. In Surfers Paradise the development is quite dense. This seems to be the heart of it. People everywhere. Having the park and beach across the road most on most of the beach really allows access for everyone. They were preparing for a “indy car” race in late October for road side fencing was already installed around part of the city. We had noticed that fuel has dropped from $1.39AU/liter ($6.6US/gallon) to $1.139AU/liter ($5US/gal) so we topped off the tank and headed for the Pacific Coast Highway and the Sunshine Coast, which is about 100 kilometers North of Brisbane. The motorway, quite nice, took us on bypass of Brisbane to the East of the city. We had a good view of the skyline as we crossed a great bridge over the river which runs through the city. It seemed to be all port as far as we could see toward the coast. Brisbane is about 2-3 million people and quite large land wise. We headed for the Information Centre in Caloundra, where we checked out all sorts of B&B’s but ended up in a resort in the city. We are now about 1600 kilometers from Cairns.
Caloundra doesn’t seem as upscale as the Gold Coast, we understand that further up the Sunshine Coast it may differ. This town is on a point so it has a great deal of shoreline with many resorts, but it seems to have nice residential areas as well. We found a very nice timeshare type resort, the Rydges, where we got a room with breakfast for $138AU. After a couple of hours reading at the pool, we found the Catholic Church and attended the evening Mass. It is an unusual shape building for Massand the priest was quite old. It was the first time I ever saw someone go through the consecration without pouring the wine into some sort of goblet or chalice. Good message in the homily, quite similar to Father Paul in Oriental. It is interesting to see the consistency of the worldwide Catholic Church. After Mass we headed down to a shoreside resort for a seafood dinner. Jane had the seafood platter, while I had a plate of Morton Bay Bugs, which are someplace between a prawn and a lobster, more like the lobster. We shared a bottle of Semillon, which was blended with Savignon Blanc and Chardonnay, which turned out to be quite good. The Semillon seems to be milder than many “big” Chardonnay’s, but with a lot of fruit and body. Nice!
Sunday, October 2 (Day 23)
The breakfast buffet was a little cold but filled with great choices. After a full Australian breakfast we headed out to the Australian Zoo just South of Landsbourgh. The is the home of the famous Crocodile Hunter, Steve ????. The zoo was quite nice with a great display of salt and fresh water crocodiles, some from America. It also had the usual Kangeroos, Koalas, birds, Wombats, reptiles,etc. This was the first time we had seen Wombats. The handlers were taking one for a walk right when we arrived at the area, which was quite a treat. Not too friendly, so no petting. The fun was the show we saw in the “Crocoseum”, which was quite large. First they brought in the snakes, then the tigers, then the birds and then the huge crocodile. The tigers and birds put on quite a show. The zoo was started by Steve’s parents and was quite small. He and his wife Terry, an American, took over in 1992 and have invested a lot of money it the whole place. His American TV must pay for much of it. They are very focused on education of the public and the well being of all the species. Quite a good show.
After noon, we headed up to the Glass Mountain tourist drive and up to Malheny. This is one of several towns which are on top of the range and allow a great view down on to the Sunshine Coast. Malheny was kind of a country town, where we had a great brie sandwich for lunch. We moved on to Montville, which is really the nice town. It sits right on the edge of the ridge with overlooks from several of the shops and restaurants. We walked through many unique gift shops, especially the one with the wooden boxes. I bought of shorts that might show less wrinkles. We then had a beer at the Pennyfarling Inn. This is a really nice classic pub at the edge of town. The Big Easy, a local rock and roll band, was playing on the veranda out by the BBQ. We sat at a table on the front lawn and looked over the whole of the Sunshine Coast while the some of the other customers danced to the music.
We headed down the slopes to catch the Big Pineapple. Our timing was great. They were just closing, but not to worry, we could see it was just an Australian repeat of the Dole Plantation we saw in Oahu, Hawaii.
Down we continued to Noosa Head through Eumundi, where we missed the Wednesday or Saturday markets of note. This is the North end of the Sunshine Coast. It is at the end of a peninsula with a National Park covering a lot of the local real estate, tons of vacation housing is built all along the shoreline. It is also the most upscale of the resort towns we have stopped in. Hastings Street, the shopping and eating centre of town, is beautiful. After being quoted $200-300 rates by the accommodation desk on the street, we headed back the way we came in. Fortunately, we found a place with last minute room’s right around the corner for $110, the Carribean Noosa. It turned out to be a delightful room with a sleeping loft that was decorated nicely with pool just outside the back door. It was also just 5 minutes walking from the center of Hastings Street. What a find. We had dinner in the middle of the dining area at a street side table at La Vida. Our waitress had such a nice manner about her and she and her cohorts delivered great service. The food here in Australia is not to be believed. Jane loved her pasta and my lamb shank with the Pinot Noir was very good. Every restaurant is so gourmet. This was a little pricey at $138AU, but the room was a find. Where on South Beach in Miami would be have had a meal like this and a great room for $185 US?
Right after dinner, while watching the Rugby League Championship Final, we scored the While Away B&B in Yeppoon, QLD for the next two nights. The guy said the only problem was that we would have to take the room with the king bed. Normally $125, he would give it to us for $115, with breakfast, of course. He thought we were about 550 kilometers from their door.
Monday, October 3rd (Day 24)
Leaving the Noosa Head area on Monday put us into the first of three long days of driving. We have decided to just take it easy with a day in between two of the legs. The 560 kilometers to Yeppoon was unremarkable. The two lane highway winds near and far from the coast winding through valleys that are either quite arid or quite fertile and lush, somewhat tropical. They graze cattle in the dry areas and grow sugar cane in the green areas. The towns get to look quite like bush villages with not much going on. We stopped in Gin Gin, one of such towns, for lunch. When we asked the girl in the gas station about which pub we might eat at she said the one next door was quite good. For as the one across the street, she had never been there.
We arrived in Yeppoon and found the While Away B & B easily. Robin Andrews, the host, an Englishman, met us and give the tour of the comfortable B & B. It was built for the purpose and quite comfortable. We were sharing the place with two couples from Western Queensland in town for a conference. We ended up eating dinner at the Railway Hotel dining room. In the smaller towns, pub or hotel food is the basic staple. Good food at a basic price.
Tuesday, October 4th (Day 25)
While the Yeppoon beach has some grey film from the near by coral reefs molting process, it was still a great place for a morning walk. We spent the morning checking out the local marina and then Emu Park the neighboring town, which has a large white sculpture, the signing ship, in memory of Captain Cook who had found the place in 1770.
We had lunch at the Fish Shop and a couple of hours on the computer late in the afternoon. After a remarkable two for the price of one dinner at the Strand Hotel, we engaged in a hot game of trivia with nine other tables of towns people. Winning a t-shirt certainly was the highlight of the day. While Robin and Jean Andrews were quite nice, I am not sure Yeppoon will be on the agenda the next time.
Wednesday, October 5th (Day 26)
After a great breakfast and a nice coffee conversation with Robin about his career and life, we headed out for a 580 kilometer day to Airlie Beach and the Whitsunday Islands. Again a day of driving at about 100 kilometers/hour on the two lane Bruce Highway. Fortunately, they often have safe passing zones. We stopped at Kevin’s Place in Mackay, about 400 “klicks” up the road, which turned out to be a big town. Our first Singaporean food was quite good. Mackay is one of the large coal mining centers of Australia. Also a lot of beef is grown in the wider area. Boring ride, except the country side is always framed by small mountains, which make it quite pretty to me, dry or tropical.
The small coastal mountains come and meet the Coral Sea in Airlie Beach. The Whitsunday Islands are 74 submerged mountain tops which are right out in front of Airlie Beach. So they are all little peaks that stick out of the Coral Sea. This is about a third of the way up the Great Barrier Reef (GBR), which started near Yeppoon, where we were last night. So Airlie Beach is a jumping off spot for diving on the BGR or for cruising a sailboat around the Whitsunday Islands. The largest private boat marina in Oz (nickname for Australia) is here. A lot of the tours are out to the outer reef for day trips. We decided to wait for Cairns. There was a large catamaran that we wanted to go on, but it was booked. So we will look for an afternoon sail on a “cat” tomorrow.
Our B&B, Island View, here in Airlie Beach is wonderful. It is run by Karren & Steve McGreger. Steve is an architect for marinas and housing. He took a year off and to plan and build the B&B and home. It sits on the steep hill overlooking the mooring field in front of Airlie Beach. In the distance you see some of the Whitsunday Islands. It is a great view. The room is large with a king bed, refrigerator, coffee service, TV, DVD and a large bathroom with shower. Outside of our room is the lounge with a veranda. Below a level is a large pool surrounded by fenced patio. The nicest of any of our stays.
Island View Bed & Breakfast
19 Nara Avenue
Airlie Beach, QLD 4802
Australia
07-4946 4505
After settling in, we strolled through the town, having dinner on a deck overlooking the beach at the Shipwreck Seafood Bar. I had the “bugs” and Jane prawns.
.Thursday, October 6 (Day 27)
We spent a relaxing “rest” day in Airlie Beach. After being served breakfast on the veranda overlooking the pool and the village, Jane read poolside while I went looking for a boat ride and a computer. Depression about the Green Bay Packer 0-4 record isn’t too bad when you are this far away. We had lunch at a street side café overlooking the park along the beach at Boltz Café Bar. In just about all the towns we have been in the beach has a park along it in the main part of town. After driving down to the end of the road to check out all the bays, we went to the marina to check out catamarans. Late in the afternoon we board Illusions, the 40 sailing catamarans cocktail cruise boat. We were joined by two other couples, a small child, Debbie, the crew, and the Captain. We just “floated” across the bay in front of Airlie Beach as the day turned to night. They served champagne, wine, beer and snacks. It was slow but fun. The boat was easy to walk around, the people were nice, we spotted the Southern Cross and the sunset was beautiful. We finished the evening at Panache on the Beach, a French restaurant, which overlooked the swimming lagoon they have built in front of the beach. Stingers in the water here make swimming on the beach not advised between October and May. Ergo, they built a beautiful large swimming lagoon in the park on the shore line. Escargot, Caesar salad and some fish.
Friday, October 7 (Day 28)
This B& B is so nice that it makes packing up and leaving hard. We are now about 8 - 9 hours from Cairns and Lake Tinaroo. I am really glad we decided to make this drive. It has allowed us to see interesting out of the way places like Montville and Yeppoon and meet some “regular” Aussie’s.
This turned out to be a drive of about 480 kilometers. During the day we passed Townsville which is the largest city of North Queensland. It was the Townsville Cowboys that lost the Grand Final of the National Rugby League to Sydney West last Sunday. “Go Cowboys” signs are still evident all through the small towns. We stopped at a “bush oasis” for lunch on the road side. Much of the terrain is tropical, hilly and devoted to bananas and sugar cane. Early we pasted Bowen, the heart of the Mango country. Trees everywhere, but it is too early in the season to get any.
We chose to stop in Mission Bay on the recommendation of Karren of Island View B&B in Airlie Beach. It is really a series of three villages, South Mission Beach, Wongalin Beach and Mission Beach. It is a World Heritage Area where the wet rainforest goes right to the beach. In Mission Beach there is about a block of “rainforest” like woods right up to the beach, which is made up of very fine sand. With Dunk Island and others looming off shore it is quite a beautiful place. We found a room at the Sealords B&B. Sharon and Phil Lord have retired from a farm and shop in middle QLD to this beautiful home and B&B their son designed for them. It has two wings of bedrooms, theirs on one side and two guest rooms on the other. In the middle is a two story peaked room housing central lounge with a deck on front and back. It was all done in Australian hardwood and is beautiful. Phil said most of the timber came off of his farm. They had a cottage for a family on the back of the property and a pool surrounded native fawn and flora inbetween. They were a nice couple. Sharon runs here shop of bears, etc. and Phil does the house and breakfast cooking. After dinner at Shubbery Taverna, we finished the evening with them on the front deck with coffee, brie and strawberries. For $110AU, the experiences you have with these people are hard to beat.
Saturday, October 8 (Day 29)
After visiting Sharon’s shop to find a bear in the morning we headed on the last leg of our journey to the NE corner of Australia, rainforests and the Great Barrier Reef (GBR). It was a short drive. We left the Bruce Highway after about 50 kilometers and headed up to the tableland. In a place called Millaa Millaa we stopped at the central pub for lunch. A “Mary from the Tiki Bar” was working the bar expertly. She delivered the fish and chips and the toasted ham & pineapple with cheese promptly. Amidst an interesting set of Aussie’s on a Saturday midday, I decided to try Victorian Bitter (VB), seemingly the most popular Australian Beer. My memories of English bitter had kept me from trying this, but they were wrong and it was quite good, much more mild than my memories.
We stopped in Atherton to pick up some groceries and headed out to Lake Tinaroo. The place is quite beautiful, just like the pictures. A remote resort on a dam created lake. There is a caravan park down the road, but not much else. The two bedroom unit is great, certainly much nicer that Boamee Bay Resort in Coff’s Harbour. This is much newer. They are still selling starting at $250,000AU. There are some unfortunates: wedding on the night we arrived, so no dining room, and we found they would only have the dining room open on Sunday so that they could redo the floor during the week we are here. It looks like a beautiful room with bar and lounge, but to no avail. So they sent us down the road to Pensini’s, whose sign loudly proclaimed “dam. . .! Good food”. Upon being met by the hostess and then the owner we found they had not bookings remaining. All was full except a small table on the outdoor drinking deck, which wasn’t too inviting. Then he offered to let us sit at the end of a large table for ten by ourselves and we accepted. When he brought us water and menu’s he told us that he was open seven days for lunch but only Saturday night for dinner, so bookings were always necessary. Then he guaranteed we would love the food. We ordered our first bottle of Coonawarra red, which is supposed to be best in Australia, which he also guaranteed, or he would drink it. Well the guy delivered. I had the best filet since being in Australia and as good as any in the US. Jane had a complex lamb salad. Both were a sight to see when delivered. My plate came piled high with sweet potato chips and brie with sautéed mushrooms above the filet, bacon around it and it was all laid over spinach with a few roasted potatoes. I don’t think I will lose any weight over here.
Tinaroo Lake Resort, Reservation #99668801, 10/8-10/15, 2BR
29 Palm Street
Tinaroo, QLD 4872 Australia (one hour west of Cairns)
7-4089-3636
Sunday, October 9 (Day 30)
Sunday with a breakfast in was nice. Late morning we headed out to Mareeba about a 30 minute drive North along the tableland. We stopped on the way at the Kiari local Sunday morning market. I found a small boomerang. How can you come to Australia and not go home with a boomerang. A $6AU bargain. We went on to “Relax-Revive-Relish” the coffee experience at the Coffee Works. A nice parody off the “Relax-Revive-Survive” signs they use on the national highways. Seventy percent of all Australian coffee is grown on the Atherton Tablelands. The Coffee Works has great displays about coffee growing history, the roasting process, coffee makers and samples of their coffees. We got about a 60 minute tour with one Australian. The tour guide was a young lady, new to the job, but she did wonderful. It was a fun little visit with great coffee. Also, it was pretty educational for Jane and I.
At lunch at a Mareeba café we found out the Badgers lost to Northwestern 51-48 in Evanston. While a 5-1 record is pretty good, why do we have to lose to Northwestern?
On the way back to Lake Tinaroo we stopped at the Mt. Uncle Distillery, which was off the main road about 4 kilometers. On a 800 acre fruit farm they have a tasting and retail facility where tour buses come about four times a day. Lena, the young attractive Aussie was alone with us and was very nice. They make natural fruit liqueurs: banana, mulberry, lemon and coffee. They also make a banana and Davidson plum brandy. These all sell for between $60 and $90 AU. They also sell a variety of Macadamia nuts. We bought the Wasabi package. They go right to the sinuses.
We stopped at a farm to pick up a cabbage, tomatoes, green pepper and avacados, all for about three dollars.
After a nap, we headed to Atherton for 5:30 Mass at St. Joseph’s. The song leader had a great voice and the priest wasted no time. Upon returning to the resort, we found the chef and the dining room manager waiting for us. We could have whatever we wanted as long as they could just deliver it to our room, as the receptionist had promised on Saturday night. So we ordered pumpkin soup, a green salad and two lamb shanks. We had a bottle of our Shiraz bought at the Mistletoe winery in the Hunter Valley. The new version of the Poseidon Adventure ended the night.
Monday, October 10 (Day 31)
Monday turned into another driving day as we needed to checkout some different venues and tour offerings. So we headed from the tablelands down the Gullies (QLD Hwy 52) to Cairns. This is quite a ride. A tour bus driver told me that there are 294 turns on the way down the eastern slope of the Great Dividing Range to Cairns. It was quite a trip. All we could do to stop from getting nauseous. We headed right to the airport to try and understand what we have to do on our early Saturday departure.
Cairns is quite a large city with lots of hotels and shopping in the centre. They have a large wharf for all the tour boats with a private marina at the outer end. Then there is a park along the rest of the waterfront, which has a swimming lagoon/pool called Muddies Pond by the locals. Since there are stingers in the water from October through May, they need some place for all the sunbathers and children to play. There are a lot of young travelers hanging around the Cairns waterfront. I guess all the “back packers” come here for a tour. There are many restaurants on the blvd. in front of the park. One of which sold us a great pizza. We decided to book a Great Barrier Reef tour out of Port Douglas with the premiere reef tour company. We thought if we came all this way, we might as well do it all.
We then heard the drive from Cairns to Port Douglas along the Coral Sea coast is not to be missed. So off we went for this hour drive to Port Douglas. It is quite a pretty drive. The rainforest comes right down to the road at the waters edge. Several scenic outlooks were magnificent.
Port Douglas is definitely not the back packers town. It is much more upscale than Cairns. It is much smaller with palm trees and other fauna all around the town. The water front is dominated by the Mirage Marina complex, which is a mall and marina with many restaurants. This is where the Quicksilver GBR tour company runs all of their boats out of. There are a few other companies and they all run large catamarans. We got there just as all the boats were coming in from the reef. We had a beer at the café on the dock and watched the people stream off the boats. This is really big business. The town was over run with people for dinner, but we found an Irish Pub which wasn’t too busy. Beef and Guiness Pie for me and Chicken Pot Pie for Jane. A pint of Kilkenny, by Guiness and we were all set. The hour and one half drive back up to the tablelands and Lake Tinaroo was a little long.
Tuesday, October 11 (Day 32)
It is Tuesday, so it must be the day for the Karunda tours. Karunda is an old Aborigine village which was settled by the white men when gold got popular. They needed a railroad built up the mountain and found the Barron River gorge which ended about the Barron River falls at Karunda. In the early 1990’s they built the Skyway, which is a cabled gondola ride above the rainforest on the opposite side of the gorge from the railway. So we drove over to Karunda, checked out the tourist shops and took the Railway down the gorge in early afternoon. It was a wonderful trip of a little more than an hour. All the way you wonder how they built this track along the almost vertical gorge. We stopped for a photo op at the Barron Falls, which drops over 300 meters. We spent the trip talking to the couple seated with us. They were grandparents touring for the day with their two grand daughters. As always, we have been meeting very nice people.
Then at the bottom we caught the bus over to the Skyway terminal. That was quite a ride above the tree tops. There were two stops which allowed us to discover the rainforest from the bottom as well. On one stop we walked with a tour guide who discussed the native trees, their age, parasites, etc. He pointed out the fern baskets that grow high on the tree trunks, not destroying the tree, but providing growth environment for the ferns where they can get some sun. They are also used by the tree kangaroos and other animals for nests. We were the last to get off in Karunda. Most people start in Cairns and make the railway trip the end of their day. It was amazing at 5:00 pm this bustling little tourist village was literally shuttered up. Only one or two pubs were staying open for a couple of locals.
We headed back to the tablelands and Yungaburro, a village only about 20 “klicks” from our resort. The local tour magazine told us Yungabourro was the place to find a good restaurant. So we walked around looking at a few menus in the windows. I asked a passing woman, one that was out walking, what she would recommend. With no hesitation she sent us to Flynn’s Café and Bistro. We had a remarkable meal of duck liver pate with toast, then wild Barramundi with a NZ Semillon and Sauvignon Blanc blend. Then we had a great discussion with the chef/owner about cooking in general. A young man that earned his stripes cooking in Tuscany and the French Riviera before coming back “down under”, he told us how he uses clarified butter to seal his fish or steaks and then poaches the fish in wine. With steaks, he presses them with the side of a knife blade after sealing and cutting into rounds, then he marinates in a sauce made up of mix sea salt, rosemary, thyme and good lemon. He just rubbed the marinade on the meat and let in cook naturally. We must try. Our most expensive meal at $132AU.
Wednesday, October 12 (Day 33)
A day off. At 11:30 I am just finishing this journal update. I started early loading the pictures to the laptop. Then I named and ordered the appropriate ones. They I mistakenly erased a file of pictures of Jane that I had copied over time. So I spent an hour recopying and organizing all of our pictures. Jane is planning New Zealand. Another breakfast is nice. I probably have had six cups of decaf. At three dollars a cup in cafes it is hard to buy much.
We headed into Atherton about 1:00pm to have lunch at the Hill Top Café. There was some mix up as whether Jane wanted her cheese and tomato sandwich grilled or a toasted. She brought it grilled, which is warmed until the cheese melts. So we tried toasted, which worked out well. When I went to pay, he said he didn’t like the problem and only asked for $6.00AU. I asked are you sure and he said “good on you, mate”.
We spent the next two hours at the Internet Café paying bills and writing emails. My emails were mostly in relation to issues about Sea Harbour Yacht Club BOD work. The new contract for the manager, our house sitter, is the current big issue.
Late in the day we headed back to the Mt. Uncle’s Distillery to see Lena about the mulberry liqueur. We thought we would buy two bottles to take with us, which of course is a hassle to carry around two bottles of liqueur for two months. Again we discussed that since shipping was so dear shipping six bottles was the most economical thing to do. Jane loved the new lime liqueur so we ordered one lime, one lemon, one coffee, one banana, two mulberry and one Davidson plum. She got seven in for the $480AU she had quoted me on Sunday. So she will ship the stuff the last week of November and we should have it waiting for Christmas.
A game of gin rummy and home cooked chicken wrapped in bacon from the butcher in Atherton with the white wine we had bought in the Hunter Valley made our evening. I love it when a plan comes together.
Thursday, October 13 (Day 34)
Our Quicksilver GBR tour was leaving from Port Douglas, so we had to drive an hour and 40 minutes down from the tablelands through Mareeba and Mt. Molloy. From Mt. Molloy down it was quite steep with all sorts of switch backs, which just about make Jane ill. We arrived early enough to be some of the first people on the boat. The Quicksilver III is a large power cat designed just for the purpose of hauling people 50 nautical miles out to the GBR in about one and a half hours, at about 35 knots/hour. A super smooth ride in a boat full of people. We sat across from a couple from England on a month’s long tour. Jane and I each talked to the marine biologists on board about a guided tour and decided if the morning snorkel went alright we would join them for the afternoon session.
The boat takes you out to the outer reef. This is where the Australian continental shelf drops off to ocean depths. The whole reef is said to run 2900 kilometers from the North edge of Australia down to about Yeppoon. We then tie up to a large pontoon boat which is permanently moored just inside the reef, surrounded by coral outcroppings. The pontoon is set up to support the most basic snorkelers, new scuba divers, the semi-submersibles for viewing underwater, docking for the dive boats and docking for the boat to take you to the helicopter pad. It also has changing rooms, showers, a huge buffet and covered and uncovered tables with seating for hundreds. Quite a rig!
