The Great Aussie Adventure Part 2

Here begins part II of our adventure in Australia. 

Day 8 - This would turn out to be one of the best of our days in Australia.  We started the day walking through the Sydney botanical gardens getting views of the harbor and opera house. The weather was lovely and even in the winter, the gardens were lovely and lively.  So lively apparently that a number of trees had a metal collar to protect them from the climbing critters who want to eat them. 

After our stroll through the gardens, we took a ferry over to the part of Sydney with the aquarium.  The aquarium was nice but pretty standard until we got to the sharks.  The treat there was seeing the nurse shark receive a vitamin shot.  It took a team of two divers in the tank and two spotters standing under that tank in the tunnel walkway to accomplish this task.  The first diver inserted the syringe but the shark wasn't interested in hanging around so it swam off with the syringe still in its back.  Fortunately the shark made a wide circle back to the second diver who finsihed the shot and recovered the syringe.  It was all very entertaining to see the nurse shark getting nursed, a shark with a syringe in its back and the excitement of the caretakers until they recovered the syringe.

Also at the aquarium, Kimber was able to spend a long time observing the very active platypus.  The exhibit was quite nice, and the platypus was very active in swimming and burrowing around for worms.

We still had lots of time in the afternoon and an all day pass on public transportation in Sydney so we decided to take a ferry to Cockatoo Island and see what was out there.  We had heard it was just some old buildings but that the ride out to there was nice.

What an incredible find!  Cockatoo Island was a former convict prison, industrial school for girls, and major dockyard and shipbuildng facility.  Submarines and large ships were refurbished and maintained there until 1992.  In the mid-nineties, the facilities were closed and a number of buildings demolished.  But much remains and is being restored and has been made available to the public. We spent several hours walking around the island looking at old buildings and equipment.  There has been a huge effort to describe what each building was used for and the equipment still present.  There are several well designed self guided tours you can do as well. 

But we were in for even more of a treat.  Sydney was holding thier Biennale of Sydney and the venue was Cockatoo Island.  The biennale is Australia's larget contempory visual arts event.  The venue of old buildings and equipment made an amazing background for some incredible contemporary art.  There were interactive exhibits, amazing large exhibits which took up entire rooms of these buildings, and very simple but interesting exhibits.  It was amazing and we stayed until nearly dark.

Dinner that night was pies, including the kangaroo pie.  We'd stopped on the way into Sydney at a place called Fredo's pies (which was mentioned in one of the travel guides) and picked six from the selection of over forty types in the case.  We also want looking for and saw bushy-tailed possums after dark and got buzzed by an owl walking home. 

Day 9 - We started the day with a big breakfast of ham and hash browns.  Afterwards, Kimber cleaned up and started the pack-up while Kirk and Sidney did a little walk around the park.  They saw some ducklings they had seen a day or two earlier, as well as several cockatoos.  Seems like the further south you go, the more cockatoos you see.  On the way back to the camper, we stopped where a lady was feeding some loraceets and some of them landed on Sidney's head.

We departed Sydney after a bit of a relaxing morning and headed to Canberra.  It was a nice mountain drive across the Dividing Range, but Kirk had to fight the wind a lot of the way.  As we got close, we stopped at a winery near a lake that is situated on a fault line.  The lake apparently fills and runs dry depending on seismic activity, and while it had been several feet deep just a couple of decades ago, it is a dry plain now.

The winery was a bit weird.  It was run by a seemingly dysfunctional family that bickered most of the time we were there.  The wine was good, and we did end up buying a bottle, but the best part was that Sidney got a fudge cupcake and we all warmed ourselves beside a nice fireplace.

We left the winery and headed on to our campsite, which was located just outside Canberra.  We checked in, then took our bus into town to buy groceries, being sure to visit the fruit and veg market, bakery, butcher and bottle shop (Kimber gets her wine, Kirk gets his beer) before going into the Woolworth's for regular groceries.  We got sausages some meat and pastry pinwheels made from lamb, beef and chicken (separate, not together) at the butcher.  The bakery yielded bacon and cheese buns (similar to the pizza buns we used to get in Norway, but with bacon and cheese instead), and little pizzas.  Sidney also got a bacon, cheese and pickle roll that sounded interesting.

We went back to camp, and after dinner did laundry before turning in for the night.

Day 10 - We started with the Science Museum in Canberra.  We have been to science museums on several other trips in other countries, so it was actually kind of nice to go into one that was all in English.  It provided a much clearer understanding of some of the displays.  The museum was very interactive.

