Cairns to Cape Tribulation Tuesday 20th January 2009 Northern Queensland is in the grip of monsoon rains. It is hot, it is silly heat, and the rain is torrential! Whilst in Cairns we were in the “dry eye” of this huge cyclone of weather that is circling around the north east. Townsville to the south was flooded at the end of last week and now, Port Douglas, where we are at the moment, is getting its share of the rain. To add to our little problems, thousands of Chinese tourists are arriving for the Chinese New Year, which is going to [View Full Entry]

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Cairns Botanic Gardens and natural rainforest Friday 16th January 2009 Yesterday we took a bus to the Cairns Botanic Gardens. These tropical gardens are the best we’ve seen anywhere. All of the plants, trees and ferns are tropical, both indigenous and from other exotic locations. One exclusive section houses plants used by Aboriginals for medicines, materials and food. After enjoying the gardens we walked through dense natural untouched rainforest to a region that contains a series of creeks and lakes, both saltwater and freshwater. There are notices warning people to watch out for l [View Full Entry]

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Cyclones, storms, floods and shark attacks Tuesday 13th January 2009 Well, we are now sitting on a plane heading for Cairns, where parts of the town are underwater; cyclone “Charlotte” hit Northern Queensland yesterday and the flooding is said to be extensive. We did consider delaying our flight but decided not to and to take a chance on things being OK, after all, the cyclone has done its damage now and its now the mopping up stage for the unfortunate people who have been flooded out. Our original itinerary would have taken us to Cairns a week ago and then [View Full Entry]

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“Running, Sparkling Water”, Blue Mountains national Park Thursday 8th January 2009 Charles Darwin spent several weeks getting here by packhorse and claimed that the Blue Mountain scenery was “magnificent”; two hours by train from Sydney, it is still magnificent, with majestic gorges, tumbling waterfalls and its distinctive hazy blueness. The changeable climate has so far given us three days of hot weather hiking and now today, a misty cool day of chilling out. Actually, it is more than mist, more like mountain fog. Firstly, Monday: we walked from the gue [View Full Entry]

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Manly Beach, “Farewell” to Sydney then off to the mountains Sunday 4th January2009 Friday was our last full day in Sydney. We caught the ferry to Manly Beach. Manly is a really nice area, with its long golden beach, lots of restaurants and bars and shops. We walked the promenade in the sunshine but by afternoon the weather changed again, the wind became strong, the blue sea turned grey and we were cold; by the time we got back to the hotel about midnight we were freezing because we were wearing shorts! We thought it was summer! Sue and Eric didn’t [View Full Entry]

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Dazzling Darling Harbour and Mrs Macquarie Monday 29th December 2008 We’ve had another busy sightseeing day here in Sydney. There is so much to see in this city and now that it is the summer holidays and the kids are off school for six weeks, everyone is out and about and enjoying the sights. We took the bus down to Darling Harbour and Cockle Bay. It was buzzing with tourists and locals, street performers, vendors, full ferries criss-crossing the harbour, the monorail overhead full to capacity, shoppers, skateboarders and children walking in the fountains; lively is an inadequate wor [View Full Entry]

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Boxing Day on Bondi, a Barbecue in the rain and a change of hotel Sunday 28th December 2008 It was Christmas on Coogee so it had to be Boxing Day on Bondi. Lovely weather again, so the beach was rammed. Bondi is so iconic that one just has to go there and it was great, but actually we preferred Coogee. The name Bondi is derived from local Aboriginal languages, meaning “tumbling water” or “water breaking over rocks” to describe the surf. One thing that is surprising in Sydney is how nasty many of the public loos are, especially the old ones [View Full Entry]

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HAPPY NEW YEAR FROM SYDNEY! Thursday 1st January 2009 What a great place to be for New Year! The fireworks were awesome and summer has truly arrived in New South Wales; it is HOT, HOT, HOT. One and a half million people watched the fireworks last night, having spent all day getting their “spot” the all important viewing point. Obviously not everyone could get a view of the bridge (but we did) so there were seven huge firework locations all around the harbour and synchronised to create a whole sky full of colour. We met Sue and Eric early and by10 [View Full Entry]

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Christmas in Sydney; we’ve made it to the “Land Down Under”! 25th December 2008 Christmas Day! And we’re not having Vegemite sandwiches! We’re off to Coogee Beach for a Christmas picnic lunch with Sue and Eric (my cousin). Arrived here on Tuesday evening 23rd December and guess what? It was RAINING, and only about 22 degrees. Maybe the unseasonable weather has followed us from New Zealand? Whatever, it was nice because we thought that it would be uncomfortably hot and humid, as indeed it was here earlier in the month, and it would have been like [View Full Entry]

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Christchurch, the Garden City Sunday 21st December 2008 Sunday morning, the first day of summer and it has not stopped raining since Friday night; wind, rain and damp and because the hostel is a lovely old Victorian building, the ceilings are high and the heating is a bit inadequate, so it is also very cold. Christchurch is called the “Garden City” because it is so full of trees, gardens and beautiful landscaping. The River Avon winds gracefully through the city and botanical gardens. Just as the founders of Dunedin wanted a little bit of Scotland in the southern hemisphere, [View Full Entry]

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