We headed for the semi-submersible for a 30 minutes ride over the close coral walls. Pretty cool little boat which has a lower portion that sticks down underwater. You climb down and then sit two on each seat from front to back. One of the staff points out interesting coral and fish as you putt around.
With the appetite wet, we headed for the snorkel mask and fin bin, chose our “weapons” and climbed down the steps to where the grate walk way is just under water. You sit down and put on your stuff and slide into the water. They have an area roped off for all of the people snorkeling directly off of the boat. I had trouble with the mask sealing over the fledgling mustache Jane has me growing. But it went well enough that we stayed in until it was time to go on our guided snorkel. Justine, our assigned marine biologist was young, in shape and pretty. She also seemed to know what she was talking about. There were only five of us going with her for the afternoon session. We jumped over to the dive boat and went about a kilometer away out on the open reef. I put a thick coat of petroleum jelly under my nose and we all jumped in. Justine led us around for 45 minutes. She would dive down and point to things or bring them back up with her for us to feel. We talked about many types of coral and fish. It was a great session and well worth the money. Jane loved it. It was the first time we have ever snorkeled where she would have been willing to stay longer. She said later it was the first time she wasn’t afraid a shark or barracuda was going to come and find her.
By the time we got back to the pontoon it was time to shower, change and get on the big boat for the return trip. This time we sat next to a couple from Sri Lanka that came to Australia about twenty years ago. Having just sold their Melbourne day care business and with the kids all in college they are now touring Australia for the first time. A couple of beers and a short nap and we returned to Port Douglas.
Brian, the Aussie we met at our first B&B in the Hunter Valley had suggested that we eat at the local Retired Service League club. In Port Douglas it is called the Combined Club and it sits right on the water, so we checked it out. It didn’t look too bad, these types of clubs are really a self service bar and restaurant. They have staff to deliver the food, but otherwise you do all service yourself. Before eating we walked around the whole business district checking out the other restaurants, shops and galleries. It is a pretty cool resort town with lots of upscale restaurants. I wouldn’t call the Combined Club upscale, but it is was quite nice. It would be like going to a real nice American Legion club in Eagle River. The meals were huge and not bad for fried food. Very reasonable.
The ride back up to the tablelands and Lake Tinaroo was long. It was quite a day for Jane’s 63 birthday!
Friday, October 14 (Day 35)
This was truly a day off for Jane and I. As usual I got up early and did journal and cash expenses. Then late morning I headed to Altherton to do some email and sports catchup while Jane was doing laundry and reading at Lake Tinaroo Resort. I had a toasted ham, cheese and tomato at the Yungaburro Pub before checking our the two crater lakes nearby. Lake Eacham was small and pristine, surrounded by parkland. A few families were picnicking and swimming. Lake Berrie was larger and somewhat a tourist destination with a lake/rain forest tour by boat, a tea house and a gift shop. It had a 5km walking path around the lake. Just when I was leaving I noticed a display under the portico with some log rounds attached. It told of the early arrival of the Europeans and how they either were mining or logging. Up the trail 80 meters were two of the last of the Kauri trees that they stripped the woods of in the early days. They had logged the forest near the shore before coming up to the tablelands to do more. I walked out to see these two trees. They are immense, like a California Douglas Fir, and known to be 500-900 years old. Their trunks were as straight as a telephone pole and 90-100 feet before the branches started. The display stated they were 130-145 feet tall. Immense trees!
We finished the evening making dinner and packing for our move to New Zealand.
Saturday, October 15 (Day 36)
Having checked out of the resort on Friday evening, we awoke at 3:30 am, dressed and headed for Cairns International Airport. We had to maneuver down from the tablelands on a very winding road between Kuranda and Cairns. We were in the airport by 5:30 and in line for Qantas baggage check. Now the pressure was on. The sign in front of the line informed us that domestic flights allow much less baggage than international flights do. Jane immediately started to figure what we would ship back to the States, if we could only afford to get the stuff to New Zealand. Someone told us that you had to pay $20AU for each kilogram over 25/person. We thought we were hurting. The service manager came over and I explained our circumstance that Qantas had flown all of this in and now it looked like we would have a large surcharge. He said let’s wait and see what it turns out to be. As it turned out the overage was not very much, but they waived all of it.
Even though we were flying economy class to Sydney, we had a nice flight with a served breakfast. We had a little over an hour to wait for our connecting flight to Auckland. On this flight we were in economy on Boeing 747 and they allowed us an empty seat between us, so we were very comfortable. The lunch was very nice with complimentary wine and a movie. Qantas service is very nice. We arrived in Auckland about 6:00 pm, they were three hours ahead of Sydney.
Flight to Auckland, New Zealand
Qantas QF 60, Boeing 767, International Terminal, 7:00 AM, Economy
Arrives Sydney/Kingsfordsmith, Terminal 1 at 9:50 AM
Qantas QF 43, Boeing 747, Terminal 1, 11:40 AM, Economy
Arrives Auckland, International Terminal, 5:35 PM
We picked up our rental car only to find out we have to turn it in in Wellington at the ferry dock and get a new car in Picton. Not really a big deal, unless you have six bags to carry around and one being a big black duffel.
Hertz, Auckland Domestic-Qantas NZ Terminal, 6:00 PM
Ford Mondeo Class, Confirmation # C9460716482
Return Dunedin, NZ
With the map and directions from Hertz we had not trouble finding the Sebel Suites Hotel. It was just on the wharf where the teams from the 2002 America’s Cup races had their headquarters. The whole waterfront had been redone for that occasion with hotels, restaurants and bars. The back door of our lobby went right on to the quay.
After checking in we strolled the neighborhood and found a small Spanish café where they had a someone playing Spanish guitar music. It was a very romantic little place with small tables and three very pretty waitresses. The meal was good, my first lamb tenderloin, and the wine was great. We are in the right country for good wine.
Sebel Suites 85-89 Custom Street West
Auckland, NZ 1001
64-9-978-4000
Sunday, October 16 (Day 37)
We found that St. Patrick, the Auckland Cathedral was a short walk up the hill towards the center of town. Father David Tong served the Mass and gave a very nice homily. He has an especially nice singing voice. We met him after the service and he gave us his tip for where to go on the South Island. It was good advice. We had tea and cake with some people from the congregation. This was the last Sunday of service before a large renovation project was to start on the Cathedral.
Our tour of Auckland turned out to be a ferry ride over to the Davenport neighborhood, which was the first area settled in Auckland. It is still full of old Victorian houses. There are also two old craters from which you get great views of Auckland and the Haurakie Gulf, where the American’s Cup races were held. Later we walked the quay and visited the NZ National Maritime Museum. They have a range of displays that cover the Polynesians arrival and that of the Europeans much later. This nation has quite a heritage with the sea. People from Europe didn’t really start coming here in large numbers until about 1840. We have had enough of the large city and headed our little Ford Montero South on Motorway 1 out of town to Mount Maunganui and the Sun Pacific Villas.
The countryside is so green and lush. There is no drought here. It is very rolling with sharp hilltops, like very small mountains, on all the horizons. After about 225 kilometers, we found our way out on to the peninsula where our villa was. It sits across the road from the ocean, as do all the houses in this town. The whole ocean beach is park with a large dune protecting the beach.
We did a little grocery shopping and then found a Turkish restaurant for dinner. Quite a risk for me, but I really liked the lamb salad I had. I will go back.
Sun Pacific Villas, Reservation #100416201, 10/14 – 10/21, 2BR
123 Muricata Ave
Mount Maunganui
New Zealand
PH: 07-575 2013
Monday, October 17 (Day 38)
After two days of basically getting up at 4:00 am due to travel or time changes, we slept in and lounged around eating breakfast and reading in the morning. After meeting with the villa administration and getting all the tourist information. We decided to skip golf and see was Tauranga was like. It is the largest metropolitan area on the Bay of Plenty, which is the central coast line on the North Island. We strolled the town and bought some souvenirs of the All Blacks, NZ premiers international rugby team, for our Jason and Drew.
We finished the day with a bike ride around the peninsula where the villa, the beach and other resorts are. In doing so we found a small Italian restaurant, La Barca, where we later had dinner. It is owned by a man from Southern Italy and a woman from NZ. They had met in Geneva, Switzerland, married and raised a family. Then six years ago they came to Mt Maunganui and opened this small café. We loved the Calamari. It is the best I have ever had. Jane had a veal Marsala dish and I had Penne Bolognese. As we left, we walked out with a NZ couple that couldn’t believe how bad the food had been. They had just been to Italy and had come in for pizza. It may all be in the expectation.
Tuesday, October 18 (Day 39)
I guess we have gotten over the jet lag because I slept right through to eight o’clock and Jane slept until 9:00 am., or maybe it was because we had planned a short day. We left for Cambridge to see the throroughbred horse breeding part of New Zealand. There was a “country store” not to miss and lunch before we drove onto Thoroughbred Lodge which is a large breeding farm just outside of town. They were busy with a calf sale so we just wandered around. Quite a large barn with great box stalls built in a large square with a yard on the inside. The whole place was well kept with many horses in the pastures. There were many other farms around Cambridge and all the way over to Matamata, which is “Hobbiton”. This is the place the Hobbit scenes for the Lord of the Rings were shot. The farm is nearby and they give two and a half hour tours to see the farm and hear about what was done to make the movie for $50NZ. We decided to pass. We walked the town and headed back to Mt. Maunganui.
On the way we stopped at the MillReef Winery, which was just outside of Tauranga and Mt. Maunganui. Quite a nice facility that bottles about 150,000 cases a year. The grapes came from 55 acres of vines near Napier on Hawk’s Bay, where we will be going next week. It was a nice stopped and we picked up a couple of bottles of wine.
Back at Sun Pacific Villas, Jane went to sit in the sun while I headed to the local marina to look at catamarans. Finding very few I was back in no time.
Later we met about 5 other couples staying at the resort for cocktails and then dinner at the local “sports club”, which happens to be right on the harbour of Tauranga. It is quite a nice setting, with reasonable food and drink. We sat with Roger and Bev, farmers from the West coast of NZ and had a fun evening with interesting discussions about country differences.
Wednesday, October 19 (Day 40)
We headed away from the coast to see some of the thermal geography and volcanic history of New Zealand. We had a hour and a half drive which turned out to be beautiful, which I suspect is going to be quite redundant. The highways have been very good. Thy differ from a lot of rural Australia in that they have a shoulder, which people actually use. Even in a no passing zone a car a truck may pull off to the left to allow you to pass if they think they are really holding you up.
But the hills and the freshness of all green is what is really the show. Sheep seem to dot many of the pastures with big Holstein herds in many others. We drove around Lake Rotorua and the city of Rotorua and out towards Mt. Tarawera and Lake Rotomahana. Our destination was the Waimangu Volcanic Valley.
This is the only hydrothermal system in the world where the exact day of commencement of surface activity is known, namely 10 June 1886. Waimangu and Rotomahana are the only current example of a bio-system re-establishing in an area following complete devastation.
Mt. Tarawera, the volcano, erupted on that June day in 1886. It exploded to over twenty times it’s size. It wiped out a local community of some 186 people and created a new Maimangu Valley with several craters. In 1900 the Waimangu Geyser erupted sending water and steam 400 meters into the air. These eruptions continued for four years killing four visitors in the process. In 1917 one of the other geysers, Frying Pan Lake, erupted and killed two people in the area. Since then all has been quiet and the area has perfect conditions for plant and bird life.
We took their walking path, which wound its way down into the valley and then up over the tops of a couple of craters and again down to the lake. It is only about 4 kilometers, but the up and down was quite severe. Each of the craters was different with either dramatic blue water or bubbling and steaming springs. The woods is very dense with a very lush tropical look and feel.
We started and finished at the headquarters building which overlooked the valley and had a café, where we had soup before starting, and a gift shop where we ended our visit. They have these beautiful things made out of merino wool, possum fur and silk. Too bad we only wear cotton in North Carolina, or may be for the best given the prices.
We then drove into Rotorua, which has been a tourist city since the 1800’s. The thermal baths brought New Zealanders and Europeans here for the “cure”. The Rotorua Museum of Art and History is situated in the historic Bath House which opened 1908. It was designed like a European Spa. They had a very creative movie which gave you the history of the spa. Then we toured their current print display in one gallery.
Across the entry in the other wing was a display of Maori history and art. The Maori’s are the natives that came here from Polynesian by sailing canoe’s. Their culture reaches back to Southeast Asia. It was quite informational. One display also focused on the Maori Battalion from WWII.
Then we walked through the Blue Baths which was the swimming complex built on the grounds for local use. For decades it was the center of child social interaction and swimming and diving development in the area.
We then drove around the city centre which was at least 15 square blocks of shops on tree lined streets. It was quite nice. You just don’t see smaller towns with these kinds of downtowns in America. We pulled out the Frommer’s Guide to NZ and found that there was a cool, funky café in the middle of town, where we could grab a snack. Ironically as we checked the address we found we were right in front of it. More amazing was there was an open parking spot right there for me. In this bustling little city this was amazing. The Nachos and beer were pretty good and turned out to be dinner. Our drive back over the hills turned out to be the end of the day.
Thursday, October 20 (Day 41)
It seems we have taken this week to make the mornings our relaxation time. I get up early but we just paddle around until late morning. So we left late in the morning for Kiwi 360. The weather is certainly changing. The clouds have rolled in from the East and rain is coming.
Kiwi 360, renamed from Kiwi World, is owned by local kiwi fruit growers. They have a nice gift shop with café and give tours of their vineyards with a little train of “kiwi cars”. Naturally they have a huge kiwi slice on the lawn out front. Simon took our money and led us out to the train. We were the only guests for this tour, which is always great. When you are alone with the tour guide it can turn into a dialogue rather than a lecture, and it did become a dialogue with Simon. The 45 minute tour lasted about 65 minutes.
The Kiwi Fruit is from the seed of a Chinese Gooseberry. They changed the name some time ago. It was brought to New Zealand by a young teacher that was visiting China and when offered took some seeds home. She thought some of her farming friends might make use of them.
It turns out the climate and the soil on the North end of the North Island are quite good for growing the Kiwi. Simon informed us that there are 152 varieties, but they now only grow three, green, gold and “the cherry”. On the property they also exhibit the other fruits that grow in NZ: lemon, lime, orange, navel orange, apples, grapefruit, gava, etc., etc. It seems that just about any fruit can be grown here including bananas. The gold kiwi is a new variety that doesn’t have the furry skin and is a little sweeter. The cherry kiwi is a gold kiwi that is much smaller and with thinner skin so it can be eaten like a cocktail finger food.
The Kiwi has turned into a billion dollar export industry. They grow the vines and prune them, tying them along horizontal wires, so that they can be picked easily. All is done manually. Even pollination is done manually by bring bees in for two to three weeks.
It had started to rain as we finished the tour. I took Jane back to the Sun Pacific Villa. I went down to the beach to catch some pictures I had missed while the sun was out. There were several guys surfing on the beach with kites, the type and size you would us for hand gliding. It was really cool how they would reach up and down the beach through the surf, jumping waves and doing 360 degree turns. By the downtown section of the beach there were surfers out in the rain trying to catch the larger surf the storm was bring ing in. A walk around Mt. Maunganui was out, but I was making use of my new jacket watching the surfers trying to get some good pictures. It rained lightly the rest of the day and night. We went to the service club on the harbour edge for a reasonable but huge dinner.
Friday, October 21 (Day 42)
Friday morning we were on the road early, leaving the villa by 7:00 am. We were both excited about the drive we were going to take around the East Cape, this is the NE corner of NZ. It is very remote and few tourists take the time to do the drive. We are heading to Gizborne, which can also be reached through a gorge, which will take about three to four hours. Our cape drive should take 6 to 7 hours, depending on the weather.
It was regular traffic as we moved through the Bay of Plenty beach towns of Whakatane and Optiki, where the road split. From there North along the shore there were no towns, just country crossroads with a few houses and an occasional school. As the road wound along the shore, we were either right next to the beach, high on a bluff overlooking the beach and the next valley or under a canopy of trees as the road hugged the bluff somewhere between the beach and the top of the bluff.
The rain just got heavier all day. We eventually stopped in Tolaga Bay to visit a small cashmere factory. It was in an old building that had been the local fire house at one time. While they had beautiful cashmere sweaters and shirts on sale, they were still $200. Since we live in NC and tend to wear no wool, it seemed a waste. The woman recommended a local bakery for lunch. We found the “mince pie” to be delectable. The waitress had taken her daughter to school in Gizborne earlier and warned us that there was flooding on the road to Gizborne. The water had been higher in town earlier in the morning, but had since subsided. We headed on to find that ten minutes outside of Tolaga Bay there was water over the road, but not enough to worry about. From there on the road was quite steep and winding, as was the whole East Cape, with many spots that the edge had worn away or there was mud on the road or the remanents of a tree that had come down.
Arriving in Gizborne, the self proclaimed capital of Chardonnay for New Zealand, we stopped at the tourist information centre, which we often do, only to find out that it is an expecially big weekend. Not only is it Labor Day on Monday, but Sunday is the annual Wine and Food Festival for the city. They did find us a B&B that had a room available. In fact it was their only room.
First we went over to the Lindauer Cellars, one of the in town wineries, for a tasting. I went in and had a tray of five, all of which were quite good. We were then going to try the Cider Factory, but it was closed.
So we headed for our B&B, Le Tuka, which was owned by Bronwyn and Paul. Living with them was their son Aidan and nephew, Andrew. They immigrated from the UK about five years earlier and had been restoring the old house since. They were doing a fine job. The room was quite nice, baths were good. There just wasn’t any heat. And here we were on the coldest day of our trip with rain and wind howling outside. Fortunately, they did have an electric mattress heater on the bed.
We had dinner at the Works Café which was down on the wharf. I asked for and we got the table right next to the fireplace. It was just what we needed.
Saturday, October 22 (Day 43)
In the morning we weren’t sure about the roads so we went to some of the weekend festivities. Wine tasting at the health food store and at KEW, a winery at the edge of town got Saturday off to a good start. After a simple baked pie lunch, we spent a good part of the afternoon in a nice bookstore. We ended up staying another night because all three roads out of Gizborne were closed due to road conditions caused by the storm. This was fortunate because it gave us a chance to have tea and a nice conversation with Bronwyn and Paul about the local culture and the Maori specifically. It was a good learning experience for us. Late in the day we scouted restaurants
After church, we ate at an old place named The Marina, another very good restaurant on the water with views of downtown, where we again had the table closest to the fireplace. These New Zealanders are a cold blooded group. Jane had great fish. It continued to rain most of the night, but the amount of water coming down the river in the back yard of the B&B did subside by morning.
Sunday, October 23 (Day 44)
We tried to get started early but 9:30 was the best we could do. There was one man on the road at a barricade at the edge of town that said we might catch up with the other cars and then let us through. As it turned out not traffic was allowed on the road coming North, only a few vehicles heading South. We were quite lucky. There were several real washouts and many places where mud and branches had covered part of the road, but all had been cleared. At the Devil’s Elbow right above Napier it was quite dicey, but the road crew was just finishing. The drive was spectacular! Over steep hills, through gorges, past deep ravines, an occasional water fall, one great vista after another. The sun was coming out so it was beautiful.
We ended up getting to Napier about 12:30 pm, about an hour later than the trip should take normally. When we arrived there was a long line of cars, trucks, campers, etc. waiting to be allowed to head North to Gizborne.
Napier is the largest town in Hawke’s Bay. This is another of the real key wine areas of the country. While they do make most styles of wine, they seem to be focused on red blends as their best. The area has some “gravel” based soil in places that has created an appellation of sorts for red wine. After finding a B&B on the hill above town we checked out several of the best wineries, Te Mata Estate, one of New Zealands oldest wineries, and Craggy Range (across the road from the beautiful hill with the hand gliders on it), which is brand new and owned by some Americans and Black Barn, also a new full service winery. It was really done up beautifully. At Craggy Range we had a girl that had just immigrated from New York City serve us our tasting. We couldn’t resist buying a red blend of Merlot, Malbec and Cabernet.
Napier was leveled in 1931 by an earth quake. Any building below the hill that wasn’t leveled by the quake was burned in the after math. So the place started over and most of the buildings were built with an art deco motif. It is right on Hawke’s Bay with a beach and park all along the city shore. We ate at a restaurant called Pacifica, 209 Marine Parade, suggested by the winemaker at the Askerne Winery. I had maybe the best fish dish I have ever had. It was a fleshy white fish cut into strips, marinated in soy sauce for about two minutes, rolled in flour and sesame seeds and then pan fried in a mix of butter and olive oil for about two minutes. The seeds were toasted and the fish was perfect. It was great.
Our B&B was run by a young German woman, Charlotte, and her husband, who was gone working with some invalid people he sees to. A German couple and a Maori woman were also staying so we all had breakfast together and discussed our New Zealand travels, the state of US hurricane aftermath and a little about Berlin’s rebirth. The Maori woman was an interior decorator that had just come back to the country due to her Mother’s death.
Monday, October 24, (Day 45)
This turned out to be a very uneventful day on driving to Wellington. It was a trip of about 320 kilometers. Most of which was through rolling countryside with mountains of sorts on either side. It was a very easy drive. We stopped in village and picked up some cheese, crackers and sausage and with one of our wines had a picnic at a roadside picnic table with the chickens just before it started to sprinkle.
The last half hour was spent driving over a high pass that is quite exciting. Arriving into Wellington, the nations capital, in the rain we found the tourist information centre and booked a downtown hotel for two nights. We try to call all the kids but only succeeded in talking to Jason and Lori. During a downtown walk about we decided to catch the new Anthony Hopkins movie, The World’s Fastest Indian, which was about a New Zealander setting land speed records with an 1920 Indian motorcycle. After the movie we found an Irish Pub for the cheap grub. While we were downing the stew and pie a make shift group of musicians came in and started to play English and Irish music. Then a touring Englishwoman at the next table joined us for a chat. They had about six people playing instruments and a couple of women singing. Apparently they have been getting together to do this for quite some time.
The hotel is nice with an actual desk to sit and type at. A good time to catch up.
Tuesday, October 25 (Day 46)
It is Tuesday; it must be Wellington! It is never as boring as business travel. We have read about the New Zealand National Museum, Te Pape, since we started planning this trip. It has come up in all the guide books and from everyone that has been to Wellington. It is right in the heart of the city on the harbour, and it is free!!
This is a wonderful, active and interactive museum. Certainly the most interesting I have been in. Besides the Maori and Immigrant focus, they have New Zealand art, some very good commercial art and a traveling human genome exhibit. We took and overview tour, which I have never done in a museum before. It was well worth the time and money. After the tour, we just went back to the areas of our interest and available time. Jane would have spent all day there but we had a few other things we wanted to do. All of the exhibits were of high quality and very creative. In several areas they rotate topics every two years. For example, they always have one Maori tribe and one European Immigrant group with a special exhibit. At this time it was a river tribe and the Italians. Many areas of the museum have interactive displays and/or special sections for children, with staff available to get children started on the available exercises. The museum is about five years old now and they are starting to plan for some change. We learned this when we responded to a survey request on the way out of the building. It certainly is worthwhile reason to stop in Wellington.