One of the exhibits was called Free Fall, which was basically a 30 foot slide designed so that the first several feel actually have you free falling.  You put on a jumpsuit, then climb stairs to the top where you scoot over the edge while hanging on to a bar.  You hang in mid air, then let go, falling until the angle of the slide meets you and you end up sliding to the bottom.  It is really weird, but fun.  This was Kimber doing her free fall.

There was also a "collision" show with a museum staffer named Svea (who is originally from Sweden.)  She was quite a character, and was able to teach science to the audience members in a fun and interactive was, though her sense of humor was a little goofy.

After the science museum, we walked into a very stiff wind across and around the lake to the National Museum of Australia.  It was filled with lots of exhibits on Australian settlement and convict history, aboriginal arts and modern history.  The exhibits were nicely done, and the introduction to the museum itself was a treat.  It was called CIRCA, and was a film displayed in a rotating theater that gave you an overview of the museum in a relaxing and entertaining way.  We also too part in a science for kids portion where we "designed" our own spaceships on a computer, then got to watch them fly around an animated world in a 3-d film.

We walked back to our camper after a few hours at the museum and drove around the Parliament building and saw a few more sites in Canberra.  It wasn't and exciting city, but is understandably mostly a government center, but it was certainly more easy to navigate and drive around than most country capitals.  There were also a lot of traffic circles and city circles.

Dinner back at the park was sausages, brussel sprouts and very spicy potatoes.  More Olympics, then bed.

Day 11 - Drove out of Canberra and toward the coast again.  The mountains run right down to the coast, and our last little bit before reaching the coast followed a pretty river that fed into the sea at Bateman's Bay.  There was a little park just off the road with a nice playground right on the river, so we pulled in for some leg-stretching.  Kimber went for a run while Sidney played, and Kirk fixed a picnic lunch of cheeses, crackers, salami and fruits.  We ate outside on a picnic table, then got back on the road to find our next stop.  We were looking for a cheese factory mentioned in one of the guide books, but couldn't locate it.  Tried another place and couldn't find it either.  Then tried to find an aboriginal heritage area, but it was closed.  We finally went to Bega, which had a really nice cheese heritage center across from the factory.  We walked through the museum and gift shop, then tasted several cheeses, including some that made them famous as an export product.  We also had some ice cream made from their dairy milk.  We bought a rather large block of their sharpest cheese, which was delicious.

We then headed on to Pambula, where we decided on a whim to stay.  The park was probably the best of the whole trip.  During their summer months, they have up to 2000 people staying in their over 400 campsites and cabins.  Most are kids.  However, there were probably only 75-100 there when we stopped in, and we had a great campsite just over the dunes from the beach.  The camp had a bouncy pillow, miniature golf, three trampolines, outdoor pool, heated indoor pool, three wheeled bikes, playroom, organized kids' events, nice showers and camp kitchens, and was huge.  There were kangaroos roaming all over it at will.  The beach was also amazing!  We watched the sunset cast beautiful colors across the sky as gentle waves came ashore and Sidney played in the sand.

The camp was so nice, we decided that night we would stay an extra night there.  We had a dinner of several different leftovers from our other meals, and Sidney told us she would make her "schedule of activities" for the next day in the morning.  Oh, and since we haven't shown you the camper van yet, here it is.

Day 12 - Kirk got up to watch the sunrise over the Tasman Sea this morning.  The water was very calm and the beach was very clean and empty.  Only a few people out as far as you could see, which was about 4 miles.  The sand was very soft and white.  There were some loraceets and other birds out, but the roos were still sleeping.  Sidney and Kimber got up, and then it was the usual morning of coffee, breakfast and the Olympic recap from the night before.  We walked the camp a little bit, then Sidney and Kimber took turns on the trampoline, with Kimber actually completing several flips (mostly.)  Sidney then went off to kid's camp for a couple of hours while Kirk and Kimber packed a few things and caught up on some email.

We picked Sidney up from Kid's Camp, then had a nice lunch and walked up to the river mouth, where clear turquoise water flows into the sea and there are very pretty protected beaches.  It was a nice little walk, and here you see Kimber walking up the beach a little.

After getting back Sidney and Kirk spent some time on the beach making sandcastles while Kimber walked up the beach for a few miles.  We then all went to the heated indoor pool for the afternoon before having our dinner of the meat and filo pastry pinwheels which were super.

