Afternoon tea was taken at a rest stop near Gundagai. Apparently there's a song about a dog on a tucker box that mentions the town of Gundagai, but I seem to have missed it on our way from lunch to tea. Got into Canberra around 6 pm. It's an interesting city, built in the shape of a wagon wheel with the Parliament house in the middle and the avenues radiating out. The old Parliament house was built in 1911, and was always intended to be a temporary one, they figured 40 or 50 years. Well, it was over 6, and the [View Full Entry]

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Long day on the bus today. Left the hotel at 8 am. Drove for a couple of hours then stopped for "morning tea" in the town of Glenrowan, home of the Australian bandit/Robin Hood named Ned Kelly. On the next leg of our journey we watched a documentary about kangaroos, but I slept through most of it. Stopped for lunch in a town called Holbrook. Originally it was called Germantown, but due to legislation during the first world war, the name was changed. And then changed a few times apparently. Eventually, the town decided to name itself after a British submariner. [View Full Entry]

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Happy Hallowe'en. It doesn't seem to be a big holiday here, we've seen almost no decorations. We did actually see a Santa this morning, and yesterday we saw the big Christmas tree. Yesterday as promised was a long day. Left the hotel at 8 am in the grey gloom (apparently Melbourne is known for having 4 seasons in a day and has the most rainy days of any Australian city), heading out on a city highlights tour. While I love bus tours of urban areas, it's really easy to lose your bearings on them. I have no idea where anything I [View Full Entry]

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Today is our free day in Melbourne. We could have signed up for some of the optional stuff, but I really wanted a day of not doing much. We slept in a bit this morning then headed out to Victoria Market again. We'd been thinking of taking the free tram, but looking at the map of the city we had, we realized it was quite walkable. Got there a just past 10 am and after walking around together for a bit, I left Haviva to her shopping and headed back here. Once I'm done here, I've got to go get some [View Full Entry]

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We had dinner in the hotel restaurant before heading to the show. Food was good, but the service was so slow that we ended up skipping dessert so we could meet up with the other people also seeing the show. I'd gotten row F seats, thinking they were 6th row, but there were AA-HH seats, so we were actually 14th row. Far right. Since both of us had seen the show already, they worked for us. The others had mezzanine (dress circle) seats, and they were even farther back. The stage seemed smaller than the Gershwin, with the action more set [View Full Entry]

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Today was the train ride from Adelaide to Melbourne. Met in the lobby at 6:15, bus to the train station to check-in. The train has a 20 kg max on checked luggage and is apparently very strict about it. So on our flights from Ayers Rock to Alice Springs and Alice Springs to Adelaide, we were all checking our weights. H was a bit over, and I was a bit under, so I ended up with some of her stuff in my bag. The train boarded around 7 am and took off around 7:40. The ride took about 11 hours, we [View Full Entry]

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So, Tuesday was a LONG day. Up at 5:00 am (and everyone knows how much I love mornings) to leave at 6:15. Only 1/2 of our group went to the island, the rest spent the day in town. Bus ride to the ferry at Cape Jervis was about an hour and a half, then a 45 minute ferry ride to Kangaroo Island. Much better ferry ride then the one to Green Island. This boat was quite a bit bigger and more steady. We got a box breakfast from the hotel since we left before they started serving. It was pretty nice, [View Full Entry]

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One thing we noticed on the way into town from the airport yesterday was that they already have some Christmas ornaments up in the streets here in Adelaide. Okay, guys, can we at least wait until November 1st? Actually, it seems there is a Christmas parade here early in November, so they get ready early. Walking through the city yesterday we found Synagogue Place. And guess what, there's actually a synagogue there. But it was closed and we don't know if it's still in operation (Rabbi Kushner, do you know?). We managed to catch part of the recap of Game 3 [View Full Entry]

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Had a Dreamtime/Outback lecture this morning, including the opportunity to buy aboriginal paintings from some of the local ladies, but neither of us saw anything that said "BUY ME!" so we didn't. Then we had a 2 hourish flight from Alice Springs to Adelaide. Checked into our hotel and now we're walking through the shopping district. Suffice it to say we are back in a big city and it's your typical urban garbage type stores... Borders, Toys R Us, etc. We did happen upon Synagogue Place and the Adelaide synagogue, but it was closed. Well, we only have 1/2 hours before [View Full Entry]

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Had a bad night sleeping thanks to my cold and not being able to breathe. Up at 6:00, breakfast and then left hotel at 8:15. We got to the airport and couldn't get in, the staff hadn't gotten there yet. But we didn't have too long to wait, and once again group check-in went quickly. And once again, H got tagged by security for random explosives check. Flight from Uluru to Alice Springs was only 45 minutes (as H put it, 10 minutes up, 20 minutes across, 15 minutes down) and uneventful. As soon as we landed, we went to a [View Full Entry]

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