Category: A Tale of Two Countries
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Australian Potties
I mentioned a couple of blogs ago that the Melbourne Botanical Gardens had tons of public restrooms. Australia has a ton of public restrooms, apparently maintained by the local municipal authorities (at least that is what the signs say at most of the facilities I have used). In our first…
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Hobart and Tasmania
The weater shifted to the south Thursday night in Melbourne, so we woke up to light rain and heavy winds. We checked to make sure the wind would not have any effect on our flight to Hobart. Qantas said the plane was on schedule, so we pulled our coats from…
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Melbourne Day Two
In Australian, if the wind comes from the north, it brings the dry heart of the Australian desert. But if it comes from the south, that is the cold winds of the Antartic. Today was one of the hottest October days on record in Melbourne and got to 93 degrees…
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Back in the Big City – Melbourne Royal Botanic Gardens
Now that we have checked into the St. Regis Hotel (one of several historic hotels in Melbourne), I have a short reprieve from the mental drain of driving on the left side of the road. And the weather has blessed us with blue skies and 80+ degree temperatures. Melbourne has…
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Phillip Island
The Little Penquin is the smallest species of penquin. They are also called fairy penguins or little blue penguins (because they are the only penguins with slate blue plumage). They are very common on the southern coastline of Australia and New Zealand, and over 32,000 of them live on Phillip…
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More Travel Day Reflections
We left the GOR with a lot of pictures. Last night was Saturday and time for the big quarter-final game between England and Australia in the World Cup of Rugby. Now that apparently means something in Queensland and New South Wales (home of Sydney). But in South Australia and Victoria,…
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Great Ocean Road – Part Two
We were greeted with a rainbow over the ocean when we checked into our hotel room in Apollo Bay. It was a good omen because it meant the rain had moved on. Many parts of Australia are in severe drought and some radio reports indicated that there are localities that…
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The Great Ocean Road – Part One
The Great Ocean Road was built by Australian servicemen returning from the Great War (now know as World War I) as a memorial to their comrades who were lost in Europe. It is the world’s largest war memorial. It is 152 miles long and was built from 1919 until 1932,…
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Our Longest driving day
When the travel agents sent us the proposed Australia schedule, both Dawn and I balked at the distance we would have to cover in one day from Adelaide to Warrnambool in order to start the Great Ocean Road. Google maps indicated it would be about six hours in the rental…
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Back In Adelaide
After two wonderful days on Kangaroo Island, we took a short (25 minute) hop back to Adelaide in a propeller driven Volvo commuter plane. Neither Dawn nor I could remember the last time we rode in a propeller driven plane (and now we have done it twice in three days).…
Ginger Without Borders 