Blogs from Australia, Oceania - page 4501

Lo from oz! We getup early and went down to the Townsville market. This is an open street market, where there is a band, and food is served. It’s the length of a city block, where no cars are allowed. Imagine back home yonge street being closed from Dundas to gerrard, with street vendors everywhere and no cars… that’s what this is like. Bingo, we found a really nice vendor that sells paintings. And we see a gorgeous lorikeet painting. This thing is amazing, only problem is how are we going to get it home…it’s almost 2 feet by 4 feet. We end up buying it, and taking it off the frame and rolling it up, I sure hope it survives the trip back! After the market we’re off to the Townsville aquarium. This place supposedly ... read more

Sara and I went in to town for my final day in Oz. We did some shopping and I got my final lot of photos put on Cd then she headed back up and I went for a browse in the Peter Lik gallery. porbably a mistake as his work is amazing. Hes a very good aussie landscape photographer with a large portfolio of incredible pictures. I ound a book of photos from the sunshine coast which included a lot of the places that me and Sara had been on our little road trip. So, it being her birthday on thursday, I decided to treat her to it. Like one big memory book. But then I thought how nice it would be to both have one. so I got one for each of us. Also bought ... read more

I've decided to fly to Tasmania (Launceston) instead of catching the ferry as had been originally planned. I checked on the ferry website and they wanted to charge me $180 ($40 because I had a roo bar on the car) for an overnight sailing that would take 13 hours. On checking flights this morning I was able to get a flight on Qauntas which took 45 minutes and only cost me $130. Mar and Ana are currently walking the Overland track in western tassie so spent the evening catching up and getting to know Pete, Mar's boyfriend who is a really nice sound bloke with a stunning woodsided cabin set high on the hills overlooking launceston - how lucky they are. There is even an outside hot-tub/spa although the temperature around here at the moment is ... read more

Yes was a very calm day. I loved it though. I did just what I wanted to do, which was wander around everywhere looking at markets. I can't really do loads of things now coz of money (bit tight now!) Today as pretty much the same! I ended up at Manly beach which ws a lot nicer than Bondi, but it's getting quite chilly. ... read more

Satarvo Bianco is a very rare variety of wine only produced by a single winemaker in the foothills of the mountains west of the Hawkesbury. Our 2006 vintage is now in production, read on for the rivetting details ... Cleaning & Bargaining Saturday morning, Rob was up at 6am to prepare the equipment for our white wine making. With everything washed and steralised, he then set off to meet the truck coming from South Australia with our grapes. It was scheduled to arrive at 8am, but grape picking, the weather and long distance road transport logistics delayed the grapes arrival until midday. The truck driver looked happy to finally make it after 13 hours on the road. So, Rob and his father, Peter, met the truck and the entire Farillo family who are involved in the ... read more