We then decided to take in the City and Sea Museum of Wellington. While on a much smaller scale this highly focused museum was also time well spent. It focuses on the history of Wellington using a time line describing time from 1900 to 2000. The other focus was the sea, which has played a huge part in Wellington’s discovery and development. Artifacts of ships, records of shipping and sinkings, and specific films about the maritime history and the sinking of the Wahine.
A few more blocks down Lambourn Quay and we were right in front of the Parliament Building. We just made the 4:00 pm tour and had a great time. The building was originally built in 1902 after the first Parliament Building was destroyed by fire. This one was then burned extensively in 1992. They then undertook a $146NZ million dollar renovation. It was so expensive for several reasons. One, they made it earth quake proof by putting shock absorbers under the whole building. This is a system developed by a NZ professor which has proved very good in Japanese earth quakes. Two, they wanted the whole complex restored to original quality, which was quite expensive but very successful.
After wine, cheese and fruit on the quay with a waitress who had worked in Lake Lure, NC for two years, we headed back to the Kingsgate Hotel. Jane ate in and I headed for the Internet Café for a couple of hours of catch up on journal and sports.
Wednesday, October 26 (Day 47)
We left the hotel after an early breaky and headed for the Interislander Ferry Line. They use a relatively new boat which holds 600 cars and 1600 people. Hertz would not let us take the car we had over, which turns out best for us and them, so we dropped the luggage and the car and boarded with just some carryons. The ride from Wellington to Picton on the South Island takes about three hours. The boat seemed to be about half full so you could get a seat in most areas. We took some reclineable seats on the starboard side of the seventh deck. Some NZ sheep farmers sat next to us so Jane learned all she could about them and sheep farming. Very interesting. The weather was great so it was a very smooth ride. The ferry wound its way into Queen Charlotte Sound through a narrow mouth and around several islands. Already the South Island, the mainland, is beautiful. When we disembarked, we picked up the next Hertz car and drove towards Havelock down the edge of the Queen Charlotte Sound. There were beautiful vistas of the whole sound as we wound along the edge.
We skipped the last 6 kilometers and Havelock to head to Marlborough wine country. About twenty kilometers down the road we entered New Zealand’s premier wine making area. While this is the area that has had a great deal of success exporting their Savignon Blanc all over the world, it was only started in 1978. It is quite new and the vineyards and wineries look new also. The fields are staked quite nicely and orderly compared with the old Italian vineyards we saw in Tuscany. We stopped at the Wairau River Wines, the Nautilus Estate and Domaine Georges Michel, for a bit of the French flair.
The Wairau River Winery was founded by the Rose Family, still the current family owner. He and his wife started the winery in the nineteen eighties. They now have 300 hectares (~700 acres) in vines. They have four children, one being a chef in Sydney, and the other three are in their wine business. I tasted all of their wines which had two very nice Sauvignon Blanc’s and a quite light Pinot Noir.
At the Nautilus Estate the cellar tasting room was in a dramatic building, only five years old, where they make their Pinot Noir. They had nice wine, but Jane really liked the logo t-shirt the woman in the tasting room had on and bought one. Very cool, “coming out of your shell” logo. The Pinot Noir that they are trying to specialize in is a little less “fruit in your face” and a little more “complex backbone”.
The Domaine Georges Michel tasting room was in a building where the cute front was the tasting room and “sales cellar” and the small winery was in the back. It was out in the middle of the vineyard with vines seen in every direction and the mountains in the background. The young man in the tasting room was from Australia and is settling in New Zealand because Australia won’t give his new American wife a visa. She is working at McDonald’s in town while he is doing what he loves in the winery. He was very informative about the wine industry in NZ and Australia. He had worked in the Hunter Valley, where we had been a month ago. More importantly he told us about areas near Adelaide where we are going. He also sold us a handy little wine tasting guide.
On Jefferies Road we found the Antares Homestay with no problem. A quite unusual home on elaborate grounds turned into a B&B and they had another building for the “wineries by bike” business. The owners, Jane and Steve, had immigrated from the UK within the last five years. Her brother was visiting. They were very nice and organized our evening restaurant booking leaving us with “no worries”. They also let me use their PC to get on the Internet to catch up on mail and reading. To have broadband at hand is quite a treat.
While there was a Michelin Five Star restaurant at the winery across the road, Hezog’s, we felt it would be a little pricy. Jane and Steve figured about $200/person would be a good planning number. We found our restaurant, Gibb’s, by driving down a long lane into the middle of a vineyard. It was a small building with a NC porch. The rose bushes in the front yard were amazing. One was and iceberg rose with huge blossoms. The other was of yellow roses with long stems and beautiful blossoms on all. It is a quite rustic building with about eight tables for dining and a very small bar. The furniture was a real mix of styles, but the white table cloths and the organized settings gave it one consistent look. Jane had rack of lamb and I had venison. Both dishes were elegant and wonderful. We had a bottle of Marlborough Valley Merlot/Malbec from the Fromm Winery. Our waitress was a woman from Germany that had spent 40 years living in Switzerland before immigrating to New Zealand five years ago. When she first came she worked in her sister’s new restaurant in Akorara, which is where our next timeshare rental is located.
Thursday, October 27 (Day 48)
I awoke early and updated for a while and had a nice talk with Jane the owner of Antares Homestay while she prepared the table for “breaky”. They had enjoyed Gibb’s recently and we compared experiences, both very good. The other couple that was staying in the other room was from Christchurch and up for an evening meal at Herzog’s for a special occasion, which turned out to be John’s birthday. They were John and Liz Barry. John is a Pediatrician in private practice and Liz has two restaurants, a bistro, Strawberry Faire, and a coffee shop, Metro. They were a very nice couple and our breakfast stretched into a two hour discussion about NZ, family, education, politics and sport, just about everything. They asked us to look them up on Christchurch or in Akoroa, our next rental, where they have a vacation home and winery. It was really a lot of fun talking to them as if we were old friends.
When we finally left, we went down the road Jane Hunter’s Winery. She is reputed to be one of the worlds five best woman winemaker. In fact, in the last month she has been names “wine goddess of California”. Her winery is one of the older ones in Marlborough, having been growing grapes since 1978. She started her career at the Montana Winery on the other side of Blenhiem, which was the first and is now the biggest producing winery in New Zealand. Her place was small but very nice. The focus is on the wine, not the image. Nice wine.
Then we stopped in Blenhiem for some road picnic food before visiting the Montana Winery on our way out of Blenhiem. Montana looks real big. All the buildings and the grounds were well cared for and laid out for crowd management. You pay to taste their wine, which we did by comparing three Sauvignon Blancs. Nothing tipped us over so we were on our way to Christchurch.
We finished the 300+ kilometer drive at about 4:50pm. With the Visitor Centre closing at 5:00pm, we just made it. They helped us find a nice motel close to city centre. In fact it was the City Centre Motel, with Robin at the desk. She was quite very nice and took us to the room, unusual for a motel. Nice place.
We walked by down Columbo Street towards the city centre and had a great meal at the Seafood Kitchen, owned by the son of our breakfast partners. Liz’s daughter was also working as hostess. She is a very pretty woman. Jane had the Whitebait fish and I had the salmon, of course, we had a Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc. After dinner, we walked all around the heart of the city. The Avon River winds through the centre of the city and the botanical gardens. The Church of England Catherdral is right at the heart of the city in a large square. It is all very European. The shopping mall is on the South side of the mall. We walked all around and back to the motel, checking in on Liz’s Metro Café on the way.
Friday, October 28 (Day 49)
The task for the day is to drive to Akaroa and the Club Lavaud. We had a late breaky at Strawberry Faire, which ended with a few minutes with Liz. She had been gone helping her daughter break into her own home due to lost keys. Her restaurant had great simple style, very French. Her son’s restaurant was much the same décor.
We took in the botanical garden, which is right on the edge of city centre. It was a very nice garden with many really beautiful trees. With the river winding through the area it is a great walk. The Canterbury Museum and Christ College are right next to the garden, both are done in European Gothic architecture. It all fits the name. We couldn’t resist the trolley ride around the city centre on the Christchurch Tramway. It was just after noon so many people were out on the sunny day having lunch at every street side café, of which there are many. We didn’t take the opportunity but there are punts or gondolas which you can take a romantic ride on the River Avon. A man stands in back and propels you down the river as you recline on the upholstered seats. Nice touch!
Christchurch might be the nicest city we have seen “downunder”. It is not as large or as busy as Sydney and the sites aren’t as dramatic, but as a metro centre it is very nice, very comfortable with beauty and good pace.
Rather than drive directly to Akaroa, we too Liz’s suggestion and drove through Sumner, a suburb on the beach, and Lyttleton, the harbour for Christchurch. The drive was beautiful. We stopped at a café in Sumner across the road from the beach. This is a real active suburb with many two and three story homes packed into the hills for water views. The road then wound around the hills over the Lyttleton harbour and around Governors Bay before heading over the hill to State Road 75 on the way to Akaroa.
As we reached the top of the last hill before Akaroa, we pulled into the car park to check out the view. We could see almost the whole of the Akaroa Harbour. Akaroa is the last village on the far side in French Bay. Settled by French, but claimed by the British, Akaroa is a town of about 800 residents which swells to 2000 on the usual summer weekends, peaking for special weekends to 7000. While logging was the first industry, tourism has taken over with many hotels and restaurants. There are still many farms around the cape which use the village for support, but mostly it is the visitors that carry the load.
The Club Lavaud is a four unit condo timeshare right a the end of the main street on the way into the village. It is a very nice two bedroom split level unit, with washer and dryer and all the heat we want. TV is not bad but no CNN. By the end of the week we will really feel cut off from the world.
We celebrated being here by having the leftovers from lunch as dinner. I watch an old movie I had never seen. All in all, it was a very quiet night. Although before dinner I went next store to the Grand Hotel to have a beer in their pub. It is a regular NZ hotel with dining room, lounge, pub, game room and beer garden. It seem like it might be the happy hour for the locals. I had a beer and some peanuts and met the town crier. Ask me about it.
Club Lavaud, Reservation # 101534401, 10/28-11/04, 2BR
2-6 Rue Lavaud
Akaroa, NZ
PH: 64/3-3046888
www.monad.co.nz/resorts/club-lavaud
Saturday, October 29 (Day 50)
The weather changed overnight and it is now overcast. Rain is forecast for the next few days. We took the bikes from the site and headed down to the Visitor Information Centre to check out what bookings we might need to make. I signed up for the Mail Route Tour on Monday morning. We agreed we would do the Farm Tour later in the week when we see better weather. Then we decided to do the Harbour Cruise right today at 11:00 am. Off we went, to the dock. We might have dressed better but the timing was good.
The tour was on a large power cat with Captain and Mate. There must have been about twenty people aboard. The Captain took us out to the Harbour mouth telling us a little history, pointing out animals and points of interest. There were some caves where he took the boat right into the mouth. It was pretty calm so we went out of the harbour into the Pacific Ocean. South 1600 nautical miles and we would hit the Antartic. Head East and we would eventually hit the shores of Chili. We headed down the coast and into an indentation up the coast a few kilometers. There we saw some real obvious lava formations. We also saw a bunch of seals, which are now protected. We went back into the harbour past the salmon farm, spotted a small penguin out fishing and then we ran into a pod of hector dolphins. They were in groups of two or three and there might have been a dozen in total. They are smaller than our bottlenose dolphins, but just as cute and friendly. It turned out to be a little cool and rainy but we survived and the whole experience was quite good.
A warm lunch of soup and mussels was real welcome. We checked out some restaurant menu’s and made a booking for dinner. Then I spotted a local Cricket game at the park. There was a couple watching from the sidewalk, so I decided to ask some questions. It turned out they were from Scotland and he had played and watched Cricket all his life. I might actually learn this game before I leave “downunder”. It is actually starting to make some sense. Quite dangerous! Just what I need; another sport in my life. They say there is nothing like a good “five day” match.
Our dinner booking at 8:30 pm was really quite late for us, but 6:00 pm had seemed so early given our late lunch. We arrived at C’est La Vie all the early tables had left but one. There were only eight tables and two were pushed together for a large group. Magdalena showed us to our “shared table”. The place was so small and we had booked late so we would have to share a table with someone. No worries, in fact it sounded fun to us.
Our table mates ended up to be three women from Timaru, which is South of Christchurch an hour and a half, driving. They were on a weekend off from children and husbands and lots of fun. We waited a long time, in fact, the ladies left about the time we got our mains. All the tables had filled and we were not quite sure how she was dealing with all of this, but she was very calm and seemed to have everything under control. We had mentioned meeting her cousin, Maria, at Gibbs in Marlborough. She was interested in hearing about where Maria was working because they had apparently lost touch with each other.
It certainly was worth the wait. First the Escargot was done in mushroom sauce with good bread to help. The salad, which we didn’t expect, was fresh and crisp with several types of lettuce and vegetables. The she delivered our mains in bronze cooking pans along with a plate of casseroled potatoes. It was the first time I have had Canard a’la Orange and it was great. Jane’s had the venison and really loved it. We had a Merlot/Cabernet blend from Te Mata, the old winery that we had visited outside of Napier. (I should have had the shirt on.)
As we were finishing, a guy at the next table, having obviously heard us talking with the women, asked where we were from. When I returned the question, he said they had just moved to Akaroa from Fiji, having just spent eight years there starting a resort. But he said he was from a lot of places like Idaho and Wisconsin. It turns out he was raised in Milwaukee and moved to Oconomowoc when in high school. His Father was a Milwaukee teacher so they spent a lot of time in Door County in the summers. We had some great laughs about the Kewaunee, the Packers, Paul Hornung, etc. His wife, Theresa, was from Louisville, KY and her Mother had once dated Paul. I mentioned, and Jane explained, how she had once “dated” Paul also. What a riot. In Akaroa, NZ you meet a fellow Cheesehead.
We left the restaurant about 11:45 pm. For $163NZ (~$105US) we had a heck of an evening.
Sunday, October 30 (Day 51)
We attended Mass at the Catholic Church right in the middle of the village with an awful lot of older people. The priest, while quite old, did an excellent job of ceremony and homily.
We went to the large bakery down by the harbour for “breaky”. We also picked up a loaf of French bread for our spaghetti dinner tonight at the Club Lavaud, unit #1. After a couple of hours on the Internet we were caught up with everything. Crazy year in football: Badgers 8-1, Packers 1-5. At least there is one team to be proud of.
Jane headed for a nap and I took the Sunday paper and the car in search of a good sunny porch to read on. I checked out the French Family Winery, the West shore of the Harbour, the golf course and a few dead ends. I ended up coming back and going to the beer garden at the pub next door for a beer, some peanuts and the rest of the Sunday paper, which holds very little US news or sports.
After a walk through the village and back we set upon the cooking chore and an evening of reading and movies.
Monday, October 31 (Day 52) (the half way point!)
Monday was one of our rare days where we did separate things. Jane went to discover what it is they have in all those little shops in the village, while I went to deliver the mail.
“The prettiest mail route in the world!” is the logo on the Postal Delivery Van. In 1952 the NZ Postal Service decided to privatize the local delivery. Before that it had been done by the rail company which was really more of a transport of people, goods and mail. Anyway in 1952 they gave the contract for the Banks Peninsula to a local person that asked if he could take along passengers. The Postal Service gave him permission to do so and ever since locals and tourists have been catching a ride on the van. The current van holds eight passengers, as well as driver and assistant, Gerry and Anita.
They pick the mail up at 7:00 am when it comes in from Christchurch and sort it all out. Anita then makes the days picnic lunch, tea and coffee. They then picked up five of us at the Visitor Information Centre for the ride at 9:00 am.
As we headed out of Akaroa, Gerry, the one with the microphone, explained that we would be out until about 1:30 pm. We would stop for tea and treats somewhere in the middle and that there would be toilets along the way. They use the summit road which runs around the remaining rim of the extinct volcano to access roads to all the bays on the peninsula. We climbed up to about 1000 meters and headed for the first stop. We then delivered the mail, newspapers and packages to Pigeon Bay, Decanter Bay, Little Akaloa Bay, Stoney Bay, Okains Bay and Le Bons Bay. Along the way we dropped off at other intersections of the remote roads where the farmers would come down to get the mail later. While Akaroa had seemed remote, you really get the feeling of remoteness in these other bays, none of which have enough people for a community. Many have a group of “Bach’s” at the beach and just a few farms around. Others are completely private with just one or two private properties enclosing the beach and all. I got some beautiful pictures from the summit drives and climbing and descending into the bays.
Our group was made up of a couple from Australia, their host, an Aussie that has recently moved to live with her husband in Timaru, a women traveling alone from Ireland and me. The woman from Timaru was from Adelaide and quite a fan of Australian Rules football. Close to my obsession with the GBP. She told me we would love Adelaide and to not miss the Rockford Winery, which has great red wine. It was a quiet group, but we did interact well on the tea stop or when we were on an occasional walk at one of the other stops.
Gerry and Anita gave us little breaks about once an hour at some beautiful site or a postal drop off and the tea stop in the middle. They kept us entertained with discussions about the families that dominate certain bays or discussions on the history of the discovery and settlement of the Banks Peninsula and Akaroa. The views from the hills over the Akaroa Harbour were beautiful. Gerry and Anita were really very nice and a lot of fun.
But for a small miscalculation this whole place could have been a French colony instead of British, which might have changed the whole development on New Zealand. Oh, what you can learn on the mail route.
Jane and I ate lunch at the unit and we went down to the La Turenne Café for some Internet time. I found out the GBP lost again, now 1-6. They haven’t had a year like this since Lindy Infante. They were due. The string of 13 consecutive non losing seasons is the longest in the NFL. Time is finally catching up with them.
At 5:00 pm we met the other people staying at Club Lavaud and the manager at the pub next door for a social hour. It is always fun to find out where the others are from. In this case they were all quite local. We did have a good conversation about “net ball”, the women’s game that resembles the basketball game the girls used to play in the 1950’s. There was also a farmer who discussed the differences between US dairy farming and NZ style. It is all about cost management and profit. They don’t feed their cattle at all, only grass, and are now milking only once a day. The best American cattle will generate 5 times the milk the best NZ cattle do, but the costs are so low in comparison that they can generate reasonable profits. He was a quiet, intelligent guy.
It was such a nice evening that we decided to go down by the jetty and have a pizza at one of the restaurants. L’ Hotel ended up to be the choice. We caught a table just inside, but in front of a huge glass door, so the sun set in our eyes right in front of the harbour. The pizza was good, even without tomato sauce, and the bottle of Pinot Noir was light and delicious.
Tuesday, November 1 (Day 53)
After the morning updates, I went down to the Visitor Information Centre to book the Paua Bay farm day trip. We got on the two o’clock run. I then headed for the La Turenne Café for Internet time. Jane went walking and we met at the Waterfront Eaterie, a harbour side café for lunch. This place was literally right on the edge of the harbour wall. I had the big green shelled muscles and Jane had fried fish with salad rather than chips.
At two o’clock Bern met us with the van at the VIC. He is a German that had wanted to retire here. He needed a job so he and the farmer, a friend, decided to try the tourist business. We drove out of Akaroa and through the “cab stand” intersection and over the summit. The farm was just North of Long Bay, which we could see and was quite beautiful with a great beach. The Paua Bay hill country farm is owned by Murray and Sue Johns. Their son Willie and his girl friend live with them and hope to take over the farm at some point. Murray and Sue are hoping that this tourist business allows them to all stay on the farm together for some time.
Sue met us as we got out of the van. She and a young German visitor were weeding in the garden behind the house. She was very pleasant. Soon Murray, her husband joined us and all discussed where we were from and what we were interested in seeing. Jane was more ready for this than anything we have ever done. No hesitation at all. She started with questions immediately as we walked up to the farm buildings.
Murray, 51, seemed to be a real easy going guy. He had gone to university and lived off the farm for a short time. I think he took over for his Father when he was about 21. At some later date he met his wife and moved on to the farm, before that he lived in Akaroa and drove over to work. I think he mentioned he had lived on the farm 23 years.
First Murray introduced us to two of the dogs. Then he gave us a demonstration with the dog that herds the sheep to you. It was unbelievable. On his soft command that dog took off across a gully and up a very steep hill to corral the small group of sheep, maybe twenty of them He herded them into a group and then down the hill following Murray’s commands or whistles. He moved them into a paddock and then into the run where they do most of the work on the sheep. This is where he answered many of Jane’s questions about lambs, ewes, breeding, etc.
They mark all the sheep with a cut or two that is farm distinctive, as branding of cattle. He showed us the teeth and told us how they tell age. Sheep only have lower teeth. They get baby teeth and lose them at about one year. Then they add two real large teeth each year, so when they have eight they are about five. At this point the teeth start to wear down and they can’t eat grass as efficiently. That and because their best breeding days are done means that they sell them off. They try and rotate 20% of the ewes a year.
The rams they keep only three to four years because they don’t want too much inbreeding. He buys all rams for the same reason. The lambs are sent to slaughter at about 30 kilograms which is usually about 12 weeks of age. Some come early and some a little late so the sales are spread a little.
We then walked over the next hill to view the neighboring bay. It was small with a large flat valley. There were two farms down there owned by brothers. In earlier days many of these bays used to have their own cricket teams. Now the kids were generally not around. Only one of the sons on this bay wanted to farm and may end up with it all. The trouble was buying the rest out, when they had recently been offered $15 M NZ by an English family for the whole bay, which was turned down. The view from the hill down into the valley was really beautiful.
Wool used to be 80% of the revenue and is now abut 10%. They shear every eight months. Murray took us to the shearing shed and demonstrated on a one year old ewe. He even gave me a hand at the shearer. It really cut very good and clean. You want to hold it even with the body so it goes along smooth and doesn’t stick or cut the ewe. The trouble is you have to hold the sheep upside down the whole time. A good shearer will do 250 a day and get paid about $1.70 per sheep. This is a lot of work and very difficult physically.
The lessons learned we headed for the house. There we spent a few minutes on the porch with some lemonade and a scone with jam and cream, the real thing. They have friends in Charlotte, NC and we suggested that when they visit them, they should come down and see us for a sail. We agreed to keep in touch with email and hope we could make it someday work. Bern drove us back to town coming in the back way which comes in right over the town.
Jane and I then got in the car to drive to the light house we had seen when we took the harbour cruise. The road wound steeply out of town and up and over the hill. It was a very narrow black top which soon changed to gravel. We followed it over the summit, where the sheep were now on the road with us. On the way down the other side the views were awesome of the Pacific Ocean coastline. We could not see the lighthouse as it was down below us in some trees. We started down, but it got too steep and with no assurance of a turn around, which there had to be, but we took the next one and headed back. Coming back into the village from about was awesome. This is a very special place.
We stopped in the English side of the village and had dinner at one of the restaurants across the road from the water. At home I watched the making of the Lord of the Rings and started the recreation of Captain Cook’s circumnavigation of New Zealand in 1769, when he charted the whole coastline. The narrator takes a variety of boats still operating today to make the trip. He uses a whole variety of boats from the square masted Spirit of New Zealand to a new fast Navy ship and many old restored boats from the 1800’s.
