10/06/14 - Exploring the Freycinet Peninsula

Hazard Beach was wild and lovely. We trudged across the sand and continued our hike. We were working our way around Mount Mayson, taking the long route back to the parking lot. Even as we climbed, the ground stayed sandy, but we had better views of the blue water and eroded stone formations above and below us. We passed through forests full of soil forming trees that reminded us of Hawaii's pioneer kiawe. The trail turned and turned again, slowly rising. We were sure the parking lot was not far for quite some time, but then, we heard the first SUV gunning its engine. We emerged from the wilderness part way up the extremely civilized trail to the lookout. We were on our way home.

10/05/14 - On to Freycinet

Across Coles Bay we can see the mountains of the Freycinet Peninsula, but after our long drive we only have time to explore the beach below the hotel. We didn't go very far, but we did explore the lagoon and the rocks before dinner. Tomorrow, we'll set out to explore in earnest.

10/04/14 - Hobart, Tasmania

We stayed a ways from the city center at the Islington which is a wonderful boutique hotel full of the owner's art collection. Each of the common rooms is full of wonderful things ranging from historical ceramics to modern art prints.

10/04/14 - Hobart Harbor and the Waters Around Bruny Island

We stopped by an oyster farm and grabbed a bag of local oysters, then stopped to check out a salmon farm surrounded by a cloud of seagulls and one curious looking seal. Then we anchored off a private island where Robert and his daughter Mia set out to catch us the rest of our dinner. She grabbed a bunch of spiny sea urchins and he came back with some wonderful abalone. The sea urchins we ate raw, the abalone with garlic, ginger and spicy chile peppers. A few lobsters who had "just come along for the ride" joined our feast and were quite delicious.

10/03/14 - Melbourne

Melbourne reminded us of New York with its hustle and bustle and urban sensibility. In contrast, Sydney was Los Angeles with its less formal manner. We wandered the city center with its streets and alleys and arcades, but we had dinner out in Saint Kilda, down by the waterfront. We spent the next day exploring more of Saint Kilda, checking out sea birds, the parks and esplanade, and watching the downtown skyline from the distance.

In town we found a cake supply shop, several book stores, fashionable clothing stores and a partially hidden Chinatown where we had fabulous freshly made dumplings. The main streets are wide with bus lanes and car lanes and acres of pedestrians. The alleys are bustling and lined with restaurants and fascinating shops.

We only had two nights and one full day in Melbourne. Next time, we'll stay longer.

10/02/14 - More of the Great Ocean Road

The scenery did not disappoint, but after the Bay of Martyrs and Bay of Islands, we knew what to expect. We wandered the walkways and checked out the various viewpoints. The stone formations were beautiful as were the sea and sky.

It was impossible to get down to the water from here, but just a few kilometers down the road were the Gibson Steps. The descent looked daunting, but the steps were well designed. The beach was broad and the rock formations fascinating. We took pictures of a young couple posed on a rock. They spoke Mandarin, which has replaced Japanese as the second language of tourism in Australia, but we used the universal sign language of tourists everywhere and hope we added a bit to their vacation.

The road turned inland. There were a number of turn offs which lead to the Great Ocean Walk, a hiking trail along the coast, but we really didn't have time for the side trails. We did check out the Otway lighthouse, but there were only limited options for exploring here. We did see a koala in a tree by the roadside and we spotted an echidna in the parking lot, so we weren't disappointed.

10/02/14 - Bay of Islands and Bay of Martyrs

We spent some time admiring the "martyrs", then even more time wandering along the coast, following the trails and staircases down to small beaches or out onto shrub covered rocky redoubts. We probably would have explored even more, but we had kilometers to travel and there was more to see.

10/01/14 - Port Fairy

09/30/14 - On the Road to Port Fairy

We continued along the road through flat country and noticed a mountain jutting out of the fields to the right. This was Mount RIchmond, an extinct volcano. We didn't know what to expect, and we were a bit tight on time, so we never did get to the overlook. Still, we spotted our first wild koala perched in a tree which was a real treat.

09/29/14 - Penola and the Naracoorte Caves - 2

Back in Penola, we visited the Katnook WInery which had excellent wines which we doubt we will ever find in the United States. We explored the town, particularly Petticoat Lane, an old, partly restored, Victorian section of town. There were a lot of charming old houses and charming old fashioned gardens, including an herb garden, open to the public. For a small donation, one could even grab a few fresh herbs for one's dinner.

To be honest, we hadn't planned on seeing this area, but we did have to get from Adelaide to Melbourne, and an article in our in flight magazine made us curious. We aren't big improvisors when we travel, but this improvisation definitely paid off.

