The Art Gallery of New South Wales

One of our mornings in Sydney was spent at the Art Gallery of New South Wales. We were particularly interested in the Australian Art collection and therefore 'skipped' some of the other exhibits. Here are some of our favorites:
Top left: "The Golden Fleece" by Tom Roberts (Michael)
Top right: "The Western Australian Gum Blossom" by Margaret Preston (Lois)
"Morning Underground" by Weaver Hawkins, 1922 (Michael)
Left: "Portrait of Grace Crowley" by Ralph Balson, 1939 (Lois)
Right: "Milford Sound" by Eugene von Guerard (Michael)
Down: "Floods in the Darling" by W. C. Piguenit, 1895 (Lois)
Down: "Spring Frost" by Elioth Gruner, 1919 (Lois)

Home now

We're home now and have been for a few days.

We slept badly that last night in the bed & breakfast. I was feverish and there were some inebriated guests who caused a disturbance between 1 and 3 in the morning which included breaking one of the downstairs windows (we were on the third floor) and calling the police. Apparently, the B&B had never had any problems like this before).

We headed out by 7 am for the airport and boarded the first plane about 10 am. Perhaps 3 hours over the Pacific, the flight had a medical emergency not far from where we were sitting. A gentleman was unresponsive. If you've been on one of these heavily booked 747 flights, you know how difficult it is to move around and get in and out of the seats. There were literally three flight attendants standing on the seats trying to get this man prone. There happened to be two nurses and a doctor on the flight who stepped in. I think it was some sort of diabetic reaction as the passenger eventually recovered.

14 hours after first taking off we had to go through customs and immigration in Los Angeles and then get back on the same plane bound now for JFK in NYC. Michael might have slept some, I didn't as I coughed constantly. I had no voice at all and had to whisper to Michael so he could relay my answers to flight attendant questions. At JFK we transferred to a Delta connecting flight to Boston. 28 hours after taking off in Sydney we arrived home with only a hot shower and bed on our minds.



I've continued to be quite sick, Michael still has not caught up on sleep.

The Last Days

On Thursday we returned to Sydney. We were staying in a bed and breakfast in "The Rocks" section of the city. It is an older, historic part of the city near the footings of the harbor bridge. Some of it is characterized by historic buildings, cobblestone streets and narrow alleyways. It is also full of small shops, pubs, and cafes. Michael and I set off to find some dinner but not knowing exactly where that might be, we wandered back towards the train station and the Circular Quay (pronounced 'key'). It was getting dark and I wasn't feeling well, so we made an uninspired decision to eat at McDonalds. OK, we know we lost points as a tourist by doing so but we weren't sure we could find our way back to the B&B in the dark. McDonalds in Sydney is much like a McDonalds in the US except it was almost entirely staffed by Asians. They featured a McAustralian burger which was a burger with added bacon and pineapple. Oh, and Sydney teens hanging out in McDonalds are equally as obnoxious as their US counterparts.

On Friday, it was cold and raining. I had laryngitis by this point. We met up again with Amanda and had lunch at a nice Italian cafe. Afterwards, she and I wandered shops, particularly a bookshop, and later chatted over tea and dessert (well, she chatted, I croaked). Michael had gone off to do some photocopying and other business. I would learn later that he stopped off at the Museum of Contemporary Art also. We all met back at the bed and breakfast where we reluctantly parted. By this time I was starting to feel worse and reluctantly canceled a dinner meetup with Chris, another Sydney acquaintance, in favor of going to bed early. We were once again facing a day's worth of air travel the next day. We learned later that evening that the day had been Sydney's coldest in twelve years! (about 52 degrees F).

Pictures: some of the architecture in "the Rocks" The Orient Hotel (the pub) is a place Amanda and us hung out in twice. The bridge area is called "the Argyle cut". There's a tiny picture of our Bed & Breakfast. Much of this architecture is dated around the 1840s.

Uluru / Ayer's Rock

Apologies for the less than timely post, we had no internet at Ayer's Rock (there was internet available, we just were tired of paying for it).

We arrived at Ayer's Rock last Monday. We saw it first from the plane, of course; along with what looked to be some large salt lakes (later confirmed). We got comfortable in our room and later trotted off and up the nearest sand dune lookout to watch our first sunset over Uluru. While it was interesting to watch the various shadows change on the rock as the sun went down it was not as spectacular as we had hoped. This is probably because there was not a cloud in the sky! Will include pictures. Uluru does change colors with the light - as does I suppose anything if you really look at it. One time I thought it looked like a baked potato (we hadn't had dinner yet) but my favorite is when it looked like a mound of milk chocolate.