Wednesday, November 2 (Day 54)
Over breakfast we discussed the plan for the next week. We had planned to go to the Antarctica Centre in Christchurch Friday morning on our way to the west coast, but now realized that this might shorten the day and make it a real rush. Not having anything left on our Akaroa calendar except golf, we decided to go over to Christchurch today and visit the center so Friday morning we could just head for Arthur’s Pass.
We did stop at the La Turenne for a cup of coffee and directions. Everyone had a suggestion. Then the man that works there said he would get a map and show us. The women hooted and winked to us that he never knows where he is going. He did a pretty good job with the map and we were off. It is about a one hour drive over to Christchurch. The first 30 minutes you are climbing over a couple of pretty good hills that give Akaroa Harbour it’s remote feeling. The last 30 minutes is on flat farm land and suburbia.
The directions were perfect. We arrived at the airport about 12:45. The Antarctic Centre is adjacent and we went directly in. We spent about two hours getting all sorts of detail about Antarctica, the history of discovery and the current expeditions. While there are about six permanent stations, the US and New Zealand seem to be the lead players. Certainly Christchurch is the “gateway to Antarctica”.
You learn how difficult it is to do anything down there due to the weather. It is the coldest and the driest place on Earth. I wouldn’t have guessed it would be the driest. Ironically the South Pole only gets about 5mm of snow each year. They have camping equipment, vehicles, building examples, the layouts of the current NZ Scott Station, clothing displays, animal and bird displays, historical information and weather displays. For example, they had a great mock up of the sun and the earth which allowed you to turn them through the seasons of the year to see the relationship and the amount of sun Antarctica gets in each season. Very cool.
Of course, they have a large gift and souvenir shop where Jane found the perfect wind breaker. You know, she has never had the “perfect little wind breaker”. I didn’t know that. We noticed that the building next door was where people going to Antarctica would leave from. It is a very interesting place to spend a few hours. I think the coldest temperature noted has been -89 degrees Centigrade, which would be about -130 degrees Farenheit. Cold!!!!!!!!!!!
Our return trip was just as much fun. We stopped at the Hill Top Bar and Café for a beer. This place is just on the summit of the remaining crater over which you drive to get into Akaroa, so the view is spectacular. We were going to have fish n’ chips, but when we got to the shop, I didn’t think it looked like much fun, so we went next door to Bully Hayes, one of the areas other good restaurants. They were slammed but gave us a table in the little used back room. Jane wasn’t sure it would work out but once they turned the lights on and brought in a few more couples it was quite nice. One couple was from New York and the other was on their honeymoon from Dunedin. It gave us a chance to discuss the South Island plan with them. He suggested us doing the jet boat in Queenstown, we are not sure. Everyone gets so excited when they talk about all the landscape and sites of the West Coast and Southland. We are really excited. Our waitress was from Seattle. She is in New Zealand on a post college walk about for a year. She is trying to live on each continent for a year. She’s done Europe already. Oh, to be young again.
Thursday, November 3 (Day 55)
Our last day in Akaroa. I went to the Internet café to get Smith Barney data for September and October, so I can balance our accounts. Then Jane went off shopping and I went to the Akaroa Museum, a small affair but done up quite nice. They have a pretty good film of the history of the village and the harbour area.
After a great lunch of leftover pizza and spaghetti with some crusted French bread, we headed off to golf. You pick the clubs up at the Duchevelle Hotel and pay the fees there. There is no one working the golf course during the week. So we got two ragtag sets and started out. Some of the boys coming up 18 requested that we start at 14, which is normal club activity, rather than start at ten which is out on the course. The course is made for sheep as you would expect in New Zealand. The first three holes weren’t bad but then we got into steep and steeper with side hills and up and down. After fourteen we had a shot at playing some holes directly to the clubhouse so we headed in. Certainly we played enough to say we had a round in New Zealand. I would say the course was of the quality of a small town country golf course, which is what it is.
We have a dinner booking at C’est la Vie at 7:30. It should be a good night. We expect to pack and be gone early.
Well still enough energy left to finish the day. C’est La Vie was great again. Jane had the seafood medley and I had the venison with a pear and scalped potatoes like Mother used to make. While the meal was great, the really cool thing was again sharing a table. We were put next to Michele & Clint Ralls from San Jose, CA. These people are real travelers. While this is their third year in a row to come to NZ, they also go Quebec in the summer. They had some really good ideas about the South Island, which they love. Every year they go to Arrowtown for some of the time that they are down here. They made it sound pretty wonderful. It was great Thai food and an unbelievable cinema. We have their email and we might be able to catch up with them we hit Queenstown or maybe even in Arrowtown. The food was good but the company was even better. How fun it is to just run into someone from someplace else in the US and spend dinner as if we were life long travel buddies. Just as we were leaving the table we talked about how each time you are asked to do this, you are not sure, a bit uneasy, but then it always seems to work out. Strangers are nicer to each other than neighbors are, would seem to be the slogan. This traveling is amazing.
Friday, November 4 (Day 56)
As we normally do, on moving day we get up early. We were packed and out the door at 6:45. Driving our of Akaroa Harbour was a little sad because of how much we loved the place and because a cloud came down and took away our view sooner than we wanted.
We were able to whisk through Christchurch and on to the west on Hwy 6. The day continued to be cloudy as we swept across the plain towards the mountains. On a normal day we would have seen the Southern Alps for the whole trip. Then just as we broke out of the plain and into the steep foothills, we broke through the clouds and had a relatively clear sky as we drove to Arthur’s Pass. This was a gradual climb. We wound our way through several mountain valleys. The early ones were sheep and cattle pastures and the last one was “outer earth”, or some such place, of all rock. Then an alpine forest appeared and we were into Arthur’s Pass, which is a very small village on the road. This is a very narrow crease through the mountains which heads into the Otapi Gorge.
There is a Visitor Information Centre here to help people that want to do hiking and “tramping”, which is hiking and camping for several days. There are many defined trails which have camping sites or remote cabins for use. You get your maps and register in there tracking system in case changing weather should cause the need for assistance. On our next trip here this might be the type of thing we do. We stopped to get west coast information and headed on to the glacial area.
The descent to the Tasman Sea is much steeper than the climb on the east side. As we started into the gorge the cloud cover returned, but we were able to see several high waterfalls as we entered the gorge. Then there were several overlooks onto the steep descent. The foliage immediately changed to tropical. Soon it was all rainforest. The gorge followed a wide, rocky river bed down the slope. We went through a couple of villages on the way to the beach at Kumara Junction where Hwy 73 met Hwy 6, the north-south west coast highway. We headed south having decided to skip Punakaiki and the Pancake Rocks, you can’t see everything.
Down the road we stopped in Hokitika. This whole road was along the beach on the narrow plain below the mountainous rainforest. This is certainly a town of some substance with quite a large downtown, as compared to all the villages before, through and after the mountains. This is the largest since Christchurch, but no comparison there.
We were heading to Stumpers, one of the local hotels which has upgraded nicely for the tramping trade, when we spotted a French Café, which turned out quite good. Then stopping at the VIC we engaged a room at the Rainforest Retreat in Franz Joseph.
A couple hours later, having driven through the rainforest above the plain but at the base of the mountains, we entered Franz Joseph. This is a very small village that exists to support the people visiting the Franz Joseph Glacier. There are many places to stay, tour and helicopter trip booking agents, souvenir shops and a handful of restaurants.
The Rainforest Retreat is a multi-dimensional lodging place: camping, motor vans, cabins, motels, tree houses. We had booked a small motel room for $79NZ, which was just too small. So for $20 we moved up to the room with kitchen, couch, queen and single and ensuite. Much better! We ate at the Alice May, an English Pub, where Jane had roast pork and I had pork spare ribs with a bottle of Pinot Noir. It was a small cozy place, which I am sure is quite nice all winter long with the fireplace in the dining room. It was a dreary day and night with rain falling as we headed back to the room.
Saturday, November 5 (Day 57) – Hast Pass
This day turned out to be one of our very best touring days of the whole trip to this point. The morning brought the same rainy cloudy weather. It is too bad you just can’t stop and wait for the right weather, but we have been quite lucky. I found out that no helicopters would be flying unless the weather changed soon. So after a hearty breakfast, we drove out of the village south, across the long bridge and left up the gravel drive to the Franz Joseph National Park car park. The woods was real rainforest and very thick. We parked at the end of the car park and started the walk to the glacier. You can take guided walks that take you up onto the glacier, but these can be a little dangerous unless you are a good climber and prepared. So we started on the 45 minute walk to the front edge of the glacier.
At first you are on a path walking through more rainforest. This seems so weird, walking through rainforest to get to a glacier. After about 15 minutes we came to a wide riverbed which was all made up of gravel. We could see the path that everyone was following through the riverbed. Apparently in the spring, or when there are large rains, the river will take different paths through the gravel. The last 30 minutes of the walk was something out of Lord of the Rings again. All the large rocks in the riverbed, the steep walls of the neighboring hills, water falls coming down many of the crevasse and the bottom of the glacier there right in front of us.
You get within 25 yards of the glacier and they have a rope to stop you. This is probably good because the glacier can move up or down as much as a meter in a day. Some ice blocks fell down the front while we were there looking. The ice in the crevasses is quite blue. The whole thing has been receding for years, but is still quite formidable. It just climbs up into the clouds which are covering all the peaks above us.
We talked to a couple from California and exchanged experiences in NZ for a while and then headed back down. I hope the pictures come out.
We again checked on the helicopter rides only to be again told that it was much too cloudy. We should have been able to see the tops of Mount Cook and Mt. Tasman, both of which were in the clouds. So we headed down the road to Fox Glacier which was about 25 kilometers. In this case we drove up the southern side of the valley and walked down to a viewing platform, which turned out to be quite a walk down and then back up to the car park. Fox Glacier was further away, but you could see it climb up the mountain into the clouds. It was awesome.
Now it was time to start our drive to Wanaka. We drove down the west coast line below the mountains and soon reach the shoreline. This side of the mountains is all rainforest and very thick. When we reached the shoreline there was some farming, but not much. This is a very remote part of NZ. The road wound around some bays and then when the hills got steep it was hanging on to the side of the hillside overlooking the Tasman Sea. There were rivers every few miles running to the sea. When the road would head inland it would be raining and along the sea it was nice. This area called the Haast Pass National Park & the SW NZ World Heritage Center. It is unparalleled in its beauty.
After a couple of hours we reached the mouth of the Hast River and turned inland. The Hast Pass is about 100 kilometers long as you wind through the mountains to an inland valley. We climbed up a river valley with the road hugging the bottom of the huge bluff on our right. Waterfalls were again pouring from many of the crevasses. At one point I took a picture with five insight at one time. We came to a place where the river was running hard and down through huge boulders. There was a sign there that we were close to the ‘gates of Hast”. After about an hour we were over the hump and heading down the other side. The water next to was now rushing in the other direction. We stopped at Fantail Falls and then the Blue Holes. Each time we had to hike down to see the noted spot. In each case the woods was thick with ferns and moss.
The all of sudden we came around a hill and into pasture land. We were in a large valley which led to the north end of Lake Wanaka, a large blue, blue lake. The road wound along the eastern edge above the lake. Everyone was stopping to take pictures of the movie set landscape. Then about half way down the lake the road turned left through a ravine and we came upon Lake Howea, again a large blue lake. The road wound down the west side of this lake and again the same cars were stopping for more pictures. At the end of the lake we found a few small picturesque towns. We followed the road over the hill and into Wanaka, which stands at the south end of Lake Wanaka with snow peaked mountains on the other end of the lake. It is quite a sight. This had really been a remarkable day of travel beauty.
Amazingly as I came out of a pub across the street from out motel I ran into Clint and Michele Ralls. They had driven down from Akaroa. We agreed to see each other in Arrowtown Sunday night.
Sunday, November 6 (Day 58) - Queenstown
The sun was out, a day late, and it looked like a beautiful day. We went for breakfast at a sidewalk café across the street from the lake and the beautiful view. Jane stuck up a conversation with some local people that turned out to be the owners of the restaurant we thought of eating in the night before. As always in NZ, they were a genuine nice couple. They gave us some good travel advice about the sounds we would be visiting. It is this type of friendly discussions with the locals that make this a nice country.
We took the Crown Road over the hill to Queenstown. It was a nice drive through some farm valleys which became tighter and tighter and higher all the time. Then all of a sudden we came to an overlook of a large valley with Queenstown and its lake at the end. It was a gorgeous view.
Queenstown sits on the edge of a lake with mountainous hills all around it and peaks in the background. The town centre is right on the water. There are many motels, hotels and B& B’s. There are blocks of upscale shopping, restaurants and bars. Then along the water the wharf has a beach on one end and a wharf with all types of boats for tourist rides down along the waterfront. We immediately jumped on the large steam ship which passengers up and down the lake and was leaving in 15 minutes. We chose this over a jet boat.
She held a lot of passengers, some of which were getting off at the other end of the lake at the sheep farm for a tour. Others were to be picked up and returned. It was a large old vessel built in 1912 with two large boilers and steam engines turning two props. She had a salon below and on the main deck, which included a fully licensed café. There was seating for many on the bow where we enjoyed the trip. The views from out on the water were again spectacular. This does get redundant.
We walked the streets for a while and then headed for Shades of Arrowtwon and their “suberb homely accommodations”, hosted by Anne & Brian Armstrong. It was a 20 kilometer drive during which we stopped to see the jet boats in the gorge. What a thrill ride. For $90 you can sit with 15 other people and race up and down this river and gorge spinning and turning to just miss the walls and shore. It did look pretty exciting. This is what Queenstown is about. Arrowtown on the other hand is an old mining town with one street downtown made up of old store fronts and many small boutique shops and restaurants. We had a great little room in one of their cottages, all which have been updated. We found Clint and Michele waiting for us, so we headed off to dinner.
We walked the whole town checking out the shops and restaurants. We were happy to try their Thai restaurant, Café Mondo, turned out to be quite good and reasonable. Then on to The Dorothy Brown Cinema, Coffee Shop and Café. Kung Fu Mania (or some such name), a Hong Kong made spoof on Kung Fu movies, which was hilarious and with amazing choreographing of the fighting. The good guy won and got the girl. What a great theater which had huge seats with personal tables for drinks and/or food. We laughed about the movie, but it was a fun evening.
Monday, November 7 (Day 59) - Arrowtown
This little motel is quiet and we slept well and late. So by the time we were ready for breakfast Clint and Michele were already on their way to get a table. We walked through the park and to the other end of the downtown, where we sat outside in the sun. It was during breakfast that Clint mentioned that his son worked for him. I asked what they did and he told us about his independent car business in Campbell, CA, where he sells mainly BMW’s. He finds used cars for people and then handles all the service for them, getting it down by the best of the local workmen he knows. He has done this for 30 years and sells 200-300 cars a year. The real key thing is, I think I trust this guy. So when he later said he has a 740iL just like I would want, it started me to think. Etc.
We walked the town back to Shades and took the pictures and left. We took the highway to Queenstown and turned for Te Anau. That was when Jane spotted Peter sitting on his bag thumbing and said let’s give him a ride. Peter was holding a little cardboard sign with T Anau written on it and was surprised when Jane told him that is where we were going. He was 26 and from Britain and doing a bit of world traveling, having come to Queenstown from Cambodia and Vietnam. We had a quick two hour ride with a venison pie in the middle. The whole drive was through big time sheep pasture land with the Southern Alps in the background of all views. This whole place is too much. He was meeting a girl to go camping with in Te Anau and disappeared immediately. We booked both of our “sound” visits and left for the Cozy Kiwi, our B&B for the next three days. The place and Eleanor were quite nice. She fixed us a traveling bag for our early departure to Milford Sound. Before heading to dinner we went down to the cinema to see the film that the local helicopter pilot had produced on Southland.
He had had some success with the Lord of the Rings thing and then made this 30 minute film on the “Shadowland” or Fiordland or Southland, whatever, it is the SW corner of NZ. It is about 200 miles of shoreline then the Southern Alps with the rainforest which surround them. The film is awesome. No verbiage, just music and the video of all of the beauty. It is an awesome place and we are really excited about seeing it tomorrow on our little boat trip. The film shows many views you won’t get from a boat so it was very good. We then headed to check out Nadeen at the Red Chill for dinner. We had met her at the tour booking place. It was a good warm little cottage type of place. We ate on the back porch under the heater. Venison, Lamb and red wine again. So what’s new?
Tuesday, November 8 (Day 60) – Milford Sound
This could have been our best day of touring. We woke early, around 5:30 to get out of the B&B by 6:30. We made it out by 6:15 and headed north towards Millford Sound, 119 kilometers away. The drive went north along Lake Te Anau for about ten or fifteen minutes. It is quite a large lake with snow capped peaks on the other side. On the east side of the highway was pasture for sheep and cattle. The road wound smoothly through until we entered a small lake area which narrowed the hills. Then we were driving next to a river and the road was part of a pass. We wound between river valleys and then headed up a steep river valley. We climbed up into a canyon and the road ended in a tunnel. The tunnel is a few kilometers of up and down to the other side of the snow capped peaks. The we wound down steeply with numerous switchbacks. Soon we entered the valley of Milford Sound. The road ended at the tour boat terminal. We drove back to the car park and walked over to the terminal. We were with the Mitre Milford Sound Tour Co. As it turns out they have the smallest boat of the four companies, which is what we wanted. The boat could hold 75, but we only had 20 people aboard with the Captain and Mate.
We boarded at 8:50 and left the dock as promised at 8:55. The boat was designed for touring this sound. The captain was a young man in his late twenties. He has had a lot of boat experience and did a great job.
We felt it was a great tour. He took the boat as close to the waterfalls and sunning seals as you could get. Then at the end of the sound we went out into the Tasman Sea, rounding past the light for mariners.
This sound is just spectacular as the mountains drop right into the sea. The highest peak was 2700 kilometers and the depth was 300 meters. Everyone seemed to be enjoying the trip. We had Germans, Austrians, Swiss, French and several Americans. We had some young guys that could have been from anywhere. One read a book for part of the trip and another slept most of the way back in to the dock. Someone else must have been paying. Actually this trip is hard to describe. The clouds were hovering around the peaks as we left the dock. Several of the many waterfalls were dropping water as dramatically as when the rain falls. At times the fiord looks narrow, but it is quite wide. Major cruise boats do sometime come into these fiords. A beautiful setting.
We left the boat and ate our lunch in the car park. Then we started the return where we needed to take many pictures which we didn’t take on the way out in respect for the early time. On the return we turned north on Hollyford Road to search out Humboldt Falls. After 18 kilometers of unsealed road we came to the car park and made the climb. We found the waterfall, which was three phased with two intermediary pools, to be quite lovely. This is where we met the red headed nurse from Scotland that has been touring the world for four years and won’t be home for probably four more. She was quite a adventuresome independent person, it seemed. She said this all started with a mid-life crisis.
Returning the rest of the way we picked up our second hitch hiker. He was a young man that had just been out for a two day tramp and we helped him get back to his car. The drive back to Te Anau was so beautiful with the mountains behind the blue lake. We did get in some more sheep pictures on the way. Pizza and pasta for dinner with some Tuscany red made it a good finish to a great day of touring. Tomorrow will be as good with out a Doubtful!
Wednesday, November 9 (Day 61) – Doubtful Sound
We had a very nice breakfast at the Cozy Kiwi with two young couples, one from Germany and the other from France. The van from Fiordland Explorer Charters was right on time at 9:00 am. It was great not to have to drive, as the pickup was part of the cruise price. There were only four of us on the bus, a good sign. It was about a twenty five minute drive over to Lake Manapouri, which is the fourth largest lake in NZ behind Lake Taupo, Lake ??? and Lake Wanaka. The road rolled through pasture land with the snow capped mountains off to the west. When we arrived at the office there were other people waiting and we headed right for the lake and a twenty five foot aluminum power boat. There were fifteen of us and we all fit inside the cabin. Mark introduced himself as Captain, bus driver and tour guide. We departed quickly and headed out across Lake Manapouri. We were starting on the south end and our destination, the Manapouri Power Station was on the west arm of the lake. It was a nice ride over with the boat moving along at about twenty knots. The trip was 30 kilometers and took about 30 minutes. Again the beauty of the blue lake and the mountains rising out of the lake all around was awesome. We landed at the power station visitor centre the same time as several bigger boats. They all were with the Real Journeys Tour Company. They loaded onto two buses and headed for Doubtful Sound. We were taking the tour of the hydro-electric plant first. The visitor center had numerous displays of the plant, its construction details, the layout and ecological issues about the whole process.
Mark went and got the bus for us and we started down into a tunnel which wound its way around a large circle heading down 175 meters. We parked near the end of the tunnel and we met by Meg, the power plant tour guide. We walked down a small tunnel and into a huge long room. We were on an observation deck at the end of the room. Below were seven large Siemens generators. A large lifting crane ran along rails the length of the room so it could move down and back to any spot to lift the huge items that make up these generators. The one right in front of us was being rebuilt as part of a $100M NZ project that was the “mid-life” rebuild of all the generators after 35 years of service. They had started building the plant in 1963 and finished in 1976. The first power was generated in 1969. Ninety percent of the power goes to an aluminum smelt in Invercargil owned by a consortium of Australian, American and European companies. It gets hight grade processed powdered aluminum from Australian mines and makes high grade aluminum sheets used for airplane wings, etc. The plant is owned by the NZ government and the remaining 10% of the output goes into the NZ national grid.
Lake Manapouri provides the input water that goes down to the turbines 170 meters below the surface and then the output water, at about the same temperature, goes out tunnels and down another 170 meters to Deep Cove on Doubtful Sound.
To get to Doubtful Sound we left the power station on our bus and went over a high pass via a gravel, unsealed road. It was 12 kilometers up and 10 kilometers down. It was very steep with no guard rails. It was quite a ride and one of the highlights of the day.
At the sound we found Mark’s 30 power cat which was old but quite comfortable for the 15 of us. The sound is 40 long to the mouth of the Tasman Sea. Today since it was blowing pretty good in from the sea, we went 30 kilometers toward the mouth. We wandered around islands and shorelines looking for penguins and seals. The mountains while not as dramatic as Millfound Sound were still as large, but with more vegetation. The sound, which is really a fiord because it was created by a glacier, is 360 meters deep. The mountains just rise out of the water. There are several arms off the sound and close to the sea in intersects with two other sounds. The whole ride was just beautiful. Snow capped peaks are in the background in every direction.
The return drive over the pass to Lake Manapouri was just as exciting, even steeper on the way up. On the boat ride across the lake we all talked about how much we had loved the trip. It was an interesting group: Jerry and Judy, the bike rider from Sacramento, Vivian and Tim, from San Francisco and the other couple from Brookfield, WI. There were also some girls from Germany and Holland. We had arrived at the fiord at about 11:30 am. We stayed on the water until about 4:30. We arrived back at our B&B at almost 7:00 pm. Jane and I went down to Settler’s Steak House, where we had a good salad bar along with pretty good beef. This was certainly a good day.
