Overseas Adventure Tour to Australia and New Zealand
After a night in Honolulu + 10.5 hours to Sydney + 1.5 hours to Melbourne + 6 hours of airport time, I finally arrived at 11:45 pm on October 8, having lost a day when crossing the International Date Line.
View of Melbourne the next morning from my hotel window.
Butterfly display at the Melbourne Museum.
Aboriginal shields at the Melbourne Museum.
Aboriginal sails at the Melbourne Museum.
Melbourne Federation Square
Melbourne Federation Square: an aboriginal possum skin blanket
Melbourne street art – coin purse
Australian surrealism at the Ian Potter Centre of the National Gallery of Australia
Also pop art
Romantic art
Modern aboriginal art
A possum skin aboriginal robe at the Ian Potter Centre
The train station block across the street from the hotel was lit with colored lights at night.
At the 12 Apostles on the Great Ocean road outside Melbourne.
Emus showed up at one of our stops.
A beach stop on the Great Ocean Road.
Since we did the Great Ocean Road in reverse (after traveling inland initially), now back at the start.
The “normal” train station lighting in Melbourne.
A koala at the Moonlit Sanctuary.
Also an owl …
and a dingo.
Herrenswood Garden.
Dromana Beach. The changing shelters, if ever available, sell for hundreds of thousands of dollars.
After a 3 hour flight from Melbourne, we are in the middle of the country at Alice Springs, a community that developed around one of the telegraph stations that relayed messages from England to Australia.
Maree’s Mob (e.g., mob = grouping of kangaroos, so appropriately Australian)
Joan, George, Cindy, Sarah, John, Carol, Ron, Julie, Cindi, Harry
Pris, Beth, Patty, Winona
Maree (our tour guide), lounging in the foreground
Standley Chasm, near Alice Springs.
Stream bed at Standley Chasm.
With John, George and Harry at the chasm.
Aboriginal table decorations at Standley Chasm.
Patty helps with dinner.
After-dinner entertainment, with Winona and John accompanying.
Uluru (previously Ayer’s Rock) at sunset.
Uluru at sunrise (yes, we had to get up early!).
Available trails at Uluru and Kata Tjuta (a sister rock formation).
Walpa Gorge trail.
Australian desert while flying back to Melbourne.
Maree’s art class – working on holiday decorations while waiting in Melbourne for our flight to Cairns.
The results.
A day with the crocodiles … and other animals.
Koala, napping as usual.
Feeding a small ‘roo.
Petting a larger one.
Emus.
A lace monitor.
A cassowary …
and another.
With a koala on it’s petting break.
And, finally, the crocodiles.
Crocodile in action!
As an engineer who loves vehicles, this one shows two features that I saw many times on the trip:
- A fording option, with a breather for going through (somewhat) deep water.
- Although there were plenty of pickups with standard beds, about10-20% of the ones I saw had a flat bed like this one does.
At the Great Barrier Reef.
Snorkelers at the Great Barrier Reef. After jumping in the water, I decided I was not comfortable snorkeling in mid-ocean so I got back out.
A semi-submersible craft at the Great Barrier Reef that we did not get to experience for underwater viewing because the current was too strong.
Sunset at Palm Cove.
Daintree rain forest.
Can you see the spider?
Roots in the rain forest.
Cassowary in its natural habitat.
Returning from Daintree.
After another flight, we are in Sydney for dinner at Spice Alley, at a table with Julie.
The Sydney Opera House and bridge.
Bondi Beach
Views at the Don Ritchie Grove.
R U OK?
These cliffs are a known suicide spot and a man across the street is credited with calming hundreds of people who were here for that purpose.
Robertson Park in Sydney.
Doyle’s restaurant and ferry stop.
Ferries arriving.
Opera house and bridge from the ferry.
Opera house from the ferry. We did not actually visit until the next day.
Art Gallery of New South Wales in Sydney.
Cats, butterflies and blossoms.
Gallery with artistic totem-like poles of ceramic.
Australian gothic?
Picasso
A shell-encrusted model of the Sydney Harbour bridge.
Frank Stella.
Walking the bridge.
On the bridge with Patty.
Some people, not in our group, also choose to climb to the top of the bridge.
Suez Canal – one of the early alleys in Sydney.
People on top of the bridge, as seen from the Opera House.
A visit to thew Opera House.
Inside the Opera House.
Exterior tiles of the Opera House.
Perhaps because I am an engineer who has seen lots of theatrical/ballet/orchestral performances over the years, the Opera House tour was not very satisfying because we only got views from the back of the performance areas. I would have found the stage and backstage areas much more interesting.
My favorite place in Sydney – thank you Maree!
Sydney’s Darling Harbour at night.
So concludes the time in Australia: here is some Maree data and humor:
After a flight to New Zealand, the Auckland harbor in the Wynyard Quarter.
Auckland street art.
Cornwall Park in Auckland.
Auckland footbridge over the harbor.
Auckland Skytower from the harbor.
Auckland – America’s Cup hangar. Their current boat was in Barcelona but an onshore crew member said they will be building a new one.
In the Skytower with Patty, Sarah and Winona.
After a flight to Christchurch on the South Island, we stop at the Morelea sheep station.
Beth and Winona (hidden) feeding lambs.
Sheep dog at work.
Sheep shearing.
Statue to a faithful collie.
A surprising morning at Twizel.
Harry viewing the old gold fields at Bannockburn.
Guide to the gold fields.
The New Zealand group:
Harry, Cyndi, Winona, Ron, Shelley (our New Zealand tour guide), Patty, Beth, Sarah
Queenstown at dusk.
Fiordland National Park.
More of Fiordland National Park.
Kaka parrots hanging around our bus.
A final view from Fiordland National Park.
Milford Sound, on a boat ride to the Tasman Sea and back.
Waterfalls along Milford Sound.
K-Jet boat ride with Shelley and Patty. Every trip I see some vehicle I would like to drive/pilot. This is certainly the one for this trip: 2 x 450 HP Chevrolet engines, turns on a dime and runs fine in a few inches of water.
Queenstown Gardens.
Ziplineing with Patty – suited up.
In the air.
With our aerial assistant.
Missed opportunity: at the top of the Queenstown gondola there was also a luge activity that looked like a lot of fun.
A walk along the shore on our last morning in New Zealand. In just a few hours, I’ll be starting the 13 hours of flying, 2 customs entries, 3 security checks, plus hours of waiting in airports to get home to Maui.
Photos are mostly mine but some are from shared photos of the group members and tour guides.
Ron's Travels 