The following morning we were up before the sun. We were driven to a remote sun dune to watch the sunrise. The guide and his cohort had a nice fire going and we, along with five others, were fed a hearty breakfast. It was FREEZING! The view was pretty striking: a flat horizon 360 degrees around with only Uluru and Kata Tjuta interrupting the horizon. Our guide then took us around the area, up and around to Uluru on some short hikes in to rock. We did not take pictures of the areas of the rock that are particularly sacred to the Anangu people (our guide told us when we could take pictures and when we couldn't). We were back by noontime. We were warned that it would be quite cold when the sun was down which is true of any desert but we were not expecting it to be so cold during the day! The sun was hot but who could sit in the sun?

The following evening we were picked up for our 'Sounds of Silence' dinner in the desert under the stars. We first had champagne and hors d'oeuvres and were treated to a digeridoo performance while we watched the sunset (I tried the crocodile pastry ones and, frankly, it did taste just like chicken). We were later ushered down around the dune to our dining area. The buffet meal was pretty good but Michael and I were both really there for the entertainment. . . after dinner, the kerosene heaters and lights were turned off and an astronomer (probably a good amateur) proceeded to point out the various constellations and other points of interest in the night sky of the Southern hemisphere. We got an incredible, vivid view of the Milky Way stretching across the sky - saw Alpha Centuri, the Southern Cross, Venus, Mercury, Mars and Jupiter. Unfortunately, this part was over more quickly than we would've liked (maybe 20% of the hundred or so being wined and dined seemed really interested in the stars; there were a larger percentage interested more in the wine, me thinks). We had not met hardly any other Americans on our trip through Australia, which we thought striking; but on this evening we sat with a engineering professor from Virginia Tech and his wife. We also sat with a lovely couple from Ireland and a couple of UK honeymooners.

Interesting note. The Austrian family we stayed with at the rainforest B&B in North Queensland, ended up being at Uluru at the same time we were. They had gone to Darwin during the time we went to Alice Springs but we ended up on the same plane to Urulu.

Pictures: if they all load properly, there will be various Uluru shots, including one close-up. We didn't take a camera for the star-studded dinner so I'll use one of their promotional photos. Bear in mind that we had pretty much no clouds in the sky and that the picture doesn't show people in their winter coats at the tables:-)

Simply Gorge-ous!

Touring gorges and chasms in Australia is like touring cathedrals in Italy, after a while one begins to forget which one is which!

We left early this morning on a mini-bus for the West MacDonnell ranges, eroded remnants of an ancient mountain chain which once was as great as the Himalayas. There's 30 million years of geological history here! We stopped and hiked (bushwalked?) into Simpsons Gap, Standley Chasm, llery Gorge, and Ormiston Gorge.There was one other that Michael and I sat out on as my knee was reaching its hiking limits. I took pictures of cool rocks, trees and plants in addition to the chasm and gorge rock faces. We traveled with a few bird watchers which made for interesting conversations and we chatted with a couple of Kiwis who sat near us on the bus. It was fairly cool, even cold in places (the wind was whipping through Standley Chasm in particular), but the sun came out in the afternoon and raised temperatures a little. We were tired and dusty by the end of the day.

Pictures: 1. A cool gum tree at Simpsons Gap 2. The vacationing couple also at Simpsons Gap. 3.Michael at Standley Gap 4. The water hole at Ellery Gorge. 5. The water hole at Omiston Gorge 6. A cool rock that I just had to take a picture of. Apparently in no particular order but I
m sure you'll figure out which one is which. Some are not uploading, will try loading them into a new post...

Australian Money

We really like the Australian bills. Each denomination is a different color and length which makes organizing one's billfold very easy. The bills are made out of plastic, I believe, for durability.
Very cool.

However, we are not terribly fond of Australian coinage. The 50 cent piece is humongous！ The $1 and $2 coins are very handy but very heavy in one's wallet. Perhaps coinage is not meant to be comfortable that way one gets rid of it as soon as possible. An really, how many pictures of the Queen can one wallet take? There are no pennies (yay!) and no $1 bills. The picture shows Australian money alongside some US coins.

