It’s another beautiful day in Sydney. The umbrellas are out, the rain is coming down in buckets, and mini raging rivers are flooding the streets. Awesome! We slept in a little then ventured out to check out our new neighborhood, the Rocks. The Rocks is a part of Sydney that is infamous for being the prison site in New South Wales where all the prisoners were sent by the British. The British sent the convicts down here and appointed a British governor to rule over the state. Anyway, The Rocks is now a very cool shopping district and is a stone’s throw away from the Sydney Harbor Bridge, the Opera House, the botanical Gardens and many other sites. We have a great view from the roof of our hotel many of these sites. On the weekends ... read more

When the alarm went this morning, the first words out of Chester’s mouth were that we were headed to a pharmacy to get Kirsten cough medicine. We were not sure what we were doing today, we just knew that it was called the Savannah Walkabout. Our guide Paul picked us up at 9 am and we headed out of Melbourne to two reserves that promised koalas, birds and kangaroos. This was a true walkabout and really awesome. The tour company was Echidna Walkabout Nature Tours and they were totally professional and enjoyable. Paul was very knowledgeable and personable. He knew every kind of bird and could pick them out at the drop of a hat. We reached our first reserve to find Mary who also works for the company. She has gone out and early to ... read more

We had an early call in the morning since most of the day we would be on the bus headed to Adelaide. We were packed and ready to go, and were on the bus early so we could get our double seats back. We drove for about an hour to a spot where we were suppose to go on an hour hike Mount Zero, but since it was raining, it was too dangerous to hike. The hike was to be a little strenuous and had some rocks we would have to scramble over. The damn German girl asked if there was another hike we could do instead. There was, but it was to nothing and all we did was get wet in the rain. Kirsten, miserable with her cold and sore throat getting worse elected to ... read more

Our driver is a perky young Australia woman named Kate. She is very energetic and sympathizes with our travel woes. She quickly tells us to get on the bus and pass out. This was the first stop to pick up passengers, so you guessed it, we each picked a double seat and promptly spread out our belongings to claim a big seat and not have to sit next to anyone, including each other. Again, remember we are quite ripe by this point. The bus holds 24 people plus the driver. It had double seats on one side of the isle and single seats on the other. We gathered up the rest of the travelers and luckily only 13 were on the trek so no one has to share seats and a few are open for people ... read more

It was an early morning for our last full day in New Zealand. Today was a day of cabs, busses and boats. A cab picked us up at 7 am and took us to our bus. We were two of the last people on the completely full bus. By 7:30 we headed out of Queenstown and started the 2 ½ hour ride to get us close to Doubtful Sound. The ride was amazing. We had awesome views of lakes on one side of the bus and the mountains on the other side. It is hard to describe how picturesque the scenes are, they don’t even seem real. This was just the first leg of several getting to the Sound. After the bus, we loaded onto a boat that took us across Lake Manapouri, which took about ... read more