10/01/07 - 16/01/07 Sydney once more (and Molong) Our last visit to Sydney was an eclectic mix of shows from the fringes of street entertainment up to the prestige of Verdi at the Opera House, sandwiched round a weekend of country hospitality as we visited our friends out in Molong. In our smartest clothes - jeans, we mixed with the throngs in their suits and cocktail dresses to a fantastic performance of La Traviata, breathtaking in both its sets and arias. The next night we saw ‘Small Metal objects’ a show as part of the Sydney Summer Festival. Seated in a [View Full Entry]

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04/01/07 - 10/01/07 Melbourne We first met the Manzins outisde the Druk airline office inBangkok on the morning of the coup. They invited us to join them when our travels finally reached Victoria so we graciously accepted and actually settled in one location for a whole 6 days and nights! The Manzin's home is in the northern Melbourne suburb of Eltham, a beautiful leafy green area perfectly situated between the attractions of the city of Melbourne and the Yarra wine valley, complete with koala spotting in the gum trees just 5 minutes walk from their house. UK animal and bird life [View Full Entry]

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24/12/06 - 03/01/07 A taste of Tasmania Our Xmas and New Year in Tasmania with the nightmare of pre-booking accommodation over the holiday period and not knowing what would be opened and closed. We stayed at Peppers resort in Launceston for Xmas, a swanky apartment overlooking the waterfront. We hit Coles Supermarket on Xmas eve to stock up - more on Lindt chocolates then anything else. Our special bottles of red from the hunter valley went down very nicely over the three days, along with some Tassie blue vein cheese and brie. After wandering the empty streets of town for Christmas [View Full Entry]

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23/12/06 Luna Park Bypassing the craziness of bustling Christmas streets, we wandered through the Chinese Garden and then dodged the shoppers on George Street and Pitt Street Mall. As dusk came we arrived at Circular Quay for a $10, 4 minute Harbour Crossing to Millsons Point and the night time lights of Luna Park. We rode the Wild Mouse and the Ferris Wheel and dropped some wooden balls in the clowns mouth, trying to win a huge cuddly toy that we couldn't take on the next plane. As we waited for the ferry back, fireworks burst into the sky above the [View Full Entry]

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15/12/06 - 18/12/06 A quick stop at Surfers Paradise, to say we’d been there and then up a winding mountain road, reminiscent of Northern Thailand or Bhutan up to O’Reillys plateau. O’Reillys guesthouse is set in an amazing location with fantastic views. It is primarily a bird watching retreat with lyrebirds and their symbol the black and gold bower bird. Crimson rosellas and king parrots landed on our balcony, table and Jeanette’s shoulder enjoying my banana muffin -  Sacrificing the only food that we had to tempt them with. We stopped off for a co [View Full Entry]

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11/12/06 - 14/12/06 One of the standard tourist stops on Australia’s east coast is Fraser Island. It’s the largest sand island in the world and heritage listed. We stayed in Hervey Bay and took the early ferry over for a day tour, managing to spot a couple of dolphins off the back of the boat as crossed Platypus Bay. Seat belts on the 4WD bus were essential as the bus bounced along on the sandy tracks, crossing the island. The 75-mile beach on the east coast of the island is a national highway as well as an airstrip. We passed Eli [View Full Entry]

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08/12/06 - 10/12/06 Bundaberg & Childers Bundaberg is the sugar cane area of Queensland and famous for the Bundaberg rum distillery with the name known all over Australia and beyond, but it’s also famous for something else. 14km north of town is a small 1.5km long stretch of beach called Mon Repos. Between December and March every year this beach becomes the biggest rookery for marine turtles, particularly loggerheads, in the Southern Hemisphere, possibly the world. Marine turtles have been studied at Mon Repos for over 50 years by marine biologist Dr Colin Limpus, with hatchlings [View Full Entry]

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07/12/06 Town of 1770 6 or 700 km later. Dunno. Lost count. Drove through the beef capital of Australia, Rockhampton. Spotted at least one cattle truck at the traffic lights in town, with mournful looking cows with large floppy ears looking out over the traffic. Large concrete cows stand proudly on the center of roundabouts on the main roads in and out of town (depends which way you are heading I guess), welcoming you with the fact that there are 2 squillion cows within a 250k radius of the town and supposedly a multitude of great steak restaurants. Despite that mouth-watering [View Full Entry]

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05/12/06 - 07/12/06 Pioneer River Valley (Eungella national park) The Broken River Retreat was fully booked for the night so we postponed the platypuses for a night and headed to Stoney Creek Cottage for a farm stay. After pulling up at the farm, one of the owners, Steve dropped us at the cottage in his 4WD, as it was deep into the woods down a long track. The beautiful Mackay cedar wood cottage stands on its own in quite a remote location. It looked like the kind of place that you see in the opening scene of a horror film, where [View Full Entry]

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03/12/06 - 04/12/06 Whitsunday Islands I have to start this entry with Sunday night’s meal at Airlee Beach and mention the Divine Fish Bar and Divine Rum Bar in the mall next to Airlee Waterfront Backpackers. The blueberry mojitos and beer battered mackerel and chips was simply Divine. Probably the best fish meals on the planet! We decided it was time to splash out and treat ourselves to a couple of luxury experiences! After all it was a Monday morning and everyone hates Monday mornings!! ;-) We started the day with a 10 am two and a half hour champagne picnic [View Full Entry]

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