Miscellaneous: Roundabouts (what we call rotaries). They seem to work really well when there is adequate acreage to create them. Coca-cola has clearly taken over the world including Oz - geesh, the length a girl has to go to find some Pepsi (Light or Max) around here. Generally things are more expensive here. I had to go into a couple of grocery stores to confirm this. As best we can calculate individual items are 12-15% higher and the GST is 10%. Touristy stuff in the southern hemisphere is as kitschy as the stuff we sell here (or anywhere else for that matter).

Dromedary Drama in Alice Springs

We arrived in Alice Springs this afternoon with just enough time to change clothes for our camel tour. It was cooler than we thought it would be - perhaps low 60s, maybe cooler. We were picked up and driven to the camel farm just outside of town. We were given basic instructions, a helmet and a piece of sheepskin for our tender tushies. Maneuvering on and off the animal wasn't too bad but the greater adventure was when the camel stood up and knelt down. Michael and I were the last ones saddled up on the last camel. But where are the camels you're riding I asked one of the handlers. "Oh, we're not crazy enough to ride camels," she says. The ride was an hour along the Todd River - first along the banks and then in the dry river bed itself. By the end of an hour I had become reacquainted with my tailbone (ouch!). On the way back our camel who was the lead and a male signaled to the other male camel at the farm that he was king. This signal had something to do with what we thought was the biggest tongue we had ever seen come out of his mouth...turns out it was something else (which I'm sure we will have to google).

Part of the adventure was a very good meal of steak or fish with appetizers of camel (tasted much like corned beef) and kangaroo sausages (tasted much like salami). We also had beer bread and sticky date pudding,

Pictures: Michael & Lois on a Camel. Really. Also, some of the landscape along the river, and some birds in a tree along the river. I forgot to ask what kind of birds they are but they are possibly some kind of cockatoo. Will let you know.

The Great Barrier Reef

Today's adventure was the Great Barrier Reef. We took a boat out to the reef in the morning and arrived at a fixed pontoon station on the outer reef. Some of our fellow passengers went scuba diving or snorkeling but we immediately headed for the semi-submersible boats. We took the boat ride twice and the view of the reef underwater was phenomenal despite overcast weather and rough seas. To tell you all the plants, animals and fish we saw would take hours but suffice it to say that we saw: one fish, two fish, red fish, blue fish, sea turtles, giant clams and lots of coral. We will include some pictures here, including one of the coolest giant clam. I'm sure it would be more colorful if the sun had been shining but this is what we had to work with. Some of you will be subjected to even more pictures when we get home!

Tomorrow we fly to Alice Springs. I will miss the rainforest B&B but will not miss the very loud orange-footed scrub fowl at 3 a.m.

Cape Tribulation and parts north

We are again at a Port Douglas internet cafe typing this post! Wednesday (yesterday) we headed north for the day. We took a river cruise on the Daintree River in a solar powered boat. Saw crocodiles and assorted birds (few snakes in the late morning we are told).The local crocs have been given names, the one pictured here is "Fat Albert". We'll also include a semi-random picture of the river bank and a blue kingfisher.

After the boat ride we waited for the ferry and headed further north. We drove 30-35 km to Cape Tribulation on an amazingly narrow, twisty, two-lane road oftentimes with deeply forested cliff walls on one side and steep drop-offs on the other (we were driving a Camry which seemed HUGE). There were plenty of Cassowary crossing signs and speed bumps along great stretches of the road. After and hour of walking in the National Park (picture taken on the walk of fan palms), we headed south again - we did not want to be driving the road in the dark!! We stopped for two cassowaries crossing the road (very exciting, and of course the camera could not be unearthed in time) and also stopped to check out some of the beaches. The picture here is off Thornton Beach.
Lastly I will include a picture of some of the sugar cane fields in the area.

In the Rainforest and Beyond

We arrived Sunday late afternoon and got comfortable at the B&B. It's lovely, situated on the edge of the rainforest with its great cacophony of bird noises (i.e. kookaburras, cockatoos, and lots of others). It really sounds like one of those rainforest CDs you can buy! The breakfasts are terrific with fresh-baked croissants, breads, cereals, local homemade jams (kumquat, roszilla...), tea...etc. Monday we went out to check out the town (population 2500), do laundry at the local laudromat, check out the fabric shop (not much to speak of). Michael started feeling unwell so, after a trip through the local supermarket, we went back to the B&B so he could lay down. I read while he snoozed and we put together our own dinner there from things we bought at the supermarket.

