Category: A Tale of Two Countries
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Franz Joseph Glacier
The man at the hotel’s reception desk said if you could see the waterfall from the parking lot, it was a good day to see the glacier. When we arrived too tired to make that walk, you could see the waterfall and the snow on the mountain tops above it…
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Franz Joseph Glacier
We were warned that New Zealand would be colder than Australia but Christchurch was quite warm. We soon discovered that New Zealand has the opposite problem of Australia. While Australia is suffering drought and bush fires, New Zealand is having a very rainy Spring. So much rain has fallen that…
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Now New Zealand
We have made our last airplane flight until we head back to the US in December. And of course, at the Sydney airport was when the Australian version of the TSA literally took everything out of Dawn’s two carry-on items. She had left a bottle with a little water in…
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Impressions of The Land That Time Forgot
As we wandered through Australia, Dawn and I spent a fair amount of time talking about how much this or that part of Australia reminded us of other places we have been fortunate enough to visit in our years of traveling. But what occurred to me in the shower this…
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The Blue Mountains
Our Australian adventure has come to its last two days. While we really enjoyed the Rocks area of Sydney, we wanted one more journey into the bush before we head off to New Zealand. When Sydney was first being developed, numerous groups attempted to push further into the Australian interior…
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Sydney
Athough Dutch and Spanish navigators discovered western Australia in the late 1600’s, it was not until 1770 that Captain Cook explored and charted parts of the east coast of Australia and claimed the territory for England. And even though its land mass was bigger than all of Europe (even bigger…
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Cradle Mountain Part Two
Cradle Mountain is almost 5,100 feet above sea level and was declared a scenic reserve in 1922. The campaign to create a park was led by a couple who visited on their honeymoon and decided it should be protected. The area became a National Park in 1947 but the surrounding…
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Cradle Mountain – Part One
Our second Tasmanian National Park destination was Cradle Mountain, which required a further journey down the A1. Since this is the main highway in Tasmania, it did have one section (of approximately 4 miles) that was a true four lane divided highway in the US sense. However, instead of a…
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Our Night in Launceston
Our next National Park is Cradle Mountain in the northwest of the square that is Tasmania. But to get there in one day would require a five hour drive, so we elected to stay in Launceston (the second largest city in Tasmania) which is about halfway to Cradle Mountain. The…
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Freycinet National Park – Tasmania
The All Blacks of New Zealand finally met a better team in England, as England won in the Rugby World Cup semi-final Saturday night. So we were up late watching the game before we started packing for our tour of the national parks of Tasmania. First up is Freycient National…
Ginger Without Borders 