Blogs from Australia, Oceania - page 11

This morning, we woke to the news that there have been a number of cases of Legionnaires Disease linked to Sydney CBD. Yup, pretty much in the zone where we have been wandering around the last two days. So, we heard this on the news and then Bernie’s father rang us to make sure we knew about the Legionnaire’s outbreak in Sydney CBD. Ah well, now if we end up developing respiratory symptoms it will be a toss-up as to whether we have COVID or Legionnaire’s Disease! Hopefully we will succumb to neither. After breakfast downstairs in the dining room, it was time to pack up again and get all of our luggage back into the car … with no luggage trolley in sight to facilitate this! We manhandled our bags back downstairs where Bernie left ... read more

Having been to Sydney before we had decided that there really wasn’t anything in particular that we wanted to see on this trip. We opted instead to catch the light rail/tram thingy into the CBD and browse the Boxing Day/Near Year sales. We shopped in Myer and Tracey purchased a few tops and a dress at 40% off. Bernie found convenient seats to sit on while he played on his mobile phone. He definitely finds that shopping is less of a chore these days with his mobile phone to entertain him while he waits, ha, ha. Bernie received a news update on his phone about 11.00am to say that the Opera House forecourt was already full of NYE sightseers and that no more people would be admitted. WTF, it’s still 13 hours until the fireworks!! We ... read more

Tour Days 82-87 – Melbourne, Australia –To keep the number of photos per blog entry manageable, I decided to separate out the photos of the Australian countryside which I took in the 11-hour, 50-minute daytime train trip (0740 to 1830) from Sydney to Melbourne, Australia. Somewhere along the line I had the impression that the train route went through the Blue Mountains. That was a major reason I wasn’t chomping at the bit to take a day trip to the mountains while I was in Sydney. The train route does not go through the mountains but through open range (where I got a glimpse of my first wild kangaroo) and bountiful farm lands. My seating companion was a semi-retired 60ish gentleman from Sydney who was born in Istanbul, Turkey but felt a calling to move to ... read more

This morning, we visited the Snowy Hydro Discovery Centre before we left Cooma behind us. We were just in time for the day’s first introductory talk and ‘virtual flyover’ experience in the theatrette. It was interesting to hear some details about the Snowy Scheme’s history before learning about Snowy 2.0 and to appreciate the sheer size of the project on the 14-metre-wide screen and floor projections. The Centre’s displays include a three-metre model of the tunnel boring machine which was fascinating BUT no-one could tell us how many people it takes to operate it?! Bernie had decided on the scenic route to Kiama on the minor roads via Braidwood. He checked this route on Google Maps AND Apple Maps and neither of these sources indicated that we would encounter any difficulties. Just out of Cooma we ... read more

This morning we woke to the news that a woman drowned in flash flooding that swept through the caravan park at Buchan yesterday afternoon. The weather was bad in Marlo last night but up in the ranges it was much, much worse. It was terrible to hear news of a fatality not far from where we were. It was much finer this morning, and it was hard to reconcile it with the severity of the weather event that occurred last night. I think out on the coast we caught only the edge of the storm front(s) that swept through yesterday afternoon and evening. We made ourselves a self-catered breakfast which we were able to enjoy on our verandah before re-packing the truck to head north over the Great Dividing Range. Before heading north, though, we drove ... read more