Thursday, November 10 (Day 62) – Travel Day
This was our day to drive across the country to the east coast. After getting to Balclutha, near the coast, we headed south to the Catlins, an area of remote beaches to look for Seals, Sea Lions and possibly Penguins. We passed Kaka Bay and headed on to Nugget Point, where a lighthouse stands on the end of the head. This is the most prominent point of land in SE NZ. There are huge rocks below the point where we found many seals sunning. They were hard to see because they blend in with the rocks so well. Some were swimming around giving us a good show. We then drove further south over some very small unsealed roads to Cannibal Bay where we found two Sea Lions dozing on the beach. They were occasionally flicking sand over themselves to get rid of the multitude of flies that were hanging around. We didn’t want to get to close or disturb them because they are noted for charging you. Since we had no idea how fast or how far they could run, we were cowards. It was a beautiful remote bay with a large rock point on each end and a huge flat beach between.
So we then turned back to Balclutha and then on to Dunedin, stopping at the airport on the way into town to check on weight and bag restrictions on Air New Zealand. We have too many bags. The weight is not the problem but we have to consolidate and maybe buy another large canvas bag.
We checked into our hotel, The Southern Cross Hotel, which is a large old place having been reborn when they installed a casino. Dunedin is a large city like Christchurch built around a layout that is similar with Adelaide, AU, both done by a Scot. It is the largest Scottish community in the southern hemisphere.
We have found that the Albatrosses have just laid their eggs and that people aren’t allowed close at this time. The local Penguin tour just lets you look into nesting boxes. You really don’t see them walking around, so we might pass on that also. Dunedin does have some historic buildings, botanical garden and the steepest street in the world. It is Baldwin Street on the north side which goes up at 18 degrees. We drove by on our city tour. Jane is not big on steep. We spent our first night walking around the city center, where all the student having just finished exams were out celebrating the start of summer break. It is great for us because the days are so long. It isn’t getting dark until 9:00 pm these days.
Southern Cross Hotel
118 High Street, Dunedin, NZ
PH: 64-3-477-0752
Friday, November 11 (Day 63) - Dunedin
We started the day repacking so that we can do some sort of consolidation of bags. We put together a box of extras and gifts we have bought and sent it home. It only cost about $100US. It might get there before us. Nothing goes by boat anymore. This box will go surface to Auckland and then air to the US and surface on the US end also.
I guess we are tired. We had an expensive breaky in the hotel and then went for a walk This town is laid out quite nicely with the octagon at the heart. We walked down to the railroad station, which was finished in 1907 when there was a lot of gold money floating around. It is quite ornate. Several buildings along the way were well over 100 years old.
Jane had had enough and went back to the hotel to sleep. I spent the afternoon walking around the downtown area.
First I stopped at the Cadbury Confectionary Ltd. Factory. I went through the visitor centre, which is nicely focused at children. Then I watched the movie on making candy, but I skipped the factory tour. I walked north to the hospital and the Otago University campus and then circled around to come back to the central octagon through the shopping district. Many people were out on this nice partly sunny Friday afternoon.
I got a new battery for my camera, the second on this trip. Something is wrong with the camera or the last battery I bought. I also stopped in the branch of the Bank of New Zealand and talk to a manager about the NZ mortgage lending market. They only have floating rates on 30 year amortization. It is now running about 9.5% for 3 years. In the last 15 years it has gone as high as 15% and as low as 7%. We then discussed the tax system which allows very few deductions or tax credits. The rates range from 28% for under $30,000 and up to 39% for over $60,000. You can only take business expenses if you are a business owner. The arts, for example, are not deductible by people or businesses at the moment.
In the central plaza they had some temporary booths where people were selling jewelry. There were was a guy doing magic and some people raising money for head injury victims, which is an annual plea. There were also a lot of people sitting around in the park on the west side of the plaza. I got back to the hotel after 4:00pm.
We both napped before dinner and then took our two bottles of white wine and headed for the French Café on 118 Moray Place. It is on the high side of the octagon a block from the central plaza. They have places licensed for BYO. They usually specify wine only, as this place did. It is great because we had these bottle since Taraunga. One was from Mills Reef winery.
Saturday, November 12 (Day 64) - Dunedin
The rain came in pretty steady all morning. So we slept late and finally got going late in the morning. This is supposed to be a rest stop. We went to George Street on the far side of the central octagon to do some souvenir shopping for Mo and Drew. We found the Scottish Heritage shop and found Thomson and MacGillivray tartans and some name history bookmarks. Then we bought a large duffel I had found yesterday. It will allow us to consolidate several bags and it has wheels, so it should be better for Hong Kong and Geneva.
After a great lunch watching ESPN at the Champions Bar & Grill, owned and operated by the Otago Peninsula Sports Trust. It is the non-profit that sponsors all the amateur sports in the area. This looks like a better system than we have where schools sponsor all the sports. We then drove out of town north to see the countryside. We circled around and came back in town through Port Chalmers on the bay inside of the Otago Peninsula. We then drove out the peninsula on the shore road and past the Larnach castle. This road was really amazing. For 35 kilometers it is right next to the water. I mean right next to it, like three feet on the roadside. Not a side guard to be seen anywhere. It was very pretty with a sailboat race going on right in front of us. Just a little touchy driving.
We’ll now start our email recap of New Zealand in hopes of getting it out soon.
I also got a email from Clint. He thinks we can close the whole BMW deal under $30K. This is way under what any dealer would want and much below Edmunds book value.
Sunday, November 13th (Day 65) – Back to Australia!
We woke up to a steady rain on our travel day. So when we loaded the car it was a little wet. This hotel was a great place to bring a car because they didn’t charge for parking or valet service. I felt so guilty, I tipped a little.
When we checked in for our Air New Zealand we found out that since these tickets were not part of the US itinerary we would be 19 kilograms over in weight, which at $10/kg was $190NZ. The nice lady and I discussed this so that I would understand. I showed her our whole ticket book and she was impressed with how far we were traveling. After discussing it with her work mate, she relented and did not charge us, confirming our opinion of all New Zealanders. Since we were so early for our noon flight, we had breaky and settled in for a long wait. The plane was small but the flight to Christchurch was a short hour. The Christchurch Int’l airport was much more comfortable and soon we were on our way to Melbourne. The plane was full so it reconfirmed to us how lucky we were to be flying business on the rest of our trip. The flight was smooth as silk and the meal was small, but so much better than the bag of “something” you get on an American airline. As Jane just reminded me, they give you free wine and they encouraged us to take extras. Melbourne is a large airport but it was easy. We passed through immigration and customs with flying colors. Hertz was, as usual, very easy to find and they gave us an upgrade to a Ford Falcon. We headed out of the airport onto a divided motorway north toward Kyneton.
We only had to stop for directions once. We also stopped for groceries and wine. Then we headed directly to the Kyneton Bushland Resort so that we would find it in the daylight. It was no worries, mate. We got our key and headed into Kyneton for some food. We had a great pizza at Capone’s, which was also a bargain.
Our unit at KBR is a little square brick cottage with two bedrooms, two baths, kitchen, laundry and satellite TV. Wow! ESPN, NFL football, Sportscenter, PTI all made the place feel like home. It was cool out, so we turned on the heaters and relaxed.
Flight to Christchurch, NZ from Dunedin
Air New Zealand, NZ5014, Bking Ref: BPEGKH, 11:50 AM, Economy
Arrives Christchurch, 12:45 PM 1 Hour
Flight to Melbourne, AU
Air New Zealand, NZ193, Bking Ref: BPEGKH, 3:30 PM, Economy
Arrives Melbourne, 5:20 PM 4 Hours
Hertz, Melbourne VIC (1), Res # C94613043B5, 5:30 PM
COO Grp C Class
Kyneton Bush land Resort, Res. #138472601 11/11-11/18
252 Edgecombe Rd.
Kyneton Victoria 3444 Australia
Ph: 3-5422-0888
admin@kynetontimeshare.com.au
Monday, November 14 (Day 66) – Kyneton Bushland Resort
We started Monday off with a walk in the bush for an hour with a local who pointed out native flowers and birds. We met a very nice couple from New Zealand on the walk. Upon our return we found that our mail arrived. We spent the rest of the day going through all the problems that had arrived. Then at 5:00 pm we went over to the adult lounge for a reception with the other people here for the week. We met two couples from Geelong: Harry and Mary and Allan and Louise. They invited us to dinner at their unit and we had a blast eating Chinese food and drinking wine. They are really a lot of fun. They have asked us to stop and spend the night next week as we pass Geelong on our way to Rosebud, where our next time share unit is.
Tuesday, November 15 (Day 67) – Bendigo and Castlemaine
The morning was dedicated to calling the IRS, NC DOR, etc. Then I did all the Quicken transactions I could with the rest of the bills. We finished our Capone’s pizza, which was very good heated.
We then drove up to Bendigo, which was one of the gold mining centers during the Australian Gold Rush. They still are mining gold, getting about 2 oz/ton of rock. I guess they can do this profitably. This is a really nice town with beautiful buildings many of which were built with the gold money. It is said that at one time it was the richest city in the world. We walked through the city rose garden and the nearby park watching the pickup cricket game. Then having found the internet café and done all the online updates, we drove around amazed at how large the downtown was and how alive the town was. Oh yes, we also saw the small demonstration led by the unions against the HR law changes that John Howard, the PM, wants to make.
Castlemaine, another gold mine town, was of the same architecture, but much smaller. There was a good used book store where I found some old L’ Carre that I hadn’t read. It was a chance to restock the wine and get some things for dinner. Tonight we are going to watch Monday Night Football a night late.
Wednesday, November 16 (Day 68) – Ballarat & Dalysford
I did stay up until 12:30 to watch the Cowboys beat the Eagles in the last two minutes. So we slept late and started the morning watching the sports shows on ESPN from late Tuesday afternoon in the US.
Then we drove over to Ballarat, which is again one of the older Australian cities. It was also settled when everyone came out for the gold. We drove over because today they are holding the biggest horse race of the year, the Ballarat Cup. Before we got there I spotted a sign for the racetrack. So we started following the rest of the cars. As we got into the car park, we saw that all the women had really dressed up for spring race day. There were many company hospitality tents and a modest grand stand and a big member’s area. There were a ton of people, many very young, but the great majority were really dressed up. Some of the young boys tried to dress up but be cool at the same time. The girls were all about cleavage and high heels.
We had a bite to eat and a beer on the lawn and then watched four races. We tried to get some track money but Hoolipop could only get up to fourth place. It was the real race day scene. We decided to check out the town.
As it turns out Ballarat is quite big with a small university next to downtown. We were looking for an internet café, but all were closed due to race day being a holiday. On the way over we had passed through Dalysford a small, but very quaint town. We drove back looked around and stopped for ice cream.
We then stopped at a winery we had seen on the way over. It was called Big Shed wines. There was this very bright old Scot that used to teach genetics doing the tasting. He and his wife had retired here in 1997. He sells 80% of his wine right in his tasting room. He sells the rest to local restaurants and stores. He was a great guy to talk to and Jane and I really enjoyed the time. The wines were quite good and we bought a bottle of clearskin due to the good $10AU price. He was really a pleasant and intelligent bloke.
Back at the KBR we went to the BBQ dinner at the adult lounge, played some pool and watched the first half of the Uruguay-Australia Soccer game. Oz needs to win by two to keep World Cup hopes alive. They haven’t gotten further since 1974.
Thursday, November 17 (Day 69) - Golf
We started the day early with morning free golf with Harry, Mary, Louise and Allan at the local course. There was some women’s group coming in at 9:30 so we had to be done by then. It was fun until the flies started driving me crazy. Jane said it was the black shirt. I had two pars and a bunch of double bogies as we finished eight holes. We then went over to their condo and had coffee, a biscuit and a beer. They got out their map book of Victoria, which I should have taken from Hertz, and we plotted our trip into Melbourne for dinner.
We followed Louise and Alan instructions very well and had no problem finding our way to downtown Melbourne. It is a large city. It took us a long time to drive through the northern suburbs on surface streets, but it was interesting to see all the neighborhood shopping. They are not dominated by big box retailing. Every area has its own butcher, baker, hotel pub, café’s, chemist, fruit stand, grocer, etc. The Central Business District (CBD) is dominated by block after block of shopping and office buildings. There is the older part and then the newly developed section along the Yarra River. Frazier Plaze is a huge plaza right above the river across from the train station. This is the hub of transportation for the metro area. The street level trams, the trains and the buses all interchange here. The plaza has an art center, convention buildings, Champions, the racing museum, café’s and bars and more. Champions was great. Jane and I spent about two hours there. They have some great displays about horses and the history of racing in Australia.
After much driving around we ended up on Lygon Street, the home of many Italian restaurants. I mean many. There is about four blocks of them on each side of the street. There were a few other ethnic restaurants mixed in, but not many. All of the Italian places have someone standing on the street trying to entice you to eat at their place. This was fun at times and a real pain at others. An old guy caught Jane’s interest so we took one of his street side tables. It was a very nice night. We had a very interesting entre of calamari, which wasn’t sliced up but more whole pieces. The rest of the meal was real average.
On the way out of town we stopped at a suburban Internet Café. At first site it seemed pretty seeded but the people turned out to be Greek and very nice.
Our first impression of Melbourne was that it is a pretty nice place to live.
Friday, November 18 (Day 70) – Drive to Adelaide
The drive to Adelaide was about eight hundred kilometers (500 miles). We started early and drove out of Victoria into Southern Australia. We went from rolling farm land into big wheat land, then into very arid land, then back into cattle country and then again rolling topography as we approached Adelaide. We got there a little past mid-afternoon. Upon arrival we found a problem getting into the cottage we had booked. The lawn guy helped us call Regina Twiss, the owner of the Heritage Group. She informed us that they had upgraded us and came over to show us the new unit and check us in. It turned out to be the Friendly Meeting Chapel, an old chapel at 141 Tynte Street, which had a huge “great” room with tons of elegant Victorian furniture, a kitchen area and a spa bath. It is also right next to the fashionable night life O’Connell Street in North Adelaide. It was right around the corner from Wellington Square and the Wellington Hotel with its famous pub.
Heritage Group
Friendly Meeting Chapel
141 Tynte Street
North Adelaide
PH: 61 8 8272 1355
We took the bus downtown to the City Market area where we strolled through the huge market of fresh fruit, vegetables, meat, fish, etc. Just a super market, as good as you find anywhere, better than most that I can think of.
This is also the weekend for a road rally for classic sports cars. They have over 300 visiting, many of them Ferrari’s, which were parked along Gouger street for all the people to check out. It is an annual four day rally that was started after the grand prix race moved to Melbourne.
After the bus ride back to North Adelaide, we ate at the Wellington Hotel pub, which was quite good. They are known for having 32 Australian beers on tap, so I did a tasting of some of their dark beers. We both enjoyed all four, but the Porter was chosen the best. They also had a really good local band. I tried the Irish Pub in between our place and the Wellington for a Guinness after Jane called it a night. It was a pretty good start for Adelaide.
Saturday, November 19 (Day 71) – Adelaide City Centre
This was the day we met our “greeter” from the city council down on the Randle Mall at 9:00 am. Stan Closs, a retired music teacher, met us in the mall before nine when we were the only people standing around. Everything in the mall opens at 10:00 am. Stan had come here from Nebraska 37 years ago. He retired ten years ago and spends a lot of time volunteering in tourism. We walked around part of the center of town where the government buildings, the train station and the museums are with him giving us the history. He even pointed out the “red light” district. We then went to the old arcade off Rundle Mall and had coffee. He was quite helpful in confirming our itinerary, which we tried to talk about after he left.
The arcade and the whole mall are full of an immense amount of shops. Everything you would want including a street performing juggling unicyclist. We stopped to get a few wine country maps and started in on the museum, the art gallery, the international wine center at Adelaide University, the botanical garden’s international rose collection and a walk through the park back to 141 Tynte Street and the Chapel.
I made a mistake on the time for performance of the Two Tenors, the musical farce for which I had bought tickets over the internet months ago. It was at eight and not seven thirty, so we killed some time and then took a cab. It was a nice old theatre with mostly older people in attendance, except the one month old baby in the back. The play was really a hoot! Everyone played their roles to the hilt and they were very good. We and the rest of the audience laughed a lot.
In the theatres here, and at the Sydney Opera House, when you are enjoying a drink before the performance you can pre-purchase your intermission drinks. Then when you come out at intermission, instead of standing in line with the hoards, you go to some table or window and the drinks are set out for you, if you can present the receipt. A very good system, which I can’t recall seeing in the US.
After the five block walk over to Gouger Street, we found we were now too late for dinner. We cabbed it back to Tynte Street and on the way saw that the whole town seemed to be full of late night revelers. I found a meat lovers pizza at a take out a block away from our chapel. It was quite good so we watched “When Harry Met Sally” again with a bottle of red wine, practicing for tomorrow. When I went for the pizza I saw what a great center of night life there is on O’Connell Street. There were lines of young people at three different pubs in the area. People were everywhere. It is quite a lively town on Saturday night.
Sunday, November 20 (Day 72) – Adelaide, Barossa Valley
We easily found the church on the end of Buxton Street and enjoyed a good sermon but a very dry mass with no music. On we went in search of the Barossa Valley. We took the tourist drive north and east out of town. The “drive” took us out through the hills on a very curvy road which wound through farms and towns until we got north of Eden Valley, which is just north of Barossa. Then we turned to drive down through the wine country and back to Adelaide.
The vineyards became real dense. It was pretty with lavender covering the hillsides between the vineyards. This is a wide sweeping valley. We passed many wineries as we were thinking of having lunch before starting. Then we came upon the Yolumba Winery, an operation of the Smith family and one of the oldest in South Australia. We thought we might just stop here for a taste, the entry was quite impressive.
When we walked to the tasting building, there were many people in fine attire on the back lawn enjoying some kind of festival. There were bbq’s under umbrellas all around the yard and they were making shrimp or scallops or other finger food. Everyone was having a glass of wine. I noticed no tickets or “I paid” paraphernalia, so I was thinking we may have fallen into it. Jane went into the tasting room to find out what was going on. It turns out it was a $200 a ticket charity fund raiser for children’s causes. After the lawn start up, they were having an auction and a dinner. So we went to the tasting room.
This was the best tasting we have ever had. There was a young man that was educated as some sort of micro biologist that had been seduced by the wine industry and a young woman that was native to the Adelaide and wine arena. They both helped us try different Sauvignon Blanc’s with and without Semillon. Then we went on to Chardonnay that was “wild” fermented, in stainless and then aged in the oak barrels. After that, on a whim, we tried the Riesling, which was drier than German ones and much better to our taste. So now we had a new white for summer days. These kids knew what they were talking about.
We thought we were leaving, but then we started in on the Shiraz’s. In the end they took us through a progression of Shiraz’s, from the simplest and most inexpensive, to one of their best, which they sell for over $80 a bottle. The jump from the $15 bottle to the $30 bottle was dramatic. Above that the wine needed to be laid down for 6-10 years, where as the $30 bottle was a beautiful deeply rich Shiraz. We were sold. Well maybe educated would be the word, because we just bought one bottle of Semillon-Sauvignon Blanc for $10 and $40 worth of Yolumba posters to redecorate the house. They gave us a restaurant recommendation and we were on our way. That only took an hour. Great fun!!
We found the restaurant in Angaston easily, but the woman informed us she was closing because it was the day for the Para Road Wine Path celebration and she was needed at the winery where they were serving food. Winery, food and music sounded like a good idea so on we went.
Four wineries, all quite close together, had started this several years before. We first stopped at the Stanley Lambert winery, where they were serving Calamari over greens. The food and wine was all for sale and the music was free. The band was quite good. One plate of food and one glass of wine and we were off to Peter Lehmann’s for different food. There we bought a bottle of $12 Semillon, two glasses and a plate of cheese and crackers. We barged onto a table which had three couples at it already. Soon we were engaged in the story of our travels. This was a nice group of people. It felt like walking into the Tiki Bar in Oriental.
They were moving on to the next winery and asked us to join them. By now we were hearing of their US travels or about their children. Margaret, their social leader, led the singing as we walked through the vineyard to the next winery, which was the Langmeil Winery. They had a great little courtyard where the band was playing, which was now full of people. This is where you ended the day. The place was pretty wild and fun, even with the flies. About 4:30 we excused ourselves from our new friends, having gotten emails and addresses, and headed down the road to Adelaide. Having been warned of the random police stoppages, I had not had a glass of wine for over an hour. We did fine and arrived at the Chapel wiser and tired.
To make the evening simple we cabbed it down to Gouger Street to Gaucho, the Argentine Grill. This was the best meal we have had since Youngaburra in the tablelands. It was wonderful. We both had the aged Australian fillet. It was about 280 kg’s, whatever that is (probably about 8 ounces). The bruchetta was wonderful, the meat was seasoned with garlic pieces and parsely, the vegetables were done lightly in butter and the bottle of Shiraz was just right. As we rarely do, Jane had a desert and I coffee. I guess we wanted to prolong the evening a little. A cab was waiting for us outside to make it back to the chapel.
One more thing to do. I went to the all night bakery to use their internet terminal. I found out that the UW Badger men’s basketball team had won their first two games. Then I ordered my next car, the 2001 BMW 740iL, from Clint in Campbell, CA.
Monday, November 21 (Day 73) – Adelaide & McClaren Valle
I started the day trying to get my watch fixed; it stopped about a week ago. I took the Adelaide bus down to the Rundle Mall and walked to a shop that sold Rolex, only to have the gentleman tell me that my Tudor could not be opened locally and that it would have to be sent to Rolex. You could lose warranty rights if opened by an unauthorized person. So I went back on the bus and back to 141 Tynte Street.
We decided to see some of the suburbs, so we drove out to Port Adelaide, which has a historic neighborhood for the tourists when they come off of the cruise ships. Otherwise, it was just pretty commercial. So then we drove down the west side of town to Glenelg, which is a beach town. The unique thing is that the trolley car from Adelaide runs back and forth. It is about a 30 minute trip to the beach from the heart of town. They are rebuilding the public buildings on the beach but there are plenty of shops, restaurants and bars.
We then headed further south out of town to McClaren Valle, the second most popular wine making area in South Australia. This is a much more compact area than Barossa, but when you come over the hill into the valley you can’t believe all the vineyards. Actually, too many for the market. The growers have been suffering from low prices because of the amount of fruit available. We first went to the d’Arenberg Winery to eat lunch on ther veranda. This is written up in several magazines as one of the best restaurants in the valley, and the prices attest to that. We had a great lunch. We split a garden salad, an order of oysters, made three different ways, and an order of bread, olive oil, olives and duccah, herbs to dip the bread in. A couple of glasses of wine and we were set. The spectacular thing was the view. The winery sat on a hill and the veranda was on the crest overlooking the valley. It was a picture!
We went to the cellar and tasted some of their wines, looked over the valley and discussed the hostess’s recent trip to the US. She had five weeks in Tampa Bay with her Dad. The highlight of which seemed to be the driving trip to Graceland! Go figure!
Coriole had been suggested as a winery we shouldn’t miss, so we found it on the map and sorted out the directions. It is a beautiful place again sitting on the edge of a hill. The cellar is a small stone building with lot’s of character. And Ruth the hostess was young and full of character herself. They have wine, cheeses, olive oil and olives. It seems the owner is into the Italian way of thinking. So much in fact that he is producing Sangiovese, Barbera and Nobiolo, which are all Italian grapes. The Sangiovese was very good. It was lighter than the Tuscan ones we had drank in Italy, but very nice. Ruth was young, pretty and full of a lot of giggles. I am not sure she knew anything about the wine, but she had learned all the right phrases. One of her other customers was quite a bore, this has been a rare occurrence in Australia.
