Melbourne Trek

Today we decided to walk around Melbourne, down to the bay. It was 4.5 miles to the bay, and I would like you to know that we didn't get lost once. Left the hotel about 9:30am and got to the bay around 10:45, and walked along the beach path.

Then headed back inland towards the Botanical gardens. This is what the streets looked like.

This is a WWII memorial.

We climbed up the stairs to where you see the people are in the above photo. Here is a view from up there looking back to the CBD (city business district) where our hotel is.

From there we mosied (is that an actual word?) through the gardens for a pleasant walk. Not as big as in Sydney, but still quite beautiful.

Headed back to the hotel from there. Can you believe all the people?

And this picture doesn't really show the true amount of people. After resting for awhile in our room, we headed out for an early dinner. In researching the area, we came up with Meatballs and Wine, about 6 blocks away. It was a good decision. Enjoyed a leisurely bottle of wine then had a very good pasta dinner.

By the time we got back to the hotel we had walked over 24,000 steps for over 11.5 miles today. We probably worked off breakfast. Here is the front of the hotel where we are staying.

We are back in the room enjoying a nice quiet evening. 

Leaving Sydney

Wednesday we started a new driving experience by leaving Sydney. It took us about an hour to get out of town and only one wrong turn (or actually we missed the turn). Not bad. Heading South we will take 3 days to get to Melbourne taking the coastal route. The coastline is just beautiful all along the way, but mostly you drive through the forest which they call the bush. Here are some pictures.

This is 7 mile beach.

Our first night was at Batesman Bay where we stayed at this resort and had a little cabin. We went to the liquor store for wine, then to the grocery store for pizza. Proceeded to enjoy both on our little patio.

Took off the next morning for our next trek to Lakes Entrance another 250 miles. Saw some more beautiful coastal scenery. The Australian coast is just spectacular. 

This place was called Blue Pools. The waves just splashed high on the rocks for a beautiful show.

We stopped at Lakes Entrance, which is pretty much a fishing village.

Had dinner at the Ferryhouse Seafood floating restaurant.

This morning got up, went to McDonalds (yes they are everywhere in Australia) for breakfast then took off for a 5 hour drive to Melbourne. Arrived at the hotel (after 3 times around the blocks to find) early afternoon and checked in. This was what greeted us in the room.

We are finding people here in Australia are quite friendly and hotels quite accommodating. We headed out to the hustle and bustle of the streets. We thought Sydney was packed with people, Melbourne is worse. I don't ever want to stay in a big city again. 

Above picture is a street in Chinatown.

We went to an Argentinan restaurant for dinner, not that great.

Here is a view from our room on the 12th floor.

Well we are caught up and we are heading to bed. Good night.

Hunter Valley

OK, let's try to catch up. Tuesday we took a wine tasting tour to Hunter Valley, we didn't want to drive after tasting wine. Hopped on the bus at our hotel and had a 2 hour drive. Believe me, if we drove we would have been lost within 10 minutes, so we were glad we took a tour.

 Our first stop was a boutique winery, where we had a private tasting of 6 wines, good wines, but not great. We were part of a small group of 16, which made it nice. From there we went to have lunch with a wine pairing at Two Fat Blokes. Interesting and good. After lunch stopped at another winery for another tasting, which was good also. It was almost 7:30 by the time we got back to the hotel. Here are some pictures of the trip.

On our travel back the driver took us to see some kangaroo, but they were so far away the pictures didn't turn out. It was a long day, but saw some countryside. Hunter Valley is North of Sydney. We crashed as soon as we got back to the hotel. 

Blue Mountains

Sorry for not posting, but we've been getting back late and just hopping in bed, so I'll try to catch up now before we take off today. Also I would like to apologize for the size of my pictures, I am using my iPad and I don't know how to adjust the size.

Monday ( remember we are 18 hours ahead of Tucson time) since we've seen as much in Sydney as we wanted to, we caught the train at Central Station and headed west for 2 hours to the Blue Mountains. Round trip cost us $20 aud or $14 US. 