It does take a little getting used to the forest noises - even those at night. We have a gecko in our bathroom (our hostess says each room in the house probably has 2 or 3). There is a family of kookaburras which visit us at breakfast each morning. They are fairly large birds, Mandy, the owner, feeds them something meaty. The weather is warm and breezy but doesn't feel terribly humid.

Today, I took a guided walk into Mossman Gorge with an aboriginal guide. He told the 7 of us about the various trees and plants. There are "soap leaves", trees you don't touch (or you have pain you "can't get away from"), mahogany, fig and strangler trees...so much! There are lovely areas of water running over rocks not so unlike those in the White Mountains (although more than a few degrees warmer, I suspect). I hope I can get some pictures uploaded; if not, it will have to wait until we get to Alice Springs (don't know the internet situation there either). Anyway, Michael came and picked me up and we took off south to Port Douglas which is what I expect Southern Florida is probably like. Wall-to-wall shops selling touristy stuff, surf and beach wear, lots of eateries and bars.

Pictures: 1. mountain landscape is the view from the B&B veranda. 2. kookaburra family waiting for breakfast. 3. The water pictures is of the 'women's pool' in Mossman Gorge. 4. A termite mound which is made by the termites from the wood they eat (it was very hard). 5 & 6 Rock painting of manta ray; random shot in the forest. NOTE: pictures may not be in order!

Tomorrow we are going up to Cape Tribulation (I think that is about 16 degrees latitude, as close to the equator as we are going to get) to take a river cruise and hunt for crocs:-) The following day we will be taking the big cruise out to the outer reef. The sea has been quite choppy and not terribly conducive to reef sight-seeing.

Michael is better. His reaction might possibly be an allergy to the sugar cane blossoms (which sort of resemble pampas grass). There are a lot of sugar cane fields around here (a bit south there are tea and coffee plantations).

Going Batty

It's Saturday here and tomorrow we fly to Cairns for the next leg of our journey. Today we chose to visit the Australian Museum which is a natural history collection. There is a whole floor of rocks and minerals ---both local and nonlocal; a large display on aborginal Australia; birds, fish and animals indigenous to the continent (we recognized the sandwich-stealing magpie and the lorikeet which also wanted a piece of Michael's sandwich the other day). There is a room of skeletons and a wonderful display of dinosaur skeletons (casts of the original bones, of course) where we watched a young couple torturing their terrified two year old by insisting that he look at the scary dinosaurs. Despite the latter, we had a terrific morning in the museum. There are two skeletal pictures - 1. the large fish is an Opah fish, I think. 2. What happens when one reads to much.

We left the museum after noon and wandered into the nearby park to look at the Anzac Memorial and reflecting pool. We then meandered through Hyde Park and into the city in search of lunch which we found at a lower level food court in the vicinity of the Sydney Tower. Here is where we found Lamingtons - a delicious Australian treat - a light cake dipped in chocolate and covered in coconut. We took our dessert (and a new charger for our international cell phone) and wandered past the Sydney Hospital and the library before ending up again in the Botanical Gardens. I have included yet another picture of the many fruit bats a.k.a. 'flying foxes' that are in some of the trees there. They are the world's largest bat (and seem to fly around in the daytime). Did I say all this already? Apparently, the bats have over-colonized the garden and have become a danger to some of the plants they feed off of and the garden staff have been given permission to use nonlethal methods to discourage them from making the trees their home.

In the taxi on the way home, our driver who was Chinese asked us if we had watched the opening eremony for the Olympics. I had. He talked excitedly about it all the way back to North Sydney. He was clearly pleased with it and talked about how it was portraying China's history and important discoveries. It made for one of our more interesting taxi rides!

Dinner cruise in Sydney harbor

Michael here. Lois' friend Amanda arranged a dinner cruise around Sydney harbor for Lois and me. We boarded a catamaran excursion boat and immediately attacked the buffet tables. Lots of seafood, chicken, beef. The boat started in Darling Harbor on the city's east side and went around to the north. The day was clear, the wind cool and brisk, but we were able to spend time on the decks outside and get out the camera. The first photo is Circular Quay, the water transport hub of Sydney, from where many ANZAC troops left so long ago. Second is a nice view of the center of Sydney, featuring the Sydney Tower. The third photo shows one of our many excellent views of the Opera House, Sydney's best-known landmark, which we toured yesterday. Fourth is a panorama showing Sydney proper at left, the Harbor Bridge center, and North Sydney, where we're staying, to the right. A lovely, and well-fed, couple of hours on the water.