Hardy’s, the home of the good box wine we used on our boat, was our next stop, Their complex of stable type buildings in the middle of town is very historic. It turns out that they do make a lot of quality wines, of which we tried a few. We had a great Shiraz comparison between one of their modestly priced vintages and the more expensive. It seems that in Shiraz, Jane and I can notice the money.
On the ride back we took a detour to the summit of Mt. Lofty. Not really a mountain but the highest hill around which has a great view over the city and the surrounding area. This is a good place to live.
We had another dinner at the Wellington pub, this time with John and Jean Payne from Bucks County, Pennsylvania. They are staying at the Fire Station, also owned and operated by the Heritage Group. We sampled more beer, watched the Australian Idol from Sydney and shared the beef schnitzel. I finished the night at the bakery on the internet. No good news.
Tuesday, November 22 (Day 74) – Southern South Australia
Up early and off by 7:00 am. We had a long way to go and we were unsure where we were going. We wanted to get far enough to allow us as much time on Wednesday on the Great Ocean Road as possible, but we also wanted to stop in the Coonawarra wine district Just north of Mt Gambier, which was 400 kilometers away. We left Adelaide on A1 over Mt. Lofty and headed for the Murray Bridge, a local landmark. After that we cut off on B1 which followed the coastline down around the bottom of South Australia. We found Robe, which is one small village looking west into the Southern Ocean for lunch at a small café. Jane ordered scrambled eggs over wheat bread and must have gotten four eggs. I with my simple ham, cheese and tomato benefited.
The road from Robe to Penola, the old town just below Coonawarra, was straight as can be across Southern Australia west to east. It just cut through totally remote farm country, which was flat as a pancake. It was so remote it was somewhat eerie. There were hardly any farm houses until we got within a few kilos of Penola. Again the women at the I Centre helped us find a B&B in Portland, which they suggested because Mt. Gambier is “just a big town’.
We drove up and down the Coonawarra wine region. We stopped at Yolumba’s winery with the eco “green” building, which was also a B&B. The woman was very nice and her red wine was great! On then to Baldives Winery, which had the tasting building over looking a pond. I met a couple of guys from San Francisco there. Actually they were from Santa Clara in the Silicon Valley and worked for some speech automation company. After they left I worked through a couple of reds and then tried a carbonated cabernet. It was very good. We will have to try it at home. Lastly we stopped at the Bowen Estate, which is family owned and father and daughter, Emma, make the wine. They have 80 acres and grow all their own grapes. They make one chardonnay and the rest is in red. Very small but they do export to the east coast of the US. This whole wine area is only 20 kilometers by 4 kilometers. It is a special area where they have about a meter of soil over limestone which just seems great for growing red wine grapes. It is noted as Australia’s “other red centre”, other than Ayres Rock in the center of the outback.
On we went to Portland, where we found our B&B and had an early dinner. I had Kangaroo fillet. It was quite good. We finished the night watching the Australian dance contest show, which was quite good.
Whaler’s Cottage
Whaler’s Cottage Road
Portland, SA, AU
Wednesday, November 23 (Day 75) – Great Ocean Drive
We left Portland, stopping at Port Fairy to use the Internet at the library and the phone on the street, to catch up on issues at home and about the new car. The town has a small river off the ocean coming into town which has a small wharf. They also have a few blocks of business district and the ever present Visitor Information Centre, where we booked a B&B in Port Campbell. We moved on to Peterborough where the Great Ocean Road really starts. It is hard to describe this section of the coast except to say that there are huge limestone cliffs that have been eaten at by the Southern Ocean for 6000 years. The ocean has created many unusual shoreline configurations. There are many bays and points which are quite dramatic. There are archways and holes, or natural bridges. Every few kilometers we had to pull over and walk out to the edge of the cliffs to see the next spectacle. We finished the day checking into the Sunset B&B and then having a few beers downtown on the deck of a bar looking at the bay and jetty in front of the town. We decided to run down to the viewing area for the Twelve Apostles before dinner. We couldn’t wait until the suggested sunset. Watch for the pictures.
At Eddy’s Seaford restaurant I had a mediocre green fish curry, while Jane had very good back ocean trout. The couple at the next table was from Dalysford, near Kyneton in Victoria. They have a café and are on a week long holiday. We had a few laughs and they seemed like very nice people. After dinner back at the B&B I jumped on the Internet while Jane took a bath. An hour later the other couple came in after finishing the evening at the restaurant having a couple of drinks. Small world that they were at the same B&B.
Sunsets B&B – Luke and Christie Berry
2575 Cobden-Port Campbell Road
Port Campbell, Victoria 3269
613 5598 6144
www.sunsetsbnb.com
Thursday, November 24 (Day 76) – Great Ocean Drive, Thanksgiving
We had a nice breakfast with Kevin and his wife from Dalysford. They were great and we had a nice talk about traveling, horse racing, children and the news. We then headed back to the Twelve Apostles viewing area. This area is so popular and there are so many tourists that the government has put in a car park and visitor centre with toilets across the road. Then there is a walkway under the road and out to the edge of the cliffs to view the “apostles and the cliffs”. It is a beautiful place and a real statement about the span of history and the power of the ocean.
We passed through Lorne, where all the “schoolies” are celebrating. Our next stop was the Lorneview B&B, which we found just past the arch announcing the Great Ocean Road. It was just across the road from the beach. Nola introduced us to the parrot she feeds and we saw the cockatoo’s that create such problems. One persons pet is another’s pest. It was a super room with a beautifully quiet back deck, from which you could hear the waves on the beach. She directed us to the nearby Greek restaurant that turned out to be quite good. We played “remember the trip” and called Harry and Mary on the way back to the room.
Lorneview B&B
Hosts: Nola and Kevin Symes
677 Great Ocean Road
Eastern View
Aireys Inlet 3231, Victoria
03 5289 6430
Friday, November 25th (Day 77) - Geelong
We had breakfast on the front deck under an umbrella. It was a sunny morning and the ocean breaking on the beach in front of us was just beautiful. Nola had prepared croissants, muffins, toast, cereal, fresh fruit, orange juice and coffee. It was one of the nicest “breaky’s” we had in all of our stops. What added to it was the beautiful red and green parrots eating their “breaky” with us. While the Cockatoo’s lurked around the parrots ate out of Nola’s bowl and then Jane’s hand. Great fun!
Kevin and Nola Symes had used this house as a vacation home for years. Then they fixed it up and moved out from Geelong when the kids left the house. They added a room with bath and a den out back for when the kids visit later. Just a couple of years ago they added another room on the back building with another bath. Kevin still commutes to Geelong operating a plumbing business with a couple of employees.
Lorneview B&B
677 Great Ocean Road, Eastern View
PO Box 323, Aireys Inlet 3231
Victoria, AU
Phone 03-5289 6430
www.lorneview.com.au
We drove down the coast to Torquay, which is a real popular surfer’s beach, stopping along the way to walk on the beach and put our feet into the Southern Ocean. The road runs along above the beaches with frequent car parks and paths for people to use. It has been a great drive down this shoreline. It is a beautiful coast. Certainly, as they say, one of the top five ocean drives in the world. Maybe it is the best!
We drove into Geelong, which is a city of two to three hundred thousands residents. As with all Australian towns it had a busy shopping area. We stopped at the Information Centre, which was is the Wool Museum, for information on an internet café. While there we had lunch at the Black Sheep Café. We then found the Café Fusion a few blocks into the shopping area. We checked the email. I sent the money for our newest car and checked on the Packers and Badgers.
We then picked up some wine and beer and headed over to Harry and Mary Broekman’s home at 57 The Esplanade, North Shore, 3214, Victoria, which is a close suburb of Geelong. Their house sits on a point so that they can look across the bay over to the city center. They have owned it since 1975. They raised six children that are all but one out of the house and married. There are three teachers and two social workers in the group. One is teaching at an international school in Shanghai, China. The rest are close by. The Shanghai teacher is married to an American and has bought a home in Florida. So we may see more of Harry and Mary. Louisa and Allan Fossey came over for dinner and we had some great laughs amid solving the world’s problems. Allan has quite a dry sense of humor, but very good. Have you heard the hormone? These were the two couples we met at the Kyneton Bushland Resort in early November.
Saturday, November 26th (Day 78) – Mornington Peninsula
After a two hour breakfast learning all about Harry and Mary’s family, we drove through Geelong and over to Queenscliff to take 11:00am ferry to the Mornington Peninsula. It was a large car ferry, much larger than the ones at home over the Neuse River. It was about a 40 minute ride. The cricket match from the “oval” in Adelaide was being shown on the TV. The Mornington Peninsula is south of Melbourne and is the arm which closes in on Port Phillip, the large bay that is Melbourne’s harbour. It has many beach towns on the bay and the ocean side with many golf courses and wineries. The Nepean Country Club resort was easy to find and our upper level one bedroom is quite nice. It has good sized living/dining/kitchen and laundry in the bathroom. Just what we needed to decompress for awhile. We headed to the grocery store and ate barbeque chicken upon our return. I went and got two movies from the office and stayed up late so we would sleep in on Sunday.
Sunday, November 27th (Day 79) – Australian Open
We did sleep in and just made it to church at 9:30. We had a late breakfast and then went over to Moonah Links, the home of Australian golf. I am not sure why they bill themselves as that, but it is where they are playing the 2005 Australian Open. After scanning the pairings card we decided to check out of the players from the US. Bubba Watson turned out to be from Pensacola, FL. We met is wife, Angie, from Toronto and followed him for about eight holes. After we followed him up the eighteenth we sat and watched the leaders finish. Robert Allenby won the event at -4. Bubba made a respectable showing at +2. It was a beautiful and long golf course which would be real trouble because of the length. The greens were hilly but looked very smooth. There were probably ten thousand people there, maybe. There is a lot of competition in sports over here.
After the golf, we drove up to the Pig and Whistle pub for dinner. It sits on a high hill from which you look down on the flat peninsula below. Prawn and scallops over pasta for me and Jane had Shepard’s Pie. We had gone up the back so we came down the front which is quite steep, found ourselves an ice cream cone and I was in bed trying to read at 9:20.
Monday, November 28th (Day 80)
This Monday was decompress day. We have a renter’s social at 5:00pm and I don’t think I will be out of the house before then. It is the day to catch up on picture naming, journal writing and phone calls. I finally had a good conversation with Maureen. All seems well in Denver.
We went over to the social at a little after five o’clock. There was one man there before us so we got to talk to the young lady that is the activity director for the resort until others arrived. She was nice, but very young. It was kind of like talking to your daughter’s friend. Seven couples eventually showed up. We all took our turn explaining who we are and how we got here bit. We ended up meeting a nice couple from Wales that are down for a wedding. Arthur and Ann Vodden seemed like a lot of fun and we agreed to have dinner the next day and take Arthur golfing with us earlier.
Jane and I then ate in the dining room which was pretty basic and not to her liking. She had the calamari and I had a steak, which was quite good.
Tuesday, November 29th (Day 81) – Eagle Ridge Golf Course
Tuesday Jane slept in while I drove out in search of an internet connection. I drove down to Sorrento and on to the end of the peninsula which is called Portsea. Portsea is all summer homes with about four shops. Sorrento, on the other hand, is a nice village with about four blocks of shops. I stopped for coffee and the famous vanilla slice from the Sorento Home Goods Bakery. It is quiet today, but this place is full on weekends and all during the summer. With bay on one side and ocean beaches on the other, being only an hour and twenty minutes from three million people in Melbourne, it is very popular.
The café with the only internet connection was closed, so I made my way back to Rosebud, and the library. A whole room full of workstations was there waiting for the needy, like me. AT&T dialup is long distance from all but the largest cities. And broadband has spoiled me anyway.
Jane and I met Arthur at the course at 2:30 and we played a windy nine holes. We all played terrible, but had a good time. The course was very nice and would be considered good all over America. It is considered one of Australia’s top twenty five.
Later we, along with Arthur and Ann, went to the Marine Tavern in Rye, just up the road towards Sorento. It was a small Italian café where you could buy wine in or bring your own for $6 corkage. This is pretty normal around Australia. We had very nice food and a lot of laughs. They told us a lot about their apartment in Spain, about four hundred miles south of Barcelona on the coast of Del Sol. Spain sounds like a real bargain for food and drink. It probably was for real estate a few years ago, but it has been discovered. It is amazing the cheap flights they get to Spain and Ireland. They once flew to Ireland and back for $21/person. I think they mentioned getting $30 tickets to Spain. Arthur just watches the Internet and they go whenever they get the good deal. A fun evening.
Wednesday, November 30th (Day 82)
I talked to Clint Ralls today and the car deal is all done. He will get it on its way. Charley should be able to pick us up with it when we get home.
Today we went to the local Visitors Information Centre in search of information on the Yarra Valley and the Snowy Mountains so we could plan our last two weeks in Australia.
Then we headed to the Strawberry Farm which Jane had read about. We both had a sundae and we bought some berries for the next few days. They celebrate Christmas with fresh strawberries and raspberries, pretty nice deal.
Then on to the wineries. We checked out Mantons Creek Estate where we met two other tasters. The woman behind the counter was holding her new baby of five weeks. This was a small place tucked off the road with 23 acres of vineyards that made fourteen (“fordeen”) different wines. Their house specialty was the Tempranillo, a big wine with 14.6% alcohol. They had a new building with accommodations up and restaurant down. The restaurant had been closed and now only open for group functions.
The two guys worked at other wineries and gave us some good travel and restaurant tips. Peter works at Willow Glen on the peninsula and lives in Mt. Martha. He recommended a restaurant at the edge of Mt. Martha, just north on the peninsula.
We then stopped at Red Hill Estate. This is a family winery and restaurant that was started in 1989. It over looks the south side of the peninsula and out over Philip Island. The view from the deck in the back over the acres of vines were gorgeous. It is a great place for a wedding. Jane spotted a kookaburra bird in the back. Inside we found a group from the condo having a great time. The hostess was very nice and a lot of laughs. When the revelers left, they were replaced by a young woman who had worked at the tasting room in earlier days. She had left to travel for a year in Europe and Turkey and now had just finished her first year of university in Melbourne. The wine is good, but the fun of wineries is the people that you meet and talk to.
A berry farm and two wineries was all the indulgence we could stand for an afternoon. So we headed back, taking the long way back to the Nepean CC. This took us on the road which overlooks the south shore of the peninsula. There were some beautiful vistas. It was a nice sunny afternoon with reduced wind. In one of the open areas we saw what we could only describe as a herd of kangaroos. There must have been 30-40 of them. They were about a kilometer or two away, but we could make them out, especially when they were hopping around. It is always nice to see the wildlife.
We drove up the coast after a slow happy hour at the resort. In Safety Beach they have taken the shoreline road under the water so that they can build a large marina inland and develop housing all around it. This is a very large project for the area, which is all pretty low key at the moment.
We found the restaurant as described. It overlooks Port Philip with seating on the front veranda, but we chose a table in front of the window inside. This turned out to be one of our most enjoyable meals over here. We shared some “salt and pepper” calamari, which we really enjoy, and this one was good. It had lots of salad which Jane loves. Then she had roasted salmon and I had a dish of veal, mushrooms and spinach with a white wine reduction sauce. There were some roasted potatoes and some asparagus on the plate also. We chose a “clearskin” pinot noir and were really pleased. This ended up amounting to about $60US, which was a real bargain. A clearskin is a wine with no label, usually bottled by a local winery that doesn’t want to go to the expense of labeling and marketing. This also gives the restaurant a low priced offering for their customers.
Thursday, December 1st (Day 83)
This morning we said goodbye to Arthur and Ann Vodden, the couple from Wales. We exchanged emails and addresses in hopes our paths will cross again.
The rest of the morning was spent booking B&B’s for Melbourne and the Yarra Valley for the weekend. We had to spend a little more but hopefully we have two good places during a real busy time. Then we drove down to the Discount Book store. Books in Australia are very expensive. I would say most are priced at least twice what we would pay in the US. We each found three novels for about $16AU, which is pretty good anywhere.
Then we broke precedent and tried McDonald’s to see if it is the same as in the US. Jane had a cheeseburger, I had a quarter pound cheeseburger and we split some fries and a diet coke. The opinion of the day was that it was just like at home. Our first really fast food in 83 days.
Now, on to the cool stuff. We drove over Arthur’s Seat, the sharp peak which looks over the shoreline of the bay, which is Port Philip. We watched some ships coming up the channel and took some pictures. The peak is so steep and the peninsula is so flat that it is quite a contrast. Then we drove over to the other side where the wineries are to the Ashcombe Maze and Water Gardens. Now this was fun. For $12AU each we got to wander our way through two hedge mazes, the largest in the Southern Hemisphere, and one rose garden circle maze, which is the only one in the world. Jane and I wandered through both of the hedges mazes together. I beat her into the center of the rose circle maze. Then we went back and did the hedges again. We each came from a different direction to the fountain in the middle. It is 25 acres of gardens and park and a café and restaurant. They hold many weddings from November to March. Our first mazes and we would recommend it.
Ascombe Maze and Water Garden
25 Shoreham Road
Shoreham, Victoria 3916
Australia
03 5989 8387
The Montalto Vineyard and Olive Grove was right next door. They have the complete package. The cellar door and restaurant are in this modern building on top of a ridge overlooking the vineyards with olive trees in the back ground. The young guy in the cellar door was bright and engaging. They specialize in light Chardonnays and Pinot Noirs which were great. We, as always, had a great conversation and ended up talking about his trip last year to Central and South America, from Guatemala down to Chili by bus. We picked one of their award winning pinot noirs for dinner. A great kid and pretty good wine.
Then right next door to that was Tuck’s Ridge. It was 4:30pm, so we just had a few minutes, but we decided to stop. It is not like we will be back next week. This was an older but nice and cozy cellar door. The guy manning the operation was a first generation Aussie with parents from Hungary and Italy. He had lived in Rome for four years a long time ago so we had fun talking about Rome and Tuscany. We loved the best of their Chardonnay and the Shiraz, really good, and we both felt bad leaving without anything. He is taking a tour to Italy next year and we are thinking we should go along. We also need to see if his wine is distributed to our area. He sells to the wine angel in New York. Go figure!
For the third time on this trip we went back to a restaurant for a second time, the others were C’est Le Vie in Akaroa and the Wellington Hotel pub in Adelaide. We went back to the Marine Tavern, the Italian place we had been with Arthur and Ann Vodden two nights ago. It is a cozy family operation in the corner of a little strip mall with a few tables on the sidewalk. A young man makes the pizzas in the front and an older woman, possibly his mother, does the kitchen. She came out explain to us how one of the dishes was made when we asked. Jane had stuffed calamari and I had veal meat balls with cheese over spaghetti. We took the one of the bottles of wine we had bought last week. The food was superb a very relaxed evening.
Friday, December 2 (Day 84)
Nepean Country Club
205Browns Road
Rosebud, VIC 3939
Australia
PH: 03-5986-9800
Friday was moving day. We checked out of the Nepean Country Club and headed up the Melbourne Freeway about 9:45. It was a nice divided highway which took us in to the heart of the suburbs at a little before eleven. When it ended we moved over to the Nepean Road, which took us very near where we were staying on Williams Road but we veered over to the Port Philip bay shore road and into the St. Kilda area. This suburb is known as a funky kind of beach town. We passed a large marina, a park and an amusement park. We then entered into the port section of Melbourne. This harbour is huge. The large car ferry for Tasmania was tied at one of the piers which had a restaurant and shopping area around the end of it. It had been raining for the last half hour so we picked the restaurant with the parking space right in front of it.
All the restaurants in the area were large tourist type of places, with lots of glass, outdoor seating as well as large indoor areas. Ours was Campari, which seemed to be a mix between Italian and Greek. So we ordered Saganaki and a board of ten tapas. This gave us a chance to try lots of things.
Since it continued to rain we decided to stay indoors and I remembered that the Melbourne Museum had underground parking, so we drove through the CBD of Melbourne, across the Yarra River (arguing all the way about me snapping at Jane’s directions) past Federation Square and on towards Victoria Street. This is like driving through the heart of Chicago.
The museum has a great display of Australian animals, birds, sea life, bugs and reptiles, which was great. We found several of the parrots that we had seen but not recognized. We also saw how many types of kangaroos that they have, which is lots.
Upstairs they had a great exhibit on the human body. This was a great anatomy lesson. Right outside of this display they had a film playing which recounted the lives of the four Australians that have won Pulitzer Prizes in medicine.
They also had a virtual reality room and a display on the history of computers. We enjoyed the afternoon and at about four we started off to find our Williams Road B&B.
This was really no problem. Yarra South is one of the closest suburbs to the CBD. Finding it and Williams Road was no problem with our street directory from Hertz. The house had a wall in front right on the sidewalk like all the houses on the block. Since it was a busy street, we found a parking spot right around the corner. When we knocked on the door, we were greeted by the barking of dogs. This always gives cause to worry, but when the door opened we were met by two of the nicest little black Schnauzers you have ever met. Behind them was Howard, our host.
Howard and Jerry had bought this old house a long time ago, but remodeled the back of it and created a B&B about five years ago. It seemed that while Jerry has a serious position at the Melbourne performing arts center, Howard stays home doing freelance “recipe work” and running the house and B&B. They have been living together for almost 30 years when they had left New Zealand so as not to “embarrass any parents”.
Howard is a very interesting guy. He has performed on the London stage for five years in a musical review. He has directed operas, musicals and television current events programs. He still does some community theatre type productions as well as create recipes for food associations, like the Australian Cherry Growers Association.
Jerry handles corporate relations for the performing arts center. They have five venues which are home to Australia’s largest and most important performing arts groups. Last year 2.3 million people came through his venues. He has a background in journalism, having been a travel writer in NZ and in Australia. He has just lost 10 kilos (25 lbs.) in the last two months on the Dash diet.
When Howard got us settled he invited us to the back of the house where the kitchen, dining area and lounge were all in one large room, with a patio garden just outside of the French doors. Windows were open all over the house, but it was still pretty warm and cozy on a rainy day. Howard had a large cheese plate and wine ready for us. So we sat through more than one bottle of wine and learned all about the hosts and their pets. While we were thinking about no dinner and a movie, Howard convinced us we should check out nearby Chapell Street with its great shopping and dining. Jerry arrived home just as we were leaving and added some walking directions. While unusual, these are two very nice fellows.
This whole suburb has a very nice in town neighborhood atmosphere. All the shops and cafes seem clean, neat and upscale. After walking past blocks of restaurants, we went back to a Thai restaurant I had spotted very early. It was really good. I had a light stir fry, while Jane had another curry, which she seemed to like.
Upon returning we decided to watch one of the movies Howard had suggested from their vast collections. They had tons of DVDs, VCR tapes and old records. The middle lounge on the first floor had a great TV and DVD player. Jerry did invite us upstairs to check out his new Panasonic projection TV on the big screen. He was watching Ben Hur, so each of us went up for a look. It was incredible. In the front room, which was their office, they had set up two rows of sofas and installed a “home theater” sound system along with the projection TV. It was truly a miniature theater. We watched “Best In Show” down in the first floor lounge.