We got off in Katoomba and immediately signed up for the Blue Mountain Explorer Bus where you can hop on and off at all the stops.

Our first stop was Scenic World where we road the 52 degree incline railway.

Walked around in the rain forest with the humidity so high and the temp in the 80s that I've never sweated so much before in my life. Then we took the Cableway which descends 545 meters into the Jamison Valley. Beautiful scenery.

Next we took the Skyway, which wasn't much and basically the same scenery. The next stop was Honeymoon Lookout where we hiked back to Echo Point. Along the way we saw the Three Sisters.

The above picture is of the first of the Three Sisters. After that we hopped on the bus to get back to the train station.

Got back to Sydney and went to Meat & Wine Co for a very nice dinner. Jim ordered a skewer and this is what he got.

This area is called the Blue Mountains because there is a blue haze caused by smaller dust particles and water droplets which are enhanced by millions of oil droplets released into the atmosphere by the huge number of eucalyptus trees. All in all, it was a pleasant but hot day.

I need to write about Tuesday later as I need to pack up to leave this morning for another driving experience.

11Mile Day

Yes we walked a little over 11 miles today, and some not easy miles and it was hot and the humidity is around 80%. Started out this morning to walk around the Botanical Gardens, just beautiful. Got a little lost on the way there, but backtracked to get on course (this city is sooooo confusing, I don't know if I'm going East, West or around in a circle). Here I am at the entrance.

We strolled around this beautiful area, taking in all the different kinds of plants. We even came upon some bamboo.

Here is an unusual flower, the plant grows in a pond.

After finding our way through the gardens, we ended up at the Opera House, so we took a closeup look. As you can see, we are not experienced at taking selfies!

Ever wonder what the roof looks like up close? Well here it is. It's not all white like I thought it would be.

We proceeded from there to take the ferry over to Manly to see Manly Beach and walk around. It's about an 1/2 hour trip and saw more of the harbor. Round trip was a little over $30 AUD which computes to about $21 US . Manly is a typical beach city.

But the beaches are just packed.

On the map it showed a path or route around an area to get back to the ferry, so off we went. At first it was quite obvious where to go, but after a while it took off on a path that kept climbing up, hot and humid.

It was pretty, but there was no signs on which direction to go or which path to go on. We made several wrong turns, asked other hikers the way, which no one seemed to know. Through a real difficult area, we luckily joined several others to find the way. Finally got back to the ferry 5 minutes before it took off. The area was beautiful though.

OK, now we're back in Sydney, hot and tired, so we proceed to the oldest Pub in Sydney for a pint (175 years). 

Bars here, you don't sit at the bar, you order at the bar and serve yourself. Also they don't expect tips, even in restaurants where they serve you. It's great. We ended up at a restaurant on the harbor for dinner. So at the end of the day we walked 11.25 miles. Now we are quite tired and heading for bed to rest up for another big day tomorrow.

A Little Aussie Holiday

Boy, but aren't we just the International travelers, Mexico last month now we're in Sydney, Australia. We arrived Saturday morning at 8 after a 14 hour flight (not a pleasure trip), picked up our rental car and proceeded having an experience of driving on the wrong side of the road (more to follow on future experiences) and missing our turns and having to get turned around and get heading in the correct direction. But finally made it to the hotel, Four Points by Sheraton on the harbor.

Changed into our shorts and went discovering. Instead of paying big bucks for a harbor cruise, we took the ferry for a little over $6 each. This is what the ferries look like.

Here are some pictures of the famous harbor bridge where they give tours to walk over the top (quite expensive over $200) and of course Opera House. 

After the ferry, we walked over the harbor bridge, beautiful scenery.

The day was absolutely beautiful, in the 80s light breeze and sunshine. We proceeded to walk back towards the hotel and when we got back to the harbor by the hotel, we just had to stop for a pint. But we were running out of energy. After a bite to eat, went back to our room and hit the sack at 6pm. Woke up this morning at 3:30 after a good sleep and we're ready to hit it again today.