Author: marionvermazen

Sunday morning we began exploring the cost of New South Wales south of Sydney.We stopped at the blowhole on the point in Kiama.

From Kiama we continued to meander south along the coast. This coast is really gorgeous.

We eventually ended up in a motel in the little town of Huskisson on Jarvis Bay. The weather was cold and windy. We walked down to pick up a pizza and enjoyed it on our balcony overlooking the bay.

Hillary Clinton and Robert Gates have been in Australia this week so it has been really interesting to watch the coverage of their visits.

I have been whining a bit about how most places we stay charge a lot for internet. But Monday night we are at the Whale Motor Inn in Narooma and they have free fast internet!! Thank you Whale!! I have uploaded all my pictures so far to Flickr. They are available on Flickr here. I probably won't get them all labeled until I get home.

Duke and I are on a four week vacation in Australia. We are driving from Cairns in Northern Queensland to Melbourne on Australia's south coast, exploring along the way.

Last Friday we drove to the Hunter Valley north west of Sydney and tasted wine at a couple of wineries.

We were having a hard time finding a place to spend the night because a big concert was happening Saturday night (Peter Frampton, Chicago and America).

We stopped at the Hunter Valley Wine Country Visitor Centre and got some help finding and booking a room. When we came out of the information office 15 minutes later we had a flat tire on our rental car! It had been raining all day and was still raining hard so we were very happy to call road side assistance and have it changed. We ended up spending about three hours of prime wine tasting time getting the tire changed and repaired. 

Finally we checked into our Guest House and went to find a couple more wineries before they closed their tasting rooms at 5.  The Hunter Valley is a beautiful region. It is just too bad it was rainy and cold. It would have been nice to sit outside, sip our wine and enjoy the view. The guest house was on top of a hill and our room had a whole wall of windows. We did get to enjoy the wonderful view over breakfast in our room.

Wednesday we drove down to the Gold Coast, on the Queensland coast south of Brisbane. The Gold Coast has beautiful beaches and has lots of high rise condos and hotels. What a difference 40 years makes. When we lived in Australia we spent a Christmas at the Gold Coast and there wasn’t even one high rise.

This picture is one we took on the Gold Coast on Wednesday

This picture is one of my sister looking out at the Gold Coast 41 years ago!

From the Gold Coast we drove south, left Queensland and headed into New South Wales. It was interesting to listen to the American mid term election results on Australian radio. At one point they were talking about “accused witch Christine O'Donnell” being defeated.

Wednesday night we stayed at Darlington Beach Holiday Park in a small villa. We saw lots of resorts like this one where families could have a reasonably priced vacation on undeveloped beaches.The resort is located just north of the town of Coffs Harbour. Our villa was about a quarter of a mile from the beach so we walked to the beach. It was empty and beautiful. We collected some rocks and shells for our turtle and fish tanks.

Later We went into town and picked up beer  and a pizza. We took it back to our cabin to enjoy it.

On Thursday we made a lot of progress in our drive towards Sydney. We stopped briefly a few times. Once at the Big Banana in Coffs Bay where I got an Australian hat to replace my Sun Microsystems baseball hat which I lost in Cairns. I am a bit upset about losing it since Sun (my former employer) is no more and the hat is irreplaceable. But I love my new Australian hat.

We stopped in Nambucca Heads and went out to the Captain Cook Lookout. We were able to see hump back whales migrating south for the summer. They were very close to us and put on quite a show.

We also stopped and had a picnic at a Smokey Cape Lighthouse. It was stunningly beautiful.

We spent Thursday night in Nelsons Bay.

I am behind in posting pictures to Flickr because almost every place we have stayed recently charges a lot for uploading. What a pain!  Anyway I will upload my picture when I get home or when I can do it without spending a  fortune.

Duke and I are having a wonderful time exploring Australia. One of the things we are finding is that you pay for Internet everywhere (if they have it) and sometimes it is pretty slow. As a result I am a bit behind in blogging. This post picks up on our last day in Brisbane as we complete our tour of the locations where my family lived 40+ years ago.

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Last Monday morning we drove out to Brookfield to see the second house my family lived in back in the  60’s when we were here in Brisbane. Our house was still there and looked much the same. When we lived there the Macintoshs were our neighbors.  When Duke and I were there Monday the name on the mailbox next to the Robinson’s old house was Macintosh!  We walked up the drive way and knocked on the door. No one was home.  Back on the street I called Dad to update him on all we had seen.

Right after I hung up as we were driving away a car pulled into the Macintosh’s drive way. We went back up the drive way. When I told Mrs Macintosh who I was she gave me a big hug and asked me how that little brother of mine was. She invited us in for coffee and we updated each other on what has happened to our families over the last 40+ years.  She laughed about how my brother who was about four at the time used to come over to their house and climb in the window to visit her young sons.

Monday night we stayed near Brisbane and went for dinner at my friend Cathy’s house. It was so much fun to see her and meet her husband.

Tuesday morning we left Brisbane and drove to Lamington National Park south of Brisbane. From our tent cabin you could see the ocean and the skyscrapers at the Gold Coast. Lamington has mountains and sub tropical rain forest. We went for a hike and then had a picnic dinner on the balcony of our tent cabin.