We spent some time and enjoyed watching the kangaroos.  They were very entertaining and somewhat social.  It was really funny watching on mother and joey in particular.  He was quite large and on the edge of wearing out his welcome in the pouch.  He would climb in and out at will, and hang his head out to eat grass while his mother bent down to eat.  He was so big that her pouch nearly dragged the ground when he was in it.  He would also box at her if she tried to push him away, and he would run through the herd like crazy just to burn off energy.

It was a nice relaxing day, and we could certainly see why this would be a popular vacation destination for Australian families!

Day 13 - This was a long day of driving, and the weather wasn't very cooperative.  We drove into Victoria from New South Wales.  We stopped in to see a museum in Orbost but it was closed.  We were able to spend a little time at a park with a playground though, and all stretched our legs before a light lunch in the camper.  There were some signs in the park that mentioned some of the aboriginal stories of the tribes in the area, as well as some of the birds that were specific to this lower part of Australia.

We drove through the Snowy River area, which is the location made famous in the 1982 film "The Man from Snowy River" and its 1988 sequel.  The film was based on a poem by an Australian poet that was written in 1898, before Australia actually became an independent nation.  It would have been an interesting area to investigate a little further, but the weather was turning pretty sour.

We drove through an area that has been affected by a forest fire less than a year ago.  The odd thing is that the trees were very tall, but has all sprouted lots of small, leafy branches all along their trunks.  Maybe to compensate and gain more energy for recovery?

We got to our campsite and set up the camper in a pouring cold rain and wind.  Unfortunately, the forecast called for more of the same the next day.

Day 14 - Drove in to Melbourne and found a campsite on the southeast side of the suburbs.  It ws more of a retirement village that true caravan park, as most of the sites were cabins or permanently placed caravans.  There were only 6 actual campervan sites in the park.

There was a small cafe and store that made nice, simple homemade food, and we got lunch before heading into Melbourne on the train.  It was a bit of a walk to the train station in the rain and wind, but an easy ride into the main train station downtown after we got there.  The main train station was also a very nice building.

After getting into Melbourne, we caught the free tourist bus that takes you all over the city, pointing out major sites along the way.  It was a great way to get a really good, quick tour of Melbourne from the comfort of a dry bus, and it was free.  Our driver was also very impressive maneuvering the bus through the crowded streets of Melbourne without incident.

We took the train back out to our caravan park, noting along the way that the waves coming into the beach seemed quite large and rough due to the weather.  This did not bode well for our ferry crossing over the Bass Strait between Melbourne and Tasmania.

We got back to the campground and picked up hot drinks from the cafe, then went and had dinner before finishing up our pack-up of the camper for turn in the next day.

This is the end of part two of the Great Aussie Adventure.  The next post, part three, will be the last, and will cover Tasmania and our return trip home.  Stay tuned!

The Great Aussie Adventure Part 1

As many of you know, we have been planning a trip to Australia for some time now in an effort to check off another continent from our list.  Our planning finally came to fruition at the end of July with a three week campervan holiday along the East and South Coast and to the mysterious island of Tasmania.  As the posts are rather long, we will break it up into three parts.

Sidney and Kimber were in Norway the week prior to our departure, returning from Oslo on Monday.  We departed Wednesday, July 25th, so their body clocks were truly confused.

We left from Houston, flying through Los Angeles, Auckland, New Zealand and finally landing in Brisbane.  Our initial flight from Auckland to Brisbane was cancelled, so we got put on a flight one hour later from Auckland and were able to watch the sunrise over Big Bay and out through the inlet to the Tasman Sea.  We also had a nice breakfast of Butter Chicken Pie and some coffee, and a good breakfast sandwich while waiting.  Pies soon became a staple during our trip, but more on them later.

We arrived in Brisbane and stood in the passport queue for over an hour.  Mind you, we have now been traveling for over 30 hours, and we have crossed the International Date Line, so it is now the afternoon of July 27th.  We were quite tired by this time, but were welcomed by the passport control officer with a friendly "G'Day!"  We then collected our bags and took a taxi to pick up the camper van, which took another couple of hours.  We went for basic groceries on the way to the caravan park, then got checked in and set up.  By the time it was said and done, we had been going for nearly 40 hours.  Sidney was quite a trooper.

Day 2 - We started our Australian Adventure at the Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary.  We had read about this place and the opportunity to "cuddle a koala" and decided it was on the top of the list of things to do.  The day began with meeting Sidney's favorite bird, the Peregrine Falcon.  This particular bird, named Maverick, is one of the more recent additions to the Sanctuary and is not normally brought out, as he is quite shy, but the handlers did a special favor for Sidney.  She loved the opportunity to see him.

