Melbourne to Sydney--- the Last Australian post : (

Photos:

1. a real live wombat in the wild... he was pretty freaked out by our group, but posed for photos for about 5 minutes!

2. I love this photo of the kangaroo

3. rainbow after the rain

4. yup real live snow in Australia! In the Snowy Mountain area (where the movie as about and filmed near by!)

5. coat of arms- chosen because neither animal can walk backwards- so it is all about the progress of moving forward. their Parliament and senate works and looks much like ours.

6. an Australian road sign.. they think we have wacky animal signs, but there's are plain nutty sometimes!

7. me at Pillar look out in Wilson's Promontory national Park (like NFLD)

8. rocks on the south end of squeaky beach

9. squeaky beach

10. a close encounter with the very poisonous red back spider... too close for me, see a little shaky too!

So this is it. I have made it back to Sydney and have two sleeps until I fly over and start a new adventure in NZ (New Zealand that is!)

This last stretch was quite relaxing compared to the rest of my journeys and our hostels are a lot nicer, but having a stuffy head cold wasn't too pleasant to travel with... I have a dream it will clear by tomorrow, so I do not fly this way.. that too would be no fun!

So we started this trip to Wilson's Promontory national Park and a hike to an area that reminded me of NFLD. So pretty with the rocks and views. We walked along a beach called Squeaky Beach-because it actually squeaks when you walk on the sand. This is caused by the rounded grains of quartz rubbing against each other. Then we stopped at an old airstrip created during the WWII to prepare for the German invasion which did not happen. It is now home to thousands of kangaroos, emu, wombats, and other creatures. That evening we had fish and chips and went to bed.. pretty lazy day.

The next day we went down some bumpy back roads and to some odd places, like Seldom Seen (really that is the name of the town). Some strange folks live here and have a kangaroo (not sure of what it was made from) on the lawn wearing a bikini with a beer can in its pouch riding a bicycle.. weird stuff.. then to a town (if you can call it that) called Suggen Buggen to look at an old school house.. then on the Kosciuszko National Park and to the highest mountain in Australia (Mt. Kosciuszko at 2200 meters high) and into a snow storm.. CAN YOU BELIEVE THAT??? It was nutty, but fun to see. We didn't do the scheduled 3 hour hike because of it and got to go to the hotel early and go for a swim and sauna, so really it worked out well!!!

Day three was a day on the bus and a short stop for a tour of the Parliament and Senate in the capital of Canberra. (YUP that is the capital, created because Sydney and Melbourne were fighting over who should be the capital.. Seriously!) And after a 1 1/2 hour tour and a lunch in town, we drove the last 200 km or so back to Sydney.

I have two sleeps and I am on the plane to New Zealand for brand new adventures and to meet up with Larry and Dixie. Yippee..

I have loved all the parts of Australia I saw and only wish I had more time in a few places and felt better along the way as well. I will be back to watch a sporting game of some sort in Melbourne, back to Adelaide to see what I missed, Tasmania and the West Coast to see and possibly up to see Litchfeild national Park which i didn't have time to see. So My visit to Australia is not over yet!

Chat to you all next from New Zealand!

Adelaide to Melbourne

Photos:
1. Rod Laver Arena - the Australian open (though i didn't get the whole tour because they were setting up for a concert)
2. old Melbourne Jail
3. old Melbourne jail
4. 12 Apostles at sunset
5. 12 Apostles
6. me on the Otway Fly Tree Top walk
7. ancient ferns
8. the Melbourne Olympic Complex with the Rod Laver Arena
9. Bay Of Islands
10. bay of martyrs
11. London Bridge
12. Lord Ard gorge
13. 12 Apostles
14. Mackenzie Falls (nice black rocks- lava)
15.16. 17. 18. hike to the Pinnacle- Wonderland Range
19. 20. 21. 22. 23. - Hollow Mountain- Grampians National Park

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Well, my day in Adelaide was catching up on things, and searching for a place to put my photos on DVD, without success.. I am starting to feel yucky art this point so i took the one day I had here to get some things done and rest.

The three day journey from Adelaide to Melbourne was pretty cool. This are turning green again and getting into more hills and mountains and of course on to the Great Ocean Road (on the list of places to see before you die- FYI)

Our day started with a 5 hour drive to have lunch in Horsham and into Grampians National park. Here we did a 1.5 hour hike into the Hollow mountains which may as well have been rock climbing without the ropes.. challenging again and again a great view from the top. We went to Mackenzie Falls and actually saw water flowing, even though it is the start of the dry season and the are in a drought here. We spent the night in a nice little place in Hall's gap.

We started day 2 with a 4.2 km hike in the Wonderland Range of the Grampians Park. The 2 hour hike took us to a spot called the Pinnacles that had an amazing lookout at the top. Here my knees started to give away, so I will try to take it easy on the down hills for awhile. After lunch we hit the official start to the Great ocean Road on the section referred to as the shipwreck coast. Here the shores are against sheer rock cliffs. We stopped at the Bay of Islands and the Bay of Martyrs for a photo stop. on to London Bridge, an island caused by the ocean bashing away at the sandstone and causing the earth to crash into the ocean. Lord Ard Gorge was where the ship of the same name crashed and killed all on board but two people who miraculously survived. The Twelve Apostles were amazing (though there are now only 8). Standing out of the water perilously awaiting their eventual demise into the waters that beat them daily...... we were here fro sunset. nice.

