The Itinerary

Less than two days left! Here's the itinerary (Australian time):

SYDNEY: Monday, August 4th: We arrive in Sydney.
Tuesday, the 5th, we meet up with Amanda for the first time (for those who don't already know who Amanda is, she is this crazy reading Aussie woman I met on the internet - on LibraryThing.com, of course).
Wednesday, the 6th, we've booked a day tour into the Blue Mountains northeast of Sydney.
Thurs - Sat. The schedule is open (and we will fill it!).

MOSSMAN: Saturday, August 10th: We fly to Cairns and drive north to our bed & breakfast in Mossman. From here we will visit the Great Barrier Reef, the Daintree National Park (the rainforest) ...etc

ALICE SPRINGS: Friday, the 15th we fly to Alice Springs (yes, A Town Called Alice). We have two events booked here 1. a Camel tour along the Todd River 2. an excursion to the McDonnell mountain range and some local gorges. There will, of course, be more activities, those are just the ones we have booked ahead of time.

YULARA: Monday, the 18th we fly to Yulara, home of Uluru/Ayer's Rock. We have a couple of activities booked ahead of time: a dinner under the stars and a sunrise excursion.

SYDNEY: We fly back to Sydney on Thursday the 21st for almost 2 days before. . .

Saturday, August the 23rd we fly back to the US.

Pictures, top to bottom: 1. aerial view of Ayers Rock Resort 2. The McLaren Hotel in North Sydney 3. The front entry of the Mossman Gorge Bed & Breakfast 4. The Sydney Harbor Bed & Breakfast in "The Rocks" section of Sydney. Sorry, no picture of the Alice Springs hotel (trying to place photos in this text is truly a challenge).

Preparations Continue!

Eight days and counting! Most of our major preparations are complete, but there remains more than a few items on our checklist yet to do.

We don't know if our new little eee pc will connect well to wired and wireless internet during our travels, but we hope so!

I'll test the linking feature by trying to post an Australian map here. We will be starting from Sydney in the southeast, then flying to Cairns in the northeast to stay at a B&B north of there on the edge of the rainforest. From there we will fly to Alice Springs in the center of the country before flying to Uluru (Ayer's Rock) and then back to Sydney again. That is the equivalent of flying from South Florida to Maine to Chicago to the southern part of Missouri and back to South Florida again!

Our plans include: Amanda, museums, mountains, rainforest, deserts, camels, star-gazing, the Great Barrier Reef, aborginal art & sites, bookshops, great food...etc.