We also fed and hung out with kangaroos and wallabies and saw maybe 75 koalas, as well as many other animals.  Kimber's favorite was Barak the Platypus (not named after Obama).  We hung out and watched his antics for a little while.  We also all got to take part in the Koala Cuddle, with each of us having a turn to hold the fuzzy (and smelly) little guy.  He was very soft and also weighed more than any of us expected!



We attended a "Birds of Prey" demonstration which included a sea eagle, a wedge-tailed eagle, a tawny frogmouth, barn owls, and several other raptors native to Australia.  During the presentation, the handler had one of the birds fly up the rows of the audience to demonstration the flying capabilities in tight quarters and we all literally got buzzed by the bird - actual wingtip contact!

After the park, we started our drive south.  We stopped and got the rest of our groceries and learned an important lesson of shopping - go to the butcher shop, bakery and veggie shop first before going to the grocery store.  There are usually both located around every grocery store, and there are some really yummy "prepped" items that are more interesting than the stuff at the grocery store.


We drove down the Gold Coast and through Surfer's Paradise on our way south.  The area looks like a miniature Miami with the tall buildings and beaches, but is also very crowded.  We were surprised, however, to see flying fox bats gliding around in the afternoon.

Our stop for the night was in Pottsville and was very close to the beach, where we watched Olympics and had a nice dinner before turning in.

Day 3 - Kirk got up early to take pictures of the sunrise along the beach in Pottsville.  After breakfast, Kimber and Sidney joined him for a walk along the beach for about an hour before heading south to Byron Bay.  We originally planned Byron Bay as one of our stops, but fortunately did things a little differently, as there was a huge music festival in Byron Bay.  The place was crawling with hippies in VW campers, and there were tents everywhere.  We worked our way through the town, then parked about 2 km from the Cape Byron Lighthouse.  We walked to the lighthouse along the hiker's trail, seeing three humpback whales and a pod of dolphins as we walked along the high cliffs above the sea.  The lighthouse itself was very nice and afforded great views of the area.

Afterward, we walked back to our camper and had lunch before hitting the road.  Along the way through town, we saw a guy riding a bike with a surf board under one arm and another surf board tied to his back.  It is a wonder we didn't run off the road we were laughing so much!

We then headed to Coff's Harbour, seeing lots of wild kangaroos, wallabies and kookaburras along the way.  When we got to Coff's Harbour, we were in for a treat at the campground, as there was a "bouncy pillow" right beside our campsite.  A bouncy pillow is basically an inflated rectangle about 30 feet long and 12 feet wide that kids can bounce on.  Sidney bounce until well after dark.



Day 4 - Now one would not have thought the three previous days could be topped. Oh, and at this point everyone is still waking up way early (5:30) this morning. So we went out for breakfast. Kirk had toast with egg and bacon (which is really fried ham). Kimber had a rolled breakfast that had bacon, avocado, spinach, aioli, and tomatoes. It was the best, after Kimber picked the tomatoes out to give Sidney. Sidney had pancakes with ice cream (this was straight off the menu).  After our delicious breakfast, we walked to the Pet Porpoise Pool Marine Park. We started by playing with the five dolphins that live there. And by play we mean "get wet playing catch with and rubbing dolphins." Sidney was grinning from ear to ear. This was followed by a kiss from an Australian seal and from one of the dolphins. The seal kiss was fantastic. Only a little moist but soft and whiskery.

After our smooching, we sat down to enjoy the show. During the show, Kirk got chosen to feed a dolphin while it jumped into the air and Sidney got chosen to brush the youngest dolphin's teeth. What a blast. After that we fed the sharks and took in the other animals, including little blue penguins. We then had a fine lunch of fish and chips. Kirk and Sidney hit the beach and Kimber went on a run to Mutton Bird Island. Kimber hoped to see more whales but saw something else instead. Kimber has a fatal attraction to snakes and saw quite a large snake on the island. He was at least two or maybe three inches in diameter. She didn't see all of him as 30% of snakes here are poisonous. Aren't you proud of her restraint? It was probably an Australian brown spotted python.  We took showers and enjoyed a quiet evening and Sidney spent two hours bouncing on the bouncy pillow.