On the final stretch to Melbourne, we started the day at the Otway Fly tree top Walk. Like the zip line in Cape Tribulation, except that this one had 5 different platforms all attached and you walked to each one. They went from the ground to 47 meters above the ground! Another great view of the rainforest below. The next stretch of the Ocean Road is know as the Surfers coast. here the shores flow onto the beaches and back to seeing people swimming and surfing. That has been awhile! We stopped and checked out some sleeping koalas and some outlet stores for Rip Curl, Quicksilver, Billabong, and Roxy.. all Australian created clothing lines.

I am officially sick and have missed much of Melbourne, though did make it out yesterday to the Rod Laver Arena for a tour of where the Australian Open Tennis Tourney is held each year and to the the old Melbourne gaol... but I was so stuffy I sped through it without reading alot.. mostly what i got from there was that a lot of people were hanged there.

I finally got to have some garlic spaghetti for supper though with hopes it will scare away my cold.. I'll try more garlic tonight...

that is all for now... one more post from Sydney in a few days then off to New Zealand!

Alice Springs to Adelaide

1. 2. 3. Mount Ohlssen-Bagge
4. Emu, camel, kangaroo
5. biking down the bumpiest road ever...
6. Coober Pedy- discarded sand piles after taking out the opals
7. our hostel- underground
8. actual home underground
9. a hilltop view of Coober Pedy, note the stacks in the front, these are so people have clean air to breath (air stacks!)
10. the view from the bus window- for days....
11.12.13. Kata Tjuta
14. me in my swag outside!
15. -20. Uluru and its different angles.. no two views are the same...
21. sign of where were were heading
22.23.24. King's Canyon
25. King's Canyon (Priscilla's Gap, from Priscilla of the Desert!)


Moving on! So joining another tour with different people, I am off on a 6 day journey from Alice Springs to Adelaide via King's Canyon, Uluru, and Kata Tjuta. Very Pretty sites.

Our early departure this morning had us on the bus for 6 hours before our lunch stop at King's Canyon. Here we did a 2 1/2 hour hike over some loose rocks and a little rough terrain, but the resulting views were spectacular! Many refer to King's Canyon as Australia's Grand Canyon. It really was beautiful. The top of the rocks are 270 meters above the canyon floor and the views of sheer rock cliffs were magnificent. Hidden in the canyon is a permanent water hole they refer to as the Garden of Eden ( an oasis in the desert!). There are amazing eucalyptus (or gum) trees in Australia and so far they can be found everywhere.. I wonder if I could get one to grow in my yard? I tripped on the top and popped my ankle, so I had to take it slow and be thankful i wasn't near the edge when it happened.. I recovered, so all is well now.

Back on the bus for another 4 hours we stopped and had a great view of a tabletop formation on Mount Connor, like the plateau top in Gros Mourne national Park in NFLD! There are also plenty of old salt lake beds here, dried up and looking like the Salt Plains at home. Our last stop for drinks was at a cattle station which supposedly is 100 million acres large. They round p their cattle in an quiet an unobtrusive way. they can turn on and off the waterholes and herd the cattle that way by forcing them to move in the direction of the pick-up spots. kind of neat!

Supposedly they're are 7 million camels roaming the wilds of the outback, but I never saw any. They were brought over by the Afghanistan workers when building the rail line and when it was done, they were to be destroyed but the workers let them go free and now they are taking over more and more space.

Early the next morning we rose to watch sunrise at Uluru(Ayer's Rock)... what a spectacular sight.. it really is a spectacular piece of rock that got better as more light shone on it. We did the 9.5 km walk around the base and saw many of the nooks and crannies up close, though many of the really cool parts were sacred and could not be photographed (without repercussions that is). As well the Aboriginals do not want it to be climbed anymore, but it was to windy to do so anyway (and people have dies, so i am not sure I would have). The Uluru rises 348 meters from the desert floor and again they think that 2/3 of it is actually below the surface. (one aboriginal guy I sat with at a bus stop think that this is actually Noah's Arc.. but who knows he'd had a bottle of wine or two!)

Then again even before lunch we did a 5.4 km hike in Kata Tjuta (the Olga's). In this area are 36 separate domes in a cluster. The highest one rises 200 meters above Uluru's highest point! It was a pretty neat trek between the rocks and then seeing a "garden" in the middle of it all. Very pretty! That night we watched sun set over the two rock formations from our campsite (well a short walk away), and slept outside in a swag.. it was a little chilly on the face but actually cozy.

Off we headed to Coober Pedy! On the way we crossed over the border from the Northern territory to South Australia and into the arid climate of the "real" outback!. Coober Pedy is an opal mining town. 95% of the world's opals come from Coober Pedy and 80% of those come from Coober Pedy! the darker the opal the harder to find and therefore the more expensive. It gets so hot here (50+ degrees) that 75% of the population actually live underground and work underground where the temperature stays a constant 22-25 degrees. Andrea, Kerstin, Kayla Wez, and I went noodling for opals, but didn't find any, darn.. Coober Pedy is supposedly the closest place on earth to what the moon surface would look like and many movies were made her, including Mad Max and Pitch Black.

Our final three day stretch to Adelaide had us on the bus for long hours, separated with hikes, and stops for food and pee breaks. We did a hike at Wilpena Pound (which looks like a huge crater hit it, but was formed by the moving of the tectonic plates, again!) to the Ohlssen-Bagge mountain. It was a tough hike, but well worth the view at the top. The hostels on this stretch have been very nice and haven't seen many bugs! yippee! We had camel sausage, ground emu and kangaroo streak for supper one night. All were pretty tasty. We stopped and saw some more Rock are paintings, but they weren't as nice as the ones in Kakadu. And our final stop was for more wine tasting in the Clare Valley.