This blog entry on 9/23 will be the last of our trip to Australia. We wrapped up with a day of exploring Melbourne, more shopping, visiting the Royal Botanical Garden, and packing to go home. We leave Melbourne on Wednesday morning and arrive in LAX on Wednesday morning, arriving back in PDX by Wednesday afternoon. The international date line helps us quite a bit as we return home after traveling an estimated 23 hours plus to get there. It has been a great trip. We had four different vehicles (not counting the first RV that Dean crunched) and drove an estimated [View Full Entry]

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Sunday 9/21 was mostly a travel day. We drove from Hobart up through the mountains of central Tasmania to the north coast. We saw plenty of snow along the road. We were on gravel roads for about 40 miles or so. We went beyond Devonport to a small town called Burnie to look for platypus. We were not successful. We returned the rental car, which normally would not be a monumental event. In this case, however, Dean has concluded his left side of the road driving without any problems beyond leaving our mark originally on the Sydney Harbour Bridge with the [View Full Entry]

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Tuesday 9/16 brought another windy morning with sporadic cold rain. We took a 40-minute vehicle ferry ride from Queenscliff to Sorrento in order to avoid having to drive through Melbourne. We then headed to our destination of the day, which was the town of Cowes on Phillip Island. The highlight was a visit to the Phillip Island Nature Park to see their nightly penguin parade. This place is a conservation center for 12-inch penguins simply called little penguins or fairy penguins. We took a small group tour that had us dressing in dark rain gear, sitting (shivering!) on the beach until [View Full Entry]

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On Wednesday 9/17 we went to a heritage farm called Churchill Island, which is a historic farmstead with the usual assortment of farm animals. We enjoyed watching some colorful birds flying nearby. We then went to the Koala Conservation Centre where we got up close and personal with more koalas. They really are cute little guys. We then headed to Melbourne where we promptly got lost trying to get across town to the port. We eventually found our destination, returned the rental car, did some shopping, and then settled in for an overnight ferry ride to Tasmania. The term ferry is [View Full Entry]

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On Thursday 9/18 we woke up pretty sore from the recliners. We were certainly ready to move on when the ferry docked at 7:00 a.m. We picked up a rental car and drove about three hours across Tasmania. We stopped at the Cadbury chocolate factory for a tour and purchase of too much chocolate. We then went into Hobart, which is a nice city with a good bit of shopping. We wandered through the shops and down to the waterfront for the views. We then drove on to Port Arthur, which has quite a bit of historical significance to be explained [View Full Entry]

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On Friday 9/19 we spent most of the day at Port Arthur Historical Site. This was a penal colony from 1830 to 1877. There were many interesting ruins to see, and many stories to learn. The tour guides put a positive spin on the idea of reforming the prisoners sent over from Great Britain, but the real story was in the bad folks who ended up there. Port Arthur was for repeat offenders and escapees, so it was not a great place if you happened to be a criminal in that era. Looking at the bright side, however, a few industrious [View Full Entry]

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On Saturday 9/20 we wrapped up at Port Arthur and headed to Hobart. We spent the day wandering around the city, including Salamanca Market. This is a famous street market for this city. In the late afternoon Dean and Kirsten headed up to Mt. Wellington (about 4500 ft), which is just on the outskirts of the city. The wind was blowing at least 50-60 mph, and it was snowing quite hard. They headed down the mountain in time to avoid getting snowed in up there. That would be a bit of an irony—Australia, summer at home, nearly the first day of [View Full Entry]

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Monday was a blustery day with strong winds, rain, hail, and sunshine. We headed out on the Great Ocean Road to Loch Ard Gorge where a famous shipwreck occurred in the 1800s on the last night of a long voyage from England. All but two died. Rather bad end to a long journey. From there we headed to the Twelve Apostles, which is a famous set of limestone towers just off the beach. They are really down to about six or seven apostles now due to erosion, but no one here seems to be interested in renaming the area. We then [View Full Entry]

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We are bit disappointed to not be able to bring home a tshirt or sweatshirt espousing Portland, Victoria. We did happen to see a tshirt in one shop with the Nike logo and the script of “Beaverton, Oregon” on it. Pretty funny. We spent some time today in a town called Warrnambool (great name, I think). We visited a living history museum called Flagstaff Hill that focuses on life on the Southern Ocean coast. We were a bit cold wandering through the exhibits, but it was still quite fun. From there we embarked on the Great Ocean Road. This is a [View Full Entry]

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9/11 is Dean and Tammy’s 31st wedding anniversary. To celebrate, the three of us hit McDonald’s for brunch and a little diner for dinner. We flew from Alice Springs to Adelaide in the state of South Australia this afternoon. South Australia is quite lush with rolling pastures dotted with cows and sheep. We think the cows here are a bit luckier than those at the ranchlands in the Red Centre who have to work at staying alive in barren conditions (and avoiding crazy Americans driving through their rangelands). From Adelaide we drove southeast and ended up in a small town called [View Full Entry]

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