09/28/14 - Penola and the Naracoorte Caves - 1

This whole area of South Australia is known as the Limestone Coast, so the wonderful limestone formations of the Naracoorte Caves were irresistible. We signed up for three tours in a row, preceded by and followed by some exploring on our own. The guided tours were wonderful, so we saw speleothems galore. Speleothems are sometimes stalactites, hanging from the ceiling, sometimes stalagmites, rising from the floor, and sometimes columns, connecting the floor and ceiling.

We also took a remote camera guided tour of the bat cave. There's a huge colony of bats in a cave that is closed to the public, but monitored by a number of remote controlled cameras. We zoomed in on juveniles hanging on street corners, mothers huddling with others and otherwise virtually entered the life of the cave.

To be continued.

09/27/14 - Kelly Caves to the Sea

We made our way slowly, sighting two echidnas by the trail side. We made our way to a large flat lake and had a black swan experience. This was Australia, so there was a flock of black swans on the glassy surface.

Then, we climbed a sand dune, now fully vegetated and well inland. It was over a 100 meter climb, quite a challenge on soft sand. It looked like any other hill, but the soft footing reminded us that this, like many others on Kangaroo Island, was a stabilized sand dune.

Eventually, the trail opened out to a large green field, almost like a golf course. Here was a great field of kangaroos. This was the far side of the great green field we had visited earlier for our sundown Kangaroos and Canapes excursion. There were no canapes on this side of the river, but plenty of kangaroos.

We left the green field, and from here the trail followed the river, and the river led us to the sea. For a while we were in brush land, but then we saw the line of coastal dunes ahead. Soon we were looking down from the dunes at a gorgeous crescent of beach by the sea.

09/26/14 - Seal Point Sea Lions

The reserve has slowly accustomed the sea lions to people. If we don't hassle them, they don't mind us. This means we can wander around in clusters and get a close look at these wonderful sea mammals. We saw females nursing and males engaging in pushing matches, so we felt right at home.

It doesn't really show up in the photos, but male sea lions have a pale area around their necks and on their heads that look a bit like lions' manes, hence the name sea lion. There were other land mammals waiting for their turn visiting theses sea mammals, or we would have spent the day on the beach with them.

09/25/14 - Rocky River to Maupertuis Bay

It was spring, so the flowers were in bloom, but few were familiar. We saw lizards, the blue sky and the blue river as it flowed in broad channels and through rapids. There was some climbing up and down rocks, but it was easy going.

Then we saw our first glimpse of the sea. The river flowed over rocks in channels with little rushing waterfalls and emptied out onto a sandy beach. It was a smuggler's paradise, a lovely beach in the middle of nowhere, perfect to bringing in a small boat loaded with contraband koala skins. Above us in the canyon were the smuggler hideouts, shelters naturally carved from the rock walls.

Maybe we let our imagination get ahead of us, but the mouth of the Rocky River was a wonderful, evocative place to be.

09/24/14 - Admiralty Arch and Remarkable Rocks

09/23/14 - Welcome to Kangaroo Island

FIrst thing, we took the cliff side hikes east and west of the hotel. The scenery is exotic. The shrubs are gum trees of various sizes. The flowers are in wild bloom.

We took the Kangaroo and Canapes tour. It's less formally known as Booze and Roos. We took a shuttle bus to a field not far from the hotel. It was once a farm, cleared from the brush, but now home to enough kangaroos to launch a Volkswagen to the moon by sheer hopping power. The grass is cut as short as a golf green's, and the ground is covered with kangaroo by-product, but the kangaroos are calm even as we approach them.

That was just our first day.

09/21/14 - The Taronga Zoo

09/20/14 - Bondi Beach

We've already been to the Sydney Aquarium and taken a long walk from Bondi Beach south to Coogee. Bondi is Sydney's famous surfing beach. The water was wild, and the waves were high, but, no, we didn't do any surfing. We left that to others who have some slight clue about the surfer's art. We did follow the trail along the beach, up along the bluffs, then down to another beach, then up, then down and so on. Parts of the route reminded us of West Seattle, some Honolulu, some Santa Monica, and some the Monterey waterfront trail.

It was a beautiful walk. We didn't have to get wet to enjoy it, though in some places the water was tempting. Especially tempting were the wild, sea water swimming pools along the way. These are swimming pools built low, so they are flooded by the surf at high tide, so one gets the benefits of fresh salt water, but one is protected from the surf.

02/11/10 - Sunrise, Sunset

If you have a Mac, you can download the program here.

11/14/09 - From The Annals of Film Editing

"For the study, Dutch students who were fluent in English watched either a 25-minute episode of the Australian sitcom Kath & Kim, whose characters speak in broad accents from the Melbourne suburbs, or a version of Trainspotting, which was edited down to the same length by taking out the offensive parts."

According to the IMDB, Trainspotting has a 94 minute running time, so they cut out 69 minutes. That's pretty impressive.