Saturday, December 3 (Day 85)
We both slept well and long. When I went downstairs Howard had breakfast laid out on the table. He made me a great cup of coffee with his French coffee machine. It might have cost a thousand dollars. These guys do live well. He and I laughed about the movie. He must have seen it many times because he recounted many of the funniest incidents.
Jane and I had a leisure breakfast talking with the two of them. They have traveled extensively and gave us the name of a “home stay” organizer in Manhattan, which we might try and use to arrange some rooms for Jeremy’s wedding in New York on Memorial Day. We then told them about the Shadowlands DVD we had picked up in NZ. They hadn’t heard of it so I got it out of the car and we all watched it on the large screen in the “theater”. It really looked great on that screen and they loved it. Jerry immediately went online and ordered a copy.
Their suggestion for a Melbourne activity before leaving town was to go to the Pahran Market just a few blocks away near the corner of Chapell St. and Commercial St. It is a great market. We went over there and spent almost two hours wandering around, buying a little fruit and talking about how great it would be to live with one of these nearby. They had an unbelievable selection on fruit, vegetables, wine, pasta, meat, poultry, seafood, kitchen accessories and etc. We lounged with a latte in the covered court yard and people watched for awhile before heading for the Yarra Valley.
Howard Neil and Jerry Vincent’s home, Cotterville, 204 Williams Road, Toorak 3142, Melbourne, Victoria was very comfortable and our room and bath gave us all the privacy we wanted. Their hospitality certainly made this one of our most enjoyable B&B stays of the whole trip. Their website is www.cotterville.com
They gave us great directions for the tourist drive to the Yarra Valley. We went through the Dandendong Ranges and over Mt. Dandendong, from which we had a great view over all of Melbourne. Then we went through Sassafras, a small village where Miss Marple’s Tea Room is located. It is a replica of an English Cottage inspired by Agatha Christie. We couldn’t resist having some real traditional scones with fruit and a few dollops of cream. This was a lovely drive through the rolling hillsides.
Shortly after we climbed over a hill and down into the Yarra Valley. It is quite picturesque. Our first stop was the theYering Station winery. This is a large venture with a huge building for sales and tasting. Another beautiful building was a restaurant where they were preparing for a wedding later in the day. One whole side of the building was glass windows overlooking vines and the valley. The tasting room here was a little hectic so we only tasted a couple of pinot noirs and moved on.
The Oaks Winery was just down the road towards Yarra Glen a couple of kilometers. This was the other end of the spectrum. It was owned by a woman that was trying to start a new life. After a divorce she came out to the valley and bought a 2 acre winery next to the house and barn she had purchased. She had made a chardonnay in 2000 with the help of a consultant and had been on her own since then. She was just releasing the first two red wines of her own making that day. Having gotten the wines to the sales counter she was now going to sell the winery. It was time to move on to a new challenge.
Now it was time to get to Kiltynane Estate, our B&B for the next two nights. Following the directions Kate, our hostess gave me over the phone, we came right to it. It had a long drive with horse paddocks on either side. The small apartments sat to the right in one small building with two units. Her French country home style house sat to the left behind some trees. A barn was to the rear on the right. Two dogs met us as we parked behind her car. She soon came out and took us into the unit, which turned out to be very comfortable with a fireplace, kitchenette, TV and DVD player, bedroom and nice bath. We then went into her house to pay and have her call a restaurant for a booking. It was very dramatic with a wood stove with a large stone chimney up the middle of the great room.
She makes wine in the barn where she has four stalls for horses. We later saw three in the paddock. She was dressed impeccably and hair and make up seemed flawless. She seemed a very particular independent woman. She made it clear that she was in charge.
We went down the road to the Mt. Real Retreat for dinner. It sat well off the road up a very steep unsealed road. They squeezed a table in for us, at Kate’s request, which ended up right in front of the window overlooking the east end of the Yarra Valley. It was the most panoramic view we have had on the whole trip. We brought in a bottle of Pinot Noir from the Montalto Winery on the Mornington Peninsula, which turned out to be very good and so was the meal.
We watched a Sean Connery and Cathrine Zeta-Jones movie called Entrapment.
Sunday, December 4 (Day 86)
After a little journaling, I spent a few hours in Healsville at a coffee shop, the open air market and trying to find the church. I found our Mass was at 11:00 am at the race course where they were going to have a parish picnic. So I returned to get Jane and we made Mass among the small parish under the trees with the flies.
Kate had provisioned our unit so well we had to cook at the apartment. She gave us some range free eggs, great bacon, tomatoes, mushrooms and fruit bread for toast. Jane readied the fruit and I tried the French plunger. We had a pretty good brunch
As we left the property, we decided to check out the restaurant Cru, which was on a hill behind our B&B. It is part of a small winery. As we approached we found a lot of cars on the property, but we decided to stop anyway. We were met at the door by a woman running the tasting room. She was the owner and she told us that the restaurant was having a special event, but that she would still do a tasting. They were having a band and a special meal for $60/person, which included one glass of wine. We decided to taste and move on. Good wine, nice owner, fun with the young couple tasting with us.
We then headed down the road to the Yarrawarra Estate. This is the Yarra Valley’s most prestigious vineyard. Some number of years ago the family that owns the vineyard built a beautiful building that not only houses the cellar door and a restaurant for lunch, but also a center for the display of Australias best contemporary art. The vineyards around this building fill the hillsides. It is a beautiful setting. Jane enjoyed the art and I enjoyed tasting their wine.
We left there to go to one of the Yarra Valley’s most popular wineries, Domaine Chandon. Jane and I have visited their winery in the Napa Valley, CA, so we thought this might be interesting because the CA place is so cool. Well this one is also. As you drive in the Admin. Building is set off with a garden of roses. The winery tasting room and restaurant were new, quite open and they had a great view of the vineyards behind and the hills around. We took the self guided tour of the winery and found it pretty interesting. The tourists were everywhere so we decided to move on.
We decided to try and find a brewery we had heard of. On the way, we found the Yarra Dairy, which had some great cheese and a wine host form Italy. Both were fun. We bought some fresh goat cheese to have before dinner and headed for the brewery. We couldn’t find it and ended up in Healesville having a beer at the hotel pub and getting Chinese take out. It turned out to be pretty good.
Monday, December 5 (Day 87) – Rutherglen Wine Country
When you head north out of Healesville you go through a National Park called Black Spur. It is a fern filled forest of very tall trees. For the first half hour it is a beautiful forest drive where the trees are right over the road. After that the forest subsided into rolling hillsides and great cattle country as we drove north away from the Great Dividing Range. We worked our way up to the Hume Highway, Australia’s M1 motorway. This allowed a drive for an hour or so, which was reminiscent of the US I system. We split off and drove up to Rutherglen, which is one of Australia’s oldest wine areas. This village is just below where the Murray River runs separating New South Wales and Victoria. There are many wineries sprinkled around the area growing many varieties and making many wines, especially some of Australia’s best fortified wines. At the Visitor Information Center we got the choices of accommodations. At the library we got up to date on email. We then checked into the Wine Village Motor Inn.
Jane went to check out the shops in the town and I went off to see some of the wineries. I first went to All Saints, which had a beautiful old building with special gardens out front. I met several people here while in the tasting room and we discussed our travels and their north country ventures, two B&B’s. This was the place where the owner, Peter Brown, had just been killed in a motorcycle accident. Indigo Cheese had their new tasting room right next door. I then stopped in the Drinkmoor Wine tasting room on the way back to town. This is a small winery that is owned by the Cofield Winery owner, who just wants to get people to “drinkmoor” wine. So this brand is simple and straight forward. Easy drinking and reasonably priced. The woman hosting the tasting convinced me to try some of the fortified wines. She then suggested that some of the nearby wineries had some especially good port. When I got to the Pfieffer Winery, I tried a couple of their reds, the gamay and the pinot noir, but I soon moved on to the ports. This is where I learned the difference between Vintage Port and Tawny Port.
Vintage Port is of one grape and is aged in the bottle and sometimes for many years. When you open it, you better drink it very soon or it will spoil. The tawny port is a blend which is already aged when it is put in the bottle. I surmise it could sometimes be a variety of left over vintage ports.
Jane and I headed down to the local hotel, Poachers Paradise, for dinner. It was pretty good and a little more reasonable than the local café’s. We went back to the room and caught the replay of two US NFL football games. Packers lost again.
Tuesday, December 6 (Day 88) – Great Alpine Road
Today is the day we start the Great Alpine Road. After an in room breakfast we headed down the road to Beechworth. We stopped here to check out the Ned Kelly display at the local museum, which we found interesting. Ned was a young man hung at the age of 25. Circumstances turned him into an outlaw that almost started an Australian rebellion. There are some that think he was right. The other thing in this town is Beechworth Bakery, known far and wide in Australia. The charismatic owner couldn’t read or write when he started this business. It is now a large wholesale and retail bakery. His local retail outlet does great with the locals and the tourists. We had a meat pie and some Snicker Doodles for desert. Then we headed down the Great Alpine Road, making our way down Kiew Valley to Mt. Beauty, a ski resort at the bottom of the Australian Alps highest mountain. This is where we wasted an hour driving into the hills to Bobong, some sort of mountain camp. We then back tracked to Bright and found the historic Oriental Hotel (how could we not stay here), getting one of their motel rooms right at the edge of the downtown area. She had some newly remodeled rooms but we took the one on the car park level with easy access.
We then went out to see Mt. Buffalo and its rocky ridges. This was a 45 minute drive up to the Nob, which is the rocky out cropping at the top. Unfortunately, it had started to rain on our approach to the top so we couldn’t see much. We then stopped at the lodge just below the peak. There is a gorge there which makes for beautiful vistas and a great spot for mountain climbers. While we were trying to get some good flicks, some kids taking a mountain proficiency course were there trying to repel down the first 150 meters of the gorge. These kids are crazy. But the view off this 4500 foot high rock were just great!
Upon returning to Bright, we started checking out all the restaurants. We stumbled into Sasha’s restaurant, one that was run by a guy that was in Czechoslovakia in 1968. The guy that worked for him and his wife were also from the Czech Republic. We talked a little about what went on in that period and then we committed to come back to dinner, which we did. Jane had the pork knuckle and I had a veal fillet. It was very nice.
At the end of dinner, Sasha joined us and we talked a little politics and we agreed to come back in the morning for coffee and driving instructions to Canberra. .
Wednesday, December 7 (Day 89) – Great Alpine Road, again
I made early calls to the US. I had to talk to Deaton Yacht Sales about the offer on our boat, which I heard about via email. Then I needed to talk to Landon Winstead the manager of Sea Harbour Marina about our impending dredging project. Being the Commodore I needed to insure that appropriate communication about the costs had gone out to the members.
Then we had breakfast and stopped to talk to Sasha. He has lived around these mountains for 30+ years, since he came from Czechoslovakia. He recommended not driving down to the coast only to again drive north to Canberra. Instead he recommended we go through the Snowy Mountain Range, which we did.
We drove south on the Great Alpine Road from Bright going over Mt. Hotham. It’s peak at 1862m (near 6000 feet) and when up there it really seemed high. It was very windy and the barren bushes seemed to have suffered greatly from the wind. In the winter it must be cold. On the way up we were passed by some bike riders heading down the mountain. Then a few kilos later we passed a couple of girls going up the mountain. Now we were confused, but as we approached the peak we started to pass more bikers and then right before the peak we passed a group of about 20 or more. It must have been a rally or race of sorts. We just wonder about the three going down. There is a ski resort, the slopes of which looked very challenging. We started down and passed the Dinner Plain ski resort. Then a few kilometers later after a curve we came upon a Wombat on the road. We were really excited. The only one we had seen was in Steve Irwin’s Australian Zoo in Queensland. We turned around and went back to get some good pictures. He was still wandering around. When we stopped to take pictures, he seemed to get scared and he started to run down the road. We moved on but looked back to see him stop and rest. We went on down to Omeo, which is a very small mountain town.
This is where we left the Great Alpine Road to drive north through Benhambra, along the Creek River and up towards Nariel. This road was about 145 kilometers, of which about 100 was very rough gravel. It is a road for logging trucks. We only passed one, fortunately. I think we saw two other vehicles, both of which were surprised to find us in front of them. No worries, but it was a grind. When the road turned back to “sealed” we were a couple of happy campers. The rest of the valley was just beautiful. It was 20 kilometers of peaceful living. We went on to Corryong, where they have a small museum on the Man From Snowy River. We stopped for ice cream and a break.
We then continued out of Corryong towards Khancoban, about 30 kilometers, and over the border into New South Wales. Then we turned into the Snow Mountain Range and Kosciuszko National Park. We passed one of the country’s largest hydroelectric plants, Murray River #1. Then we went through 145 kilometers of switchback roads climbing over the range. On the way down we went through Thredbo, a ski resort that really looked good. We landed in Jindabyne about 5:30pm. This is also a ski resort town on the shore of a reservoir lake. The Lake Jindabyne Hotel looked good and $80/night with breakfast sounded good also. We had started driving at 10:20am, so it was a long day on the road. We finished with pizza at Bocco a local Italian restaurant.
The whole drive through the Australian Alps was beautiful. Many of the high valleys are so beautiful with sheep and cattle grazing in the green meadows. The hills were steep and the vistas from the lookout points were breath taking. We took what we hope will be good pictures, but it seems mountain vistas never come out in pictures as good as the moment. Cleary, the whole Great Dividing Range is an Australian asset.
Thursday, December 8 (Day 90) – Canberra
We had a very nice 165 kilometer drive into Canberra, the capital city. It is situated in the Australian Capital Territory (ACT). The city was laid out by an American landscape architect from Chicago. He did a great job. The major government buildings are on one side of the lake that was created, with the commercial heart of the city on the north side of the lake. The new beautiful Parliament Building is the centre of the south part of town. The old Parliament building, the High Court Bldg. and museums are on one side of this building, while a neighborhood with all the embassies is on another. Away from the lake is residential and neighborhood shopping. The north side of the lake has the Australian War Memorial as the key feature. When standing on the steps of this memorial you look down a very wide boulevard across the lake and up to the Parliament Building. Enough of description, suffice it to say this is the best laid out capital city I have ever seen.
We went to Visitor Information Center and booked an old hotel, the Brassey, which Jane had read about. The woman then called Parliament and secured us two tickets for the “question hour” in the House of Representatives that afternoon. We drove over to the Parliament Building, parked underneath, went through the security and then had lunch in their café. This building is beautiful and organized quite well. There is plenty of security, but it seems like you can walk all around. In reality you are allowed access only to general public areas.
The “question hour” happens at 2:00 pm Monday – Thursday when the house is in session. During the hour everyone from the House, the Prime Minister and the Cabinet all attend. The Government has a representative (an MP) ask the PM or a cabinet member a question and then the Opposition gets to ask a question. The answers to the Government questions are policy and position speeches. The answers to the Opposition political questions are a debate. It is quite lively with the Speaker of the House working hard to keep order. The afternoon we were there he dismissed two of the Opposition for rules transgressions. Mostly they just hollered too loud. This was great fun and we learned a lot of what the Government is trying to do.
After, we took the lift to the roof, part of which has grass on it. The build blends right into the landscape with a huge flag raised above. This vantage gives you a beautiful view of the whole city.
We then drove around the embassy neighborhood for awhile and then found our hotel. We went over to a neighborhood shopping area called Manuka, where we ate at a Thai café and then saw a Steve Martin movie the Shopgirl. It was over dinner that we decided to stay another night. We just didn’t think we would feel like we saw enough if we left in the morning.
Friday, December 9 (Day 91) – Canberra Again
We started by getting over to the Australian Institute of Sport campus in time for their 10:00 AM tour. A young field hockey player led our tour. There were about ten of us on the tour which lasted about 1 hour and 45 minutes. We looked at multiple sports venues, watched the female gymnasts train and looked at a historical time line of success at the institute. This is an impressive place which was put in place after Australia won no gold medals at the 1976 Montreal Olympics. Since it opened, they have done quite well, wining many medals and world championships in many sports in world wide competition. The new pool they are building will the most advanced technologically in the world.
We went to the shopping mall on the north side of the lake in City Centre. We had lunch in the food court, which certainly would be considered great in any part of the US. The mall was decorated for Christmas and many shoppers were in attendance. Jane got a new top.
We then visited the Australian War Memorial, which is a large complex building set at the end of a great mall on the north side of the lake. The mall contains beautiful sculptures memorializing the people that participated in the different wars Australia has been involved with. The building has a several wings, with a reflecting pool in the center and the tomb of an unknown solder from the 1914-1918 world war. The dome over the tomb is really beautiful with stained glass windows and all inlaid tile inside the dome. This is really beautiful. The view from this tomb out the door looks over the reflecting pool, down the steps and the mall and over to the Parliament Building.
We spent about three hours going through the WWI and WWII exhibits. We also breezed through some other sections on Vietnam and Korea. All of the exhibits were done very well and the story told was quite straight forward. They focused on the losses and the successes. Jane and I were very impressed and couldn’t think where in the US we have the same type of historical story displayed.
By the time we finished, it was too late to go to any other museum. We drove around the Parks neighborhood where the other museums were and then found the embassy of the USA. We had a nice talk with the guard at one of the gates to the US embassy. We finished the evening by doing email from the bar, where they had a wireless network node available, and having dinner at a French restaurant in Manuka.
Saturday, December 10 (Day 92) – Bateman’s Bay
Just like at home, Saturday was laundry day. The guest laundry was right down the hall from our room so it turned out to be easy, but time consuming. So we enjoyed the buffet breaky, did the laundry and left the hotel for Bateman Bay at about 11:00. It was a very pretty ride over to the shoreline and the Princess Hwy. It was very rolling farm land and as we approached the shore we had to go over a low range of the Great Dividing mountain range.
We found Bateman’s Bay to be a small vacation town with a large bay and a rocky shore, as you might expect on the Southern Ocean. The motels and small towns stretched for miles along the coastline. After a little communication commotion about what the plan was we returned to Bateman’s Bay to the VIC. What we found was that we would probably want to drive up to the Jervis Bay area to find a room near the shore. We got on the phone and found out most things were full, but we took a chance on a motel right in the town of Huckisson. The motel clerk and I just finished the credit card number to hold the reservation as the minutes ran out on my Australian calling card. I guess it is time for this trip to end.
It turns out the Huckisson Beach Motel is quite nice and run by a very nice woman. She and her husband have been running it for three years. He also has a large Seaword Catamaran, which he does day charters. He is quite an experienced sailor having done a round the world single handed race. He and his wife and children also sailed a boat from Spain to Australia right before they bought the mote. The room was nice and clean and quite comfortable for a night. She called her mother in law to find out about a local Catholic service for us. We immediately headed to nearby Vincentia for the 6:30 pm Mass.
We then went to the Returning Serviceman’s League (RSL) for dinner in Huckisson. It had just been remodeled and was pretty pristine, but the bistro was a little sterile. We did have pretty good food. We also had a great time talking to two couples that sat next to us. One guy was in national security and had worked on peace keeping missions around Southeast Asia. The other couple had traveled extensively. They had had many trips to the US and knew it well. We talked about a little of everything from food to politics. It really added to our evening.
Sunday, December 11 (Day 93) – Sydney
The drive to Sydney was less than 200 kilometers we were in no hurry. We ate a leisurely breakfast at a local bistro and then stopped at the local market on the way out of town. The market was at a park. There might have been 100 little booths set up. They were selling everything from new socks to old tools. Just the same type of thing you would find around the US. We found a couple of pairs of socks for me for the return trip and Jane found some lavender things for gifts.
We took our time and got into Sydney around two in the afternoon. We checked into the Sydney Marriott Harbour Hotel again, but this time got a room with a Opera House view. I returned the rental car and that signaled that we were back! The long driving odyssey was over.
After watching the end of the Australian Masters, where Robert Allenby beat Bubba Watson, from the US, in a playoff, we went for a walk. We just walked around the Circular Quay enjoying the views of the harbour and its ferries. An Irish Pub in the Rocks had music so we went in to have a beer and people watch. We met a New Zealand couple that was on holiday. He is in the NZ navy and is going on a six month duty to Korea to work the DMZ with a UN peace keeping force. Later we stopped at an Italian Restaurant and had the pasta special. Then back to the hotel to spend the rest of the night in the “special bed” watching a movie.
Sydney Harbour Marriott Hotel, Confirmation # 86943451, 12/11 – 12/13
Opera House view upgrade, King bed,
30 Pitt Street
Sydney, 2000
PH: 61-2-92597000
Monday, December 12 (Day 94)
This was to be a day of rest. We just laid around the room reading and unpacking. Finally near noon we went out to find something to eat. At a nearby office tower they had a nice outdoor eating plaza which looked inviting. It was a beautiful day. Next to the plaza the office tower, one of Sydney’s tallest, had a food court, so we each wandered around in search of the perfect brunch. Jane had a tuna salad and I had a ham and cheese sandwich. Low and behold the table we sat at was near the pub which had ESPN on a large screen TV and the Packers were playing the Sunday night NFL game. While I had not been focused on finding this game, this seemed like a sign. So I stayed and watch the Packers beat the Lions in overtime for their third win of the season.
Jane walked the main shopping area, including the Queen Elizabeth Arcade, checking out the Christmas decorations. She then walked around to the Botanical Gardens, where she met a guy from Lake Geneva, Wisconsin. After the game I also walked through the shopping district which was jammed with people. I guess between the tourists and the holiday shoppers and the office workers taking a break the place should be busy. I wandered through Hyde Park and down some streets I hadn’t encountered before working my way back to the hotel.
We went back over to the Rocks for a small bistro meal and returned to the hotel to find the replay of the Packer game. This time I had the sound so it made the night.
Tuesday, December 13 (Day 95)
On our last full day in Sydney we took the Blue Bus tour. This is a bus that winds through the eastern suburbs past the interesting neighborhoods and sites. You can get off at any stop and get back on all day long. The buses run every half hour at all the stops. While we had seen some of the neighborhoods, most everything was new. Our first get off was in Double Bay where the Sydney Cruising Yacht Club is located. It is a large marina with a couple of hundred boats. We went to do some boat looking. Many of the big sailboats were getting ready for an afternoon race so there was a lot of activity on the dock. They do a lot of one design racing with some boats called Sydney 38’s which looked very fast. Most of them seem to be sponsored by companies of some sort with the names painted on the hulls. This is the home of the famous Boxing Day Sydney to Hobart Race. This year they will have about 85 boats, four will be over 90 feet, with most being in the 40 foot range. The smallest will be about 30 feet. It is a treacherous course in the Southern Ocean, which has been overwhelming some years. I couldn’t resist and bought a shirt.
Back on the bus, we rode through many of Sydney most exclusive neighborhoods. Many of the gorgeous houses had beautiful views across the water to the Opera House and the Sydney Harbour Bridge. This is a stunning city.
Then the bus turned south along the coastline. As we got away from the “head” near the harbour we got to the Sydney beaches. We got off at Bondi Beach, which was one of the 2000 Olympics venues for beach volleyball. This is a huge beach with rock points on either end. We got some calamari, fish and chips from the fish store across the street and used one of the picnic tables on the grass above the beach to eat. It was a beautiful day.
We then started down the walkway which follows the shoreline to the next beach, where we would pick up the Blue Bus again. As we walked down Bondi Beach, Jane remarked on how many women were topless, so I thought I would bring back a little proof for the boys in Oriental. There were plenty of them.
