We awake in Alice Springs and decide to go for breakfast at the local grocery store. In the hotel parking lot we see some beautiful birds Pink and Green parrots (Unconfirmed). I resolve to try and get some photos when we get back. Relatively uneventful trip to Melbourne everything on time and we get to our hotel. Our hotel room is really nice, we booked a mystery 5 star hotel on Last Minute, where you only know the general area of the hotel and the price until you finish the booking. The deal is that because it's a mystery you don't [View Full Entry]

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Another early start this day as we were going to experience what all should experience at Uluru: a sunrise. We hopped in the car around 6:45am and drove for about a half hour to the area set aside for cars to watch the sunrise. This place is seriously well organized. It was stunning, to say the least. We saw Uluru change from dark brown to purple/red to proper bright orange as it looks during the day. We’ve added a couple photos but only seriously good cameras can capture the colours and give it justice. The other tourists entertained us, jumping and [View Full Entry]

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Another early morning start for us and for Maja, as she kindly volunteered to chauffeur us to the airport. Flights are good and Alice Springs is a very small airport we make our transfer easily. It’s strange landing somewhere that is almost entirely owned by our hotel company. Our hotel is adequate, but a far cry from the 4.5 Stars they have given themselves! (We had done the research and knew what to expect.) Our first night is the “Sounds of Silence Dinner” outside. It starts with a short bus ride to a champagne and canapé reception on the dunes. We [View Full Entry]

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What a fabulous day we had Monday. The sun was shining bright as we woke up nice and early at 8am (8am is now early to us!) and walked down the road to the Balgowlah Golf Course. Yes, that’s right, we’re taking some golf lessons whilst were in Sydney. Son & Kevin, we know you’ll be impressed! Our instructor is Ollie, who is a very amiable Aussie. We spent an hour putting and chipping and it was great fun! Next lesson is in a week’s time when we’re back from our trip to Uluru/Melbourne. After the lesson, we got to experience [View Full Entry]

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Waking up looking outside I see a fat man slightly balding looking back at me. After several obscure and slight obscene jesters I come to the depressing realization that the fat bloke in the window is actually me in a mirror!!!!! Motivation session over, I am pumped and ready to run our daily walk to Manly. Fortunately Kimmy agrees to do the run with me so I am not lonely while trying to shed a few of the holiday pounds. We make the run and manage to pick up the last of our 35 mm photos we will ever have developed [View Full Entry]

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And so begins another day in sunny Sydney. Bit of an earlier start as Shane chatted to his SFU advisor at 7am. "C.C." came over for a pet while I drank a lovely cup of tea. Dishes were washed, showers had and off we went! Early morning starts are my favourite. Fast-paced walk in the morning to Warringah Mall, mostly along a busy road but next to the Warringah Golf Course so it wasn't too bad. Got to the mall and wandered around for a couple of hours, trying to find zip-off travel trousers for me, a hat for Shane, and [View Full Entry]

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Alright, so now it's my turn to blog about the last 2 days. Boy do I get the fun ones! Yesterday, we slept in and then did our usual walk to Manly along the beaches from Balgowlah, where Maja and Steve live. We had a fabulous lunch at Hugo's, a restaurant right on the water by the ferry that goes right into the CBD at Circular Quay. Hugo's was voted "Best Pizza in the World" in 2005 and has consistently won "Best Pizza in Australia" by various awarding bodies every year. Damn it, the pizza was tasty. We'll have to go [View Full Entry]

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04:30 ZULU TIME SOMEWHERE ON AN ISLAND IN THE PACIFIC A TAXI DRIVER WITH THE CODE NAME "THE CONDUCTOR" ARRIVES AT HIS DESTINATION TO PICK UP PASSENGERS UNKNOWN..... Always wanted to start something like that. So 4:30 am is quite early but that is when our taxi to the Sydney airport arrives and our Tasmanian adventure begins. We arrive at the airport early and I sense that their may be some bitterness amongst all present, to my crazy desire to get to the every airport early or even very early...however, after some coffee and food this feeling subsides. We arrived in [View Full Entry]

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Sorry to all the faithful subscribers out there for not having written recently! We have been having a great time in and around Sydney. We are starting to set up a bit of a routine, walking from Steve and Maja's to Manly harbour and back daily (1.5hours). There is a great coffee shop where I fetch my morning fix of 'FLAT WHITE COFFEE' (Australia's special coffee, better than Americano or Cappuccino). There has been a mix of weather here, nice in the mornings and rainy in the afternoons. For anyone who travels weather is often a deciding factor in what to [View Full Entry]

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I'll keep this one brief as we haven't done too much to write about. And I mean that in a good way. We've just been taking it easy. Sleeping, eating, drinking and hanging with Steve and Maja. We haven't even taken any photos. I took Shane on Saturday night for his birthday to Cafe Sydney, a gorgeous restaurant in Sydney Harbour. M&S were off at a birthday party in town so we went for drinks beforehand and then Shane and I ate loads of tasty seafood and had a lovely bottle of wine. When M&S got home a bit later, we [View Full Entry]

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