Blogs from Australia, Oceania - page 4508

Et nous voila a Melbourne. a 7 plombes du mat', une heure en avance, heureuses d'arrivees en un morceau. Notre chauffeur, completement tare, a cru bon de faire du 100 a l'heure sur toutes les routes, sans sembler ralentir dans les tournants. Franchement, vive la voiture!! En plus, on n'etait meme pas certaines de pouvoir tapper notre brol dans la chambre (les check out etant a 10h du matin). Par chance, nos lits etaient dispos, et on a pu acceder directement a notre chambre, dans laquelle nous avons ete accueillies par une odeur nauseabonde au possible! On c'est grouillees de prendre nos affaires de douche et de sortir de cet enfer olfactif (reellement... ce n'etait pas tenable!). Notre Gilles national etait a Sydney depuis quelques jours, et Pierre et Aurelia (deux compatriotes HEC-ens) devaient arriver le ... read more

Wednesday April 5th Lo from OZ! Late start today, as we’re all feeling a little burnt after the last few days of being really busy. But hell, we’re only 45 minutes away from Australia zoo, and its overcast, so we won’t get burnt any more! We do the short drive with ease, and pull into the zoo. Not too busy here yet…good! The first thing we see that there is a show at 12:00, so we rush over to the venue, and Steve isn’t doing the show…damn, well maybe later at the “agro” show. The show is pretty informative, and shows how the crocs strike in the wild, and they tell you where you should and shouldn’t go. You know crocs can swim 30 km an hour? I didn’t. They're also passionate lovers and very good ... read more

A very early start yesterday morning for a trip we booked and payed for on Monday to catch a courtesy bus to the Australian Zoo, the Zoo that is owned by none other than the legendary Steve Irwin, Crocodile Hunter. This is something that I have had in the back of mind mind since I stepped foot on that plane in Bangkok towards Australia. The bad thing is, is that when you book to go to the Zoo they refuse to tell you if the man himself is going to be there, so it is completely pot-luck. 8:30am and we jump on a double decker bus with 'Australia Zoo' and a big picture of Steve Irwin on the side. On the journey they played a VHS of Steve's life, he really is a character even since ... read more

Ularu Michael wanted to visit this centre of the country as he had heard so much about it. It proved to a magical place. We had to make the best of morning and evening so we went to the Sounds of Silence meal at sunset in the desert. We walked round Ularu starting before sunrise. Magic. We took a ride on a camel (lovely creatures) to view Ularu at dawn. Magic. Meanwhile we read Songlines by Bruce Chatwin to provide us with an understanding of the Aborigines and their relationship to the land. But we had to move on to Queensland. Our last flight of our holiday. (One sad note was that one of the camels died the night before we took our ride and the men who ran the ranch were in floods of tears ... read more

Me and Tom rushed to get ready for the bus at 8.10am to go to the Blue Mountains. They are called this because the vapour off all the eucalyptus trees make it look blue. We went to a volcanic crater and walked up to Euroca, saw more kangeroos. Wentworth falls was next, brilliant veiws and a couple of nice water falls. One of which Charles Darwin had walked through. Lunch was in a pretty little village called Leura, which is famous for its gardens. Echo point was an amazing view, especially of The 3 sisters. We then walked down 1000 steps at scienic world. In the rocks is a face, quite scary. The aboriginals have a story about this rock and the 3 sisters. wont bore u with it now. We went back up on the ... read more