Category: Australia 2010

A mother and two little girls about 7 and 10 sitting behind us on our plane home from Australia on Wednesday. As the Qantas 747 lifted off the Melbourne runway the mother told her girls to tell Australia good-bye. They called out "Good bye Australia! Good-bye Australia! We love you!" I wanted to join in with them. We had a marvelous trip and although it is wonderful to be home, I do love Australia.

We flew home on Wednesday. In my last blog post Sunday night we were in Apollo Bay, Victoria on Australia's Great Ocean Road.

Almost every small town in Australia has a bakery, a butchery, and a fruit and veggies shop. Most days on our trip we stopped at a bakery and picked up bread and a treat for lunch. The bakery in Apollo Bay had signs in its windows saying it had won awards for being one of the best bakeries in Australia.

They had what looked like some wonderful big cinnamon rolls. I asked the shop lady what they were and she said "they are cheese and Vegemite rolls".That would have been a shock to my mouth if I thought I was biting into a cinnamon roll and instead got cheese and Vegemite! We bought one and had it for breakfast. It was really good.

 

Monday we continued our drive along the Great Ocean Road. We climbed down Gibson Steps to the beach. You can just see me in this picture.

We stopped at several view points along the road. We saw the Twelve Apostles rock formations.

The London Bridge Rock formation used to be like a two arch bridge. The first arch collapsed in 1990. At the time there were some people out on what became the island. They had to be rescued by helicopter.

After our drive along the Great Ocean Road we headed inland and spent the night in the town of Halls Gap in Grampian National Park. We stayed in a cabin on Monday night. The lawn in front of reception was covered with kangaroos.

There were also several cockatoos on the table outside our door.

Tuesday morning we hiked in Grampian National Park. This formation is called the Balconies.

Grampian National Park also had a lot of pretty wild flowers

Tuesday afternoon we headed back to Melbourne found a motel near the airport and spent the night there before flying home on Wednesday.

All of my pictures from our trip are on Flickr here. I'll be adding titles and descriptions to the picture over the next week or so. I'm also planning a summary post with info about the cost of our trip, a map, and what I consider some of the highlights and low-lights of the trip. If there are other things you would like to know about our Austalian road trip please leave me a comment or drop me an email.

 

Duke and I are on a month long vacation in Australia. We are finishing up week three. Right now (Thursday morning) we are in Eden New South Wales. Eden is just north of the new South Wales, Victoria Border.

We left Sydney Last Saturday and spent the night in Woolongong. Sunday we drove from Woolongong to Huskisson on Jarvis Bay. Monday morning was beautiful and sunny. We went for a walk along the coast before leaving Huskisson.

The raod does not always exactly follow the coast so as we drove south on Monday we made some detours over to headlands and beaches. We eventually stopped in Narooma and spent the night at the Whale Motor Inn. Narooma has a wonderful boardwalk along the Wagonga River just before it empties into the Pacific. We walked along the boardwalk down to the ocean and saw thousands of fish, some really cool jelly fish and a couple of stingrays.

It was starting to rain again and we even saw a rainbow. After our walk we ate dinner at the Whale Inn overlooking the bay.

Tuesday morning as we headed south again we stopped at a little village called Central Tilba. It had lots of tourist shops and an old Cheese factory. We bought some cheese and browsed a bit.

 We stopped for a picnic lunch in Bermagui. Here I am looking for whales with the binoculars.

In the afternoon we stopped to hike at Mimosa Rocks National Park. We hiked out to Wajurda Point. We have seen whales at almost every overlook we have stopped at. At this overlook we saw some whales crossing the mouth of the bay below us. For about twenty minutes they put on quite a show, breaching, diving and sticking their flippers up. It was awesome.

 

We spent Tuesday and Wednesday nights in Eden. That's where we are now. We found this absolutely wonderful B&B, The Snugcove B&B. We have a room overlooking the harbor and each morning we have eaten a fantastic breakfast on the deck watching the boats and the birds on the bay.

Tuesday night we walked down to the wharf, bought fish and chips for dinner and ate them sitting on a bench watching the sunset.

Wednesday we explored around Eden walked out on the Navy Pier. We also visited an old light tower built by a Ben Boyd an 18th century entrepreneur and schemer. We visited the old whaling station and the whaling museum.

Tuesday night was special because we went out to have dinner with a distant cousin of Duke's and his wife and son. They showed us all around their  property and gave us a fantastic dinner. We had a wonderful time.

 

 Eden is my absolute favorite coastal town we have visited. Most of the shoreline of the harbor is park land. The town is a real fishing town and not too touristy, and the Snug Cove B&B is my favorite place we have stayed on this trip and now we have friends as well as relatives here. I'd like to come back.

 

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.