Day 5 - We started the day with a drive down the coast a little to the Sea Acres Rainforest Conservation center near Port Macquarie. There were amazing strangle figs and a beautiful mix of palms, trees and other vines. We ate lunch in the parking lot, then headed on. We passed by an unlucky traveller whose travel trailer apparently became detached from their car while in motion. It did not appear to have hit anyone, but was stopped at a rather odd angle in the trees.

Our next stop was the Cassegrain winery. Along the way we passed Rawdon Creek Nature Reserve just south of Port Macquarie. We don't know the source of the name of the reserve, however, Kimber's maiden name was Rawdon and this is a fairly uncommon name so it naturally was of interest to her. Once at the winery, Kimber tried various whites, a rose, and a couple of dessert wines, and Kirk had some reds and desserts. We ended up buying 7 bottles, with the intention that most would make it home. Oh, and Sidney had a white grape juice, but decided not to buy it because it did not have a full enough body and didn't flow well over the tongue (in other words it was too sweet).

We stopped for the night in Forster, which boasts to have the best oysters in Australia. We bought two dozen straight from the farm and which Kirk and Sidney split evenly. They confess the flavor was outstanding. There were also saw lots of pelicans, which are one of Kimber's favorite birds.
It was cooler as we travel south, and the temperatures at night were as low as 40F. While it is nice for sleeping, it did make showers in the camp shower houses a bit cold.

Day 6 - Our first stop of the day was Seal Rocks and the Seal Rocks Lighthouse.  We drove down a narrow, wooded road to get to Seal Rocks, but the view suddenly opened up as we went down a steep hill to the open expanse of the sea.  Once at the seaside, we had to maneuver the RV down a narrow road with low trees (which we did without incident!) to get to the beach.  The waves were huge as they crashed between the rocks, almost giving the appearance that they would certainly be several feet high before getting to the beach, but the bay widened some and the waves settles to a gentle two or three feet.

We walked up to the lighthouse, observing a blowhole along the way.  Again, the views were phenomenal.  Kirk had considered a stay at one of the keeper's cottages, but it did not work right with our schedule.  It was very easy to understand from the way the water foamed as it crashed through the rocks below why the lighthouse was necessary.

We tried to find a national park that was touted to have "the largest moving sand dunes in the Southern Hemisphere", but our GPS lady led us astray.  After trying a couple of different places, we gave up and finally headed toward Sydney.  There were mountains north of the city, as well as high winds, which made driving our "bus" a bit of a challenge.  We also had a bit more trouble with our GPS as we got close to our campground.  She led us onto a tollway and back off again, costing us a quick $30 in tolls.

We finally got to our campground, which was located in Lone Cove National Park north of Sydney.  There were lots of different birds - kookaburras, parrots, lorikeets, whip birds, and owls.  Sidney enjoyed the fact that the lorikeets landed on her arm if she stretched them out and stood still, but standing still for very long presented a bit of a challenge for her.  We settled in for the night to watch the Olympics, but couldn't get the channel on our television (more on that in Day 7!)

Day 7 - Our main plan for the day was the Toranga Zoo in Sydney.  We took the subway in to Sydney and got off at the stop just before the Harbour Bridge.  We got off and walked across the bridge into downtown so we could have a nice "first view" of the Opera House.  We then took a ferry to the zoo, taking in more nice views of the city.

The zoo was nice and well laid-out.  It was easy to walk along and see the animals and most of the enclosures were very nice.  One thing we did have to contend with is that school is in session in Australia during the U.S. summer (their winter), so there were a lot of school groups at the zoo.  The views of the city from the zoo were great, and many Australians later commented to us that the zoo sits on some of the most valuable and desirable real estate in Sydney.

After wearing ourselves out at the zoo, we took another ferry ride through the harbor to Manly Beach in hopes of seeing some whales.  We didn't see any, but the swells as we got close to the mouth of the harbor were pretty wild, and the ferry had to turn so that the swells came into the side, providing a really rocking experience. (We did see a news story about a week later that the Manly ferry and bumped into a mother and baby humpback, causing them to be injured, but biologists didn't know the final outcome for the whales.  The ferry was taken out of service temporarily.)

We took the subway back to our RV park, where Kirk was able to make an inquiry about television service.  The person at reception told him that many RV's have signal boosters that actually cause interference to the television signals when you are in a large city and the television towers are close.  He recommended we temporarily disconnect our antenna and use a pair of rabbit ears which he graciously provided!  Problem fixed - Olympics back on!

Our next post will include more from Sydney, then Canberra to Melbourne.  We hope to have it posted soon!