The shoreline was quite rugged but someone had built a nice cement walkway. The vistas were beautiful. There were a lot of steps, but it wasn’t too bad. When we reached Tamawarra Beach the bus was just showing up so I didn’t even have time for a picture. We had walked past three beaches and they all were beautiful. The second and third were not as big as Bondi, but they looked like great neighborhood hangouts. The bus then wound its way through town past the racetrack, the Fox Movie studios, the central railway station, Hyde Park, the Cathedral and the mint. We got out and walked the last six blocks to the hotel so that Jane could do some candy shopping.
We took a rest at the hotel and then went over to Central Quay. We got a table at one of the bistros on the Opera House side and watched the people go by. There was some sort of performance that evening as we saw orchestra performers as well as the attendees walking by. It is a beautiful spot with all the people, the ferries coming and going and the buildings of the CBD in the background.
We then walked around to the other side of the quay to Wolfies Restaurant so that we could have the Opera House and the Sydney Harbour Bridge in our view as we ate dinner. We shared a Chateaubriand and had a great time. It had started to rain, but it stopped as we started back to the hotel.
Wednesday, December 14 (Day 96)
We tried to sleep in but it didn’t work too well. I got up and journaled and Jane got in the shower. We then finished our packing, checked out of the hotel, had the bellman grab our bags for us and walked over to the Central Quay one last time. We got on one of the new tour boats and took the one hour harbour tours. The sun came out as we left the dock. I went up and talked to the Captain and ended up in the bridge control room for the first twenty minutes of the ride. He had just returned from Panama, where he had been working on the filming of Survivor, the TV series.
Jane and I stood on the front deck of the large catamaran and enjoyed the sights of Sydney Harbour. We had lunch across the street in the food court and grabbed a taxi to the airport. We wiled away the time until departure in the Qantus Club. Not bad.
Flight to Hong Kong
Qantas QF187, A330, Terminal 1, 3:15 PM, Business Class
Arrive Hong Kong 9:35 PM (9hr 20 min flight)
It was a great flight with great food, drink and parts of three movies. The seats on the Airbus 300 were like cocoons. Very cool. I watched the Island (sci-fi), Look Both Ways (a very good Aussie film) and most of Casablanca. The new Hong Kong airport is huge. It was opened in 1997 along with several new bridges and tunnels to get to it. We grabbed a cab and had a nice 35 minute ride into Kowloon.
NW Renaissance, Kowloon,
Conf # 86945802, 12/14 -12/17, Queen Bed
Very nice room with broadband, lots of cable TV and a real shower, what more could a traveler want. Jane says heat. I had the air a little too cool for the night. I got on the internet and caught up with Bruce Williams on IM. Amazing how small the world really is. We now seem to be 13 hours ahead of the US, but are now in the “top half” again.
Thursday, December 15 (Day 97)
We started our Hong Kong adventure by doing some planning with the hotel’s tour deck. The young lady helped me find a tour which kind of duplicates what Bob Kok and I did 21 years ago. We won’t go through Macau, but Jane wouldn’t be interested in the gambling anyway. Then the concierge gave us his tailor recommendation and since there are 10,000 tailors in Hong Kong, I thought we should try it.
So we headed for Baron Kay’s Tailor shop in Kowloon, where Jane met her soul mate and she ordered tons of clothes. Actually she only ordered two pair of custom made slacks for $150 each. She did enjoy the process of finding the material and then being measured. They asked us to come back tonight at 6;30 for a fitting. We picked out some fabric for two shirts for Drew and got out of there.
We walked over to the Star Ferry Pier and caught the next ferry to the Central District. We then wandered over to where the tram system passed on its way up and down the island. We hopped on and rode the thing down to North Port and back to the Central Business District. What fun this was to see the Hong Kong people where they worked, played and lived. We rode on the second level of the tram by the front window and enjoyed the whole scene.
When we returned to the Central Business District on the tram, we jumped ship and found our way into Hong Kong park, which sits at the base of Victoria Peak. It is a set of gardens, fountains and pools with a restaurant in the middle. We had a nice lunch of Thai food and felt good about ourselves. We then walked through the park and on to the Victoria Peak Tram station. For $30HK/each we bought return tickets and got in line. This was quite a ride. It seemed almost straight up. When we reached the top we passed on the shops and started out on Loguad Road to walk around the peak. It took us around an hour to do the circuit. Painfully my camera died about 25% into the trip. I have to fix that.
It was a long walk with beautiful vistas of Hong Kong Harbour all the way around. We looked down the hillsides into to the tops of tall buildings which were somebody’s home. We rode the tram down and walked to the Star Ferry and on to the hotel. After a break td catch a breath we went back to Baron Kay’s Tailor Shop for the fitting. All went well. We asked the man in charge for restaurant recommendation and he suggested the Spring Deer Restaurant just across the street. He mentioned that if we hurried we might get a table because he is usually booked solid.
When we entered the Spring Deer, they were not too busy and they gave us a table immediately. We had a few confusing minutes with the English language, but the order for food and wine finally worked just fine. After a few minutes the food started to arrive in a hurry. The hot and sour soup was wonderful. Then we went on to a pork appetizer, braised shrimp and lightly fried mutton. While they gave us small orders of all this, it turned out to be way too much food. We mottled our way through eating what we wanted. They provided a fork for Jane, unasked for. I always get by with the chop sticks and actually enjoy it. It was a nice meal. As we ate the restaurant filled up with mostly what seemed like family units. Many of them seemed to have a grandmother, mother, daughter and child, with husband following along. Soon the place was full and much to my amazement, when I looked closely, I found the place was much larger than I thought. They must have had 30 or more tables. All of them seemed to be having a good time. None of them seemed to have the confusion with the wine list. I guess it is a language thing.
We enjoyed the walk back to the hotel through the streets with vendors at every turn. This is truly a shopping paradise.
Friday, December 16 (Day 98)
I was sure this was going to be a great day because in 1984 Bob Kok and I took practically the same trip while visiting Hong Kong.
This time they picked us up at our hotel at 7:00 AM. It was a Grayline Tour and there were eleven people. Most of which we got to know a little over the course of the day. We took a fast ferry, which was a catamaran jet boat, over to Shenzhen, which was named the first Special Economic Zone on China in 1979. The ferry ride took about 45 minutes and was dominated by our Grayline guide Joseph telling us about the itinerary and selling us a pack of postcards and a map. In 1979 we went in through Macau. This turned our to be totally different.
We arrived at a huge city of tall apartment buildings. In 21 years this fishing village has grown from 20,000 people to over 7 million! Benny the China tour guide met us at the ferry terminal. It was just unbelievable, with new streets and boulevards all over.
We first visited a kindergarten, just like in 1979, where we all took pictures and had our pictures taken by the photographer that had joined our group. One class was out in the courtyard practicing a performance of some sort, which we watched for a few minutes. We also visited a class inside. While the school was supposedly only ten years old, it looked a lot older to me.
From there we moved on to a place called the Free Market, which was really a fresh food market housed in an old building. On the way in most of us bought some dim sum, pastry puffs with vegetables or pork inside. Each was $1HK and several of us went back for more. Inside they had booths selling all sorts of meat, fish, vegetables and fruit. We bought some mandarin oranges and apples. Obviously, the locals come to the market daily, probably because many may not have refrigeration. The markets like this are open all day and the prices go down and the day lengthens.
Next we went on to the Mineral Museum. What a museum. A group of young women met us in the lobby and told us we were going to the see treasures of China. On the way in they pointed out the jade animals that guarded the door. They were an amalgamation of several animals and had no anus. They joked that this let the money in but never out. In the next room they had exhibits of all types and classes of jade in all sorts of art forms. After being told how the government had been so smart to bring this all together, they told us it was all for sale. Then the pitch started. These young women had been trained well. The big items were dividers of rosewood lacquered black with different colored jade carved into figurines on the dividers. Each one or each set had a different motif. The first big one was on sale for about $5000US. We were shocked because we really thought it would be more. But we were wary of too good a deal. Finally they let us out of that room when one guy started to make jokes about the government not letting us out until someone bought something.
When we entered the next room they did have some actual artifacts of jade and terracotta, but it was a small room. The next room was the draw. It was a huge room with display cabinets all over with a great number of young women manning each ready to sell. This was the hard sell. Jane loved the jade bracelets. She finally found one that really fit her and it was only $3100HK (about $400US). We finally broke out of there and now we understood the grand China plan to take over the world.
As we went from one site to another in Shekou, which is the part of Shenzhen that we were in, we found building of tall buildings and factories all over. There is a lot of public transportation and now expressways for all the cars. The guide told us that only rich people could afford cars, so we deduced that there a lot of rich people in Shenzhen. There are also a lot of young ladies. The tour guide, Benny, told us that many of the labor jobs were filled with women so the ratio of women to men in Shenzhen was 7 to 1.
After the “museum” we got on the expressway for Guangzhou, which used to be called Canton, and is the third largest China city after Beijing and Shanghai. It has about 11 million people and they all seemed to be on the street.
The ride was about two hours over a pretty good expressway. Along the way there were factories everywhere. There was also haze everywhere. Occasionally we saw areas where people were growing vegetables on scraps of land. We also saw a few people living in shacks on side roads. Mostly we saw developments of tall buildings where peopled lived. This went on and on and on. We never saw any countryside.
When Bob Kok and I did this tour our bus took us through the countryside where we saw people plowing fields with water buffalo. We saw people riding bicycles with four bales of hay on their back. We saw every concoction of wheel barrow that was ever thought of being used and bicycles everywhere. Today is all developed. We bypassed one large city, but we never saw an open field.
When we reached Guangzhau we went to the heart of town to the Star Hotel, a first class government owned hotel, where we had lunch served in one of their banquet rooms. It was great food and great service. The guide told me you could get a room there for about $500 HK, which would be about $65US. It was very nice and manned with all sorts of beautiful young ladies everywhere.
Then we got the obligatory China culture. We went to Dr. Sun Yat-Sen’s Memorial Hall, just like in 1984. He was the guy that led the over throw of the emperor. Then on to the Han Tomb of the Nanyue King, which was just found in 1983 when they were excavating for a new hotel. We then went to a large temple with three huge Buda’s called the temple of six banyan trees. We then finished at the Chen Clan Academy which is a historic site under state protection. The Chen clan is one of the biggest and they worked hard during the Cultural Revolution to not have this hall for worship destroyed like many others. This is where we found some dragons and a silk thread drawing.
We left the hall for the train station to catch our 6:20 PM train back to Hong Kong. The traffic was really bad. It took us almost an hour and we almost missed the train. It was a two hour ride back to Hong Kong and then a brief bus ride back to the hotel. I think we made it by 9:30.
After all the Chinese of the day we decided to take a break and walked through busy Kowloon to Delaney’s Irish Pub. It was packed with Christmas spirit. Lot’s of people were partying. We each had an Irish favorite for dinner. The weather has been so mild that the walk back was just nice.
What a day this was. It was just shocking to me to see the growth in the area China that I had visited. One of our fellow tour people was from Melbourne and works with China for his company. He was saying that while they have all the most sophisticated techniques they still use labor because it is still real cheap. We were told a laborer in Shenzhen might make $800HK a month.
Saturday, December 17 (Day 99) Hong Kong Shopping
We left the hotel in late morning and walked to the Star Ferry Terminal. We paid our $1.7HK each for a ride across the harbour to the Central Terminal. From there we walked to the bus terminal and caught a bus to Aberdeen. Aberdeen is a neighborhood the center of which is a harbour on the Southeast side of Hong Kong Island. We found this to be a hectic neighborhood. We had lunch in a Café Carole, which seemed to be a fast food chain of all Chinese food. It was very cheap. Then we walked over to the water by taking the walking bridge over the road. The harbour, which is really a channel between another island, had many work boats anchored and rafted together. An old woman approached us and asked if we wanted to take a boat ride. She spoke very little English, but this was just what we were looking for. Together we walked down to a floating pier where small boats were coming and going. One was the ferry for a large Famous Floating Restaurant. The rest were small junk like boats with round canopy and tires tied all around the outside. The one she called in on her cell phone, which it seems every Chinese has. It was run by a very old man that spoke no English at all. He gave us a 30 minute harbour tour. We went further in the harbour and around the restaurant and then he wound through all the boats that were anchored. There were many. All of the boats seemed to be very old, some were house boats, some fishing and some were barges and tugs. Just about all were wooden boats. Gone were the sampam type of boat that I remembered from 1984. The floating neighborhood was smaller but still there.
We went back to where we had gotten off of the bus and struggled to find the bus stop for the Stanley Market bus. After asking several people we found it and got in the line. Jane ended up talking to a young man in line with us. He spoke pretty good English and told her how everyone learns English in school starting at the age of six. The ride over to Stanley was beautiful. The road wound around the shore line above the houses and beaches. There were several beautiful bays, on of which had a sailing club in it. Another was a resort with a beautiful beach. Stanley is neighborhood right on the south end of Hong Kong Island. The market is permanent and pretty famous. It covers a plaza at the end of the road and then down a street for several blocks. You can buy anything. Most of the shops are clothes and souvenirs. We found some new slacks for me, a couple of fun gifts for family members and some more dragons for our collection. It took us several hours to make a pass through the whole market. The bus ride back to the Central Station, the Star Ferry and a ten minute walk and we were back in the hotel.
We had a five o’clock appointment to pick up Jane’s slacks and Drew’s shirts from Baron Kay Tailor’s. The slack were a couple of minutes late, but it was worth the wait. Jane just loves them. The shirts looked good so off we went.
We walked north through blocks full of shops on our way to the Temple Street market. Then we came upon a German Pub. While we had planned on another Chinese dinner, this looked interesting. We checked out the menu and found that they serve currywurst as an entre. So we took a break and ordered one and a beer. We had one made with pork and it was delicious. We continued our trip to the Temple Street Market.
We tried the subway, which is new, clean and easy to deal with. We got out on the north end of the Temple Street Market so we then walked through the market back towards our hotel. This was getting to be tiring. This market is in the middle of the street and goes on for five or six blocks. Again the booths have a variety of cheap goods. Some are just a lot of junk. The Chinese are out in full force. They seem to love shopping. Near the end of the market the streets were full of restaurants with people eating on many outside tables. This is a real popular eating area. We walked several more blocks and got to a long park which had an strip of real upscale shops set back off the road a little. We had just jumped from one shopping level up multiples levels of quality. Jane found a pair of boots while I wandered about on the sidewalk watching the people. I was surprised at the number of young women out by themselves. In a city of so many it is sad to see some of these people alone. Cell phones are in everyone’s hands. Shoppers were everywhere, many families. It is rare to see two children in a family.
It turned out that we were very close to the German Pub and since neither of us wanted a large meal, we went back to try the veal currywurst. The place was really rocking then, but we found two stools at the bar and had the currywurst for an appetizer and a simple hamburger and potato salad. The bier was very good and a short walk back to the hotel. Every night we seemed to get there as the attached mall was closing so we would walk through the mall to see the late shoppers. The hotel had an entrance from the mall. It was nice and convenient.
Sunday, December 18 (Day 100) A Day of Rest
We had found that the Catholic Church was just a few blocks, but we realized we would be late for the 8:45 Mass unless we took a taxi. The driver was none too pleased to get a five block fare, probably missing out on a airport run. It was a nice church with an Italian born priest. It was a nice service and a good homily about Mary, being the Mother of God.
We had a talk with Jason the day before and he wanted us to buy a HP digital camera for him. We had gotten him to do the research so we had the model number and the price direct from HP. So on the way back from Mass we stopped at a couple of camera and computer stores to inquire about prices. Neither carried the HP digital cameras. Both just said they were not popular in Hong Kong. So we made our way back to our mall and the Chinese restaurant where we had eaten breakfast on Thursday.
The rest of the day we packed, checked out, stored our bags with the bellman and then wandered around. We checked all the shopping malls on the Kowloon cruise ship pier. There are three malls interconnected. One has a whole floor dedicated to children’s stores. There were tons of Christmas shoppers out. It was great people watching. We stopped at the Hard Rock Café and had a hamburger and a bier.
Then we took an hour tour of the harbour on a Star Ferry boat. It was pretty cool. It was a special boat with comfortable chairs. It made a big loop around giving us great looks at all of the significant buildings. They had a recording giving us the background on the sites. We had bought a few things so we dropped them back at the hotel. Jane was ready to give up for the night and eat in the hotel, but you might only be in Hong Kong once, so I persisted.
Back to the Star Ferry pier we walked. We caught the ferry across the harbour to the Central Pier and then jumped on the 15C bus which took us to the Victoria Peak Tram Station. Another seven minute full tram ride and we were at the peak We had made a reservation at the Deco Café, which sat on the peak and overlooked much of Hong Kong, the harbour and Kowloon. We got the reservation at the last minute because we promised to be out by 8:00 pm, which we figured met our schedule. The dinner was excellent. I had a veal steak done perfectly with a baked potato. I think Jane had an eggplant dish, which she loved. We weren’t rushed but finished in time to do a little walk around the shops before heading down. I found a great night picture of what we had off the side of our dinner table.
It took us about 45-60 minutes to do the trip back to the hotel. The airport shuttle picked up at 9:30 and we were at the airport about 10:15. By the time we checked the bags and exited out of the country, we found ourselves in the British Airways Club just after eleven. It was a very comfortable place with food and drink, including Johnnie Walker Black on the buffet. It also had an internet connection for email catchup.
We boarded the 747 about 12:30. We were sitting in the upstairs section again. BA has these very unusual seats where you aren’t side by side but facing each other. There is this little divider curtain you and raise, but it is nice. Then the seat is like a cacoon and it really does lay flat for sleeping. There is a foot rest. It is all quite civilized. Dinner was served, which we passed on. We instead just had some cheese and wine and watched a movie for a while. Everyone seemed to go to sleep in about two hours.
I awoke after about seven hours on sleep and wandered around and read for awhile because everyone upstairs was still asleep. After about an hour I laid down again. Then with about an hour and a half they turned the lights up and started serving breakfast. We hit the ground on time and it was Monday.
British Airways #28, 747, Ref: Z6IKF8, 1:10 AM, Business Class
Arrives London Heathrow Terminal 1 at 6:20 AM (13hr 10min flight)
Monday, December 19, (Day 101) London to Geneva
Our flight to Geneva was leaving at 10:50 so we had plenty of time to spend in the London BA Club, which filled up about 8:00 AM. They had a Spa & Shower in one of the lower levels. It was really a great place. Jane and I both took showers and changed some of our clothes. We got out the gloves and etc. for Switzerland.
British Airways #728, A320, Ref: Z6IKF8, 10:50 AM, Business Class
Arrives Geneva, Main Terminal, 1:25 PM (1hr 40min flight)
Arrival and entrance into Switzerland was very smooth, just a quick passport check. We then found that the train station was truly just a few meters from the door. We were alble to store four of our bags and catch the 2:27 pm train to Zermat, just as we had planned.
The train was beautiful and our first class car was very comfortable with very few people. The ride to Visp, where we need to switch trains was very interesting. As we left Geneva the train followed the shore of Lake Geneva for a long time. We passed many vineyards and a few castles. There were many towns. At the end of the lake it headed up into a mountain pass and into a valley. This continued to Visp. It was dark about the time we got on the Zermat train at Visp.
We arrived in Zermatt about 18:30 and dragged our bags up Bahnoff Strasse to the Burgener Hotel. At first glance Zermat was just as expected and hoped for. It has real mountain charm. All the buildings are on top of each other. There are 120 hotels in Zermat but you don’t get the feeling that it is very large as you walked up the main street. All the buildings have real nice shops or restaurants and bars.
The hotel was not on the ground floor; that was occupied by a bakery and ski shop. We walked up to the first floor. Rico, the owner, met us at the door and had one of his kitchen staff help us up to the room. It was on the fifth and final floor. It was small but nice and comfortable. We returned to the reception and restaurant on the first floor.
We couldn’t resist so we had a half dozen snails and then fondue, what else. It was veal with numerous sauces and pomme frites. The house wine was a light pinot noir from South Africa. After dinner Jane went up and I went out for a late night walk I went up towards the mountain and then back down towards the railway station, before stopping in the “Little Bar” for a night cap. I ran into an American couple, Snow White and Paul, a call center consultant. They were on their way to Rome for midnight mass and stopped here for two day of skiing. While not married, they spend every Christmas Eve together. They have done so since they were about 15. They were about 30.
Burgener Hotel, 12/19 & 12/20, 4-5 minute walk from train station
Bahnofstrasse 72
Zermatt, Switzerland
PH: 027 967 10 20
Tuesday, December 20 (Day 102) Zermatt
We did nothing. We slept late and then went down to the diningroom for a late breakfast overlooking the main street below. We spent most of the morning working on catching up on our journaling. Then we walked the town from the train station to the ski lift lodge. While both being skiers, we just couldn't envision the effort. We were wearing down. Late in the afternoon we went over to one of the opulent hotels for a drink and some piano music in the lobby bar. It was quite nice. We went back to our hotel for another great meal and early to bed.
Wednesday, December 21 (Day 103) Geneva
Travel -
Train to Geneva
Hotel –
Hotel Cristal Res. #029107794
4 Rue Pradier
Check in 2:00 pm Check out 5:30 am 12/22
Activities -
Jane was feeling poorly so she decided to take a nap after we got to the hotel. I walked through downtown Geneva. It was a cold and overcast day. The streets were full of Christmas shoppers. I finally stopped in an English pub to ask about dinner alternatives. When I asked for something “local”, I was told about a summertime fondue restaurant on a pier on Lake Geneva which was open for Christmas parties. They thought we could get in if we wanted to. Jane and I walked over to the pier, about 8 blocks. It was cold. When we arrived, there was no one there except some staff and we were skeptical. As soon as they sat us down in the drafty tent like restaurant with wood stoves around the room, people started to arrive and soon the place was teeming with Swiss revelers. The food was basic cheese fondue, but the people watching was great. No cabs were available so we walked back to the hotel and to bed early. We had to catch an early train to the airport.
Thursday, December 22
Travel -
Flights from Geneva, Switzerland to Raleigh, NC
Iberia Airlines #3489, MD-87, Ref. Z6IKF8, 8:25 AM, Business Class
Arrives in Madrid, Spain Intl Terminal, 10:15 AM (1h 50min flight)
Iberia Airlines #6123, 747, Intl Terminal, 12:05 PM, Business Class
Arrives Miami Intl 3:15 PM (9hr 10min flight)
American Airlines #2020, 737, 8:25 PM, First Class
Arrives Raleigh, NC Terminal C 10:30 pm (2hr 5min flight)
We were right on time getting out of Geneva. It had been a chore getting all the luggage one last time to the airport and through checkin. In Madrid we were delayed about two hours which took away our layover time in Miami. This was really the only transportation delay we had in the whole three and one half months. We were very fortunate. When we arrived in Raleigh, NC Charlie, our close friend, picked us up with our new BMW, the one we purchased in New Zealand. Did I tell you about that?
Planned Activities:
Stay home forever!
3 comments:
I am able to access your blog from Australia and am set to travel to south america with you. Thanks for gong to so many places to which I will most likely not travel. Have a great time.
Dave, great to have you along for the ride. I look foward to following you.
Paul Olson
Hi, very nice post....
Thank for the sharing.....
Food Display Cabinets
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