Friday 15^th February
After posting the blog, plugging into the only Internet connection in the hotel (desk in the front lobby) and a great breakfast deal down the road, we headed north towards Adelaide and tried to drive through the centre. When that failed we just gave up and hit the road back towards Melbourne, taking the shorter in-land route.

Australia is a land of more contrasts than New Zealand. As you drive through small towns there is nothing but a run-down looking gas/petrol station and maybe a dubious looking restaurant attached and then you’ll come across an equally sized place (Keith) with restaurants like this

where we had a wonderful lunch in lovely surroundings.

Overnight we stayed at the Zero Inn in Nhill (pronounced ‘nil’) – get it? We dined on takeout from the following restaurant.

They eat a lot of duck in Nhill and they had live jazz in the streets.

Saturday 16^th February
The next day we were back in Albert Park, Melbourne at Tony and Margaret’s, after stopping for a coffee here.

They had a night at the opera while we just snoozed at their place.

Sunday 17^th February
Great day in Albert Park starting with a trip to the South Melbourne Market, a couple of pints of Tetley’s in ‘The Local’, lunch at the Rigbys, afternoon snooze for some people and a wonderful al fresco supper at the Italian (run by a Greek couple) restaurant just down the street.

Monday 18^th FebruaryAfter saying final goodbyes to Tony and Margaret we called in on Aunty Vera for one last visit as we started our trek north to Sydney.

Port Albert was our first overnight stop at the Port Albert Hotel, not a place we particularly recommend but lots of boats around and good fish and chips.

Tuesday 19^th February
Following the coastal route to Sydney you pass the famous 90 mile beach and we stopped for the night in Lakes Entrance which is a big tourist destination on the way.

We stayed at an interesting place – the RSL (Returning Servicemen’s League) club – where the room was very pleasant, inexpensive and the booze cheap and the food high quality Chinese. Although Australian fish and chips, like New Zealand’s are very good, you can’t live on that and we needed a good fix of vegetables.

Wednesday 20^th February
Decided to stay an extra day here, the hotel room was very nice and there were walks to go on.
The wonderfully sunny weather finally came to an end so our walk to see the actual lakes entrance was accompanied by a fine rain that strengthened throughout the day into a downpour – very welcome in dry Australia.

They have a big problem here with sand clogging up the narrow entrance

to the whole area so they have this pumping system, involving pumping sand from the entrance to a place further down the 90 mile beach where they pump it back into the sea.Australia, like New Zealand has a tradition of stump carving. These were all done when they had to cut down some large cypress trees along the waterfront.

Thursday 21^st February
We packed up in the rain; had breakfast in the town (Vibez Café - recommended) and set off heading north up the coast through Snowy River country and over the border into New South Wales. It’s generally a lot greener there than other parts we’ve seen of Australia. We stopped for the night in Tathra at the Seabreeze Holiday Park. Here’s a bit of rugged coastline at Tathra.

Friday 22^nd February
Sunshine starts to return as we continue on up the coast to Batemans Bay after stopping for lunch at Malua Bay. At Batemans Bay we headed inland for Canberra and after some searching we found a room at the Embassy Hotel in Deakin on the outskirts of Canberra.

Saturday 23^rd February
We visited the truly modernistic centre of Canberra and looked round the new parliament buildingswhich are the opposite of the old, rather utilitarian, parliament buildings. Here’s a shot looking out through the pillars of the new, with the old buildings close-in and the war memorial in the distance.

The interior is as striking as the exterior with areas like this

and this.

This is where the MPs do their thing and the roof looks like something from a futuristic movie.

Another landmark is the National Carillon which actually is a gift from the UK.

Back on the road we returned to Batemans Bay before heading for our final stopover in the Comfort Inn at Primbee before reaching Sydney.

Sunday 24^th February
A couple of hours on the road and we’re at Ira and Anne’s place in North Sydney and a lovely place it is too. This is the street they live on

and this is the view from their room, on the peninsula of Kirribilli, out into the bay on the opposite side to Sydney harbour. We had fortuitously arrived the day of a big ship thing in the harbour. The brand new cruise ship Queen Victoria was leaving the harbour to be replaced by the QE-2 on her final voyage, before becoming a floating hotel in Dubai. Here are some pictures of the event.

We managed to find room at this hotel.

Monday 25^th February
Car returned to rental company in Sydney, new place to live in found (Elite) and a day wandering round North Sydney. Academy awards tonight.

Current progress:

Monday 4^th February
Headed into Frankston to find Internet access and post the blog.

Tuesday 5^th February
Hung out at Aunty Vera’s with a trip to the local shopping centre – hey, back in suburbia you have to shop.

Wednesday 6^th February
Borrowed Aunty Vera’s car and drove back into Melbourne for a Carol hair appointment, pick up the rest of our stuff from Tony & Margaret’s and have lunch and a couple of jars with Tony at ‘The Local’ – yes, that’s what it’s called.

Thursday 7^th February
Took a trip with Aunty Vera’s grandson for a job interview. He got the job.

Friday 8^th February
Phillip’s Island is not far from Frankston and is a must do trip for anyone who wants to see penguins in the wild. On the way we stopped in Wildlife World and had some interesting encounters such as this one with kangaroos

and wallabies

and my favourite, a wombat called Millie

Unfortunately you are not permitted to photograph the penguins as they come ashore. It’s dark and the flashes would frighten them back into the water. So I’ll do my best to describe what it was like.

We paid for the ‘Penguin Plus’ experience where you sit with about 150 people on bleachers, some of which face the sea and some of which face the path that they take to go inland. To get to the spot, about an hour before sunset, we walked down about half a kilometre of boardwalk along with hundreds of people going to various other spots. It was a cold night and we as we’d been advised to dress warmly, we did exactly that. As it started to go dark the ‘ranger’ assigned to our group gave us a lesson on penguin behaviour and statistics on their survival rate such as the fact that only ten per cent of them make it to two years old. As the sun set on the shore you could see one or two birds popping out of their burrows in anticipation of their home coming mates and parents. When it was almost too dark to see the breakers we started to see a small group of little white bodies at the water’s edge about 300 metres away. Slowly the tiny group of less than a dozen made its way directly towards us, stopping periodically to look for predators such as Pacific gulls that eat these little guys that are only a foot tall. Eventually they waddled their ungainly way right up to us and on past. By this time more were coming ashore and in larger and larger groups and it became a steady stream passing by us on their way further in land. (The night before, a count of 613 birds made it ashore.) After an hour we were asked to make our way back to the visitor centre and as we walked back the penguins were everywhere around and under the boardwalk and some of them were even in the parking lot hiding in the bushes.

Although we didn’t get any pictures that night, earlier in the day we had been out to ‘The Nobbies’ close by and in addition to spectacular scenery

we got a picture of this little guy just sitting out completely unconcerned.

Saturday 9^th February
As we were planning to leave on the Monday, we took a last opportunity to say goodbye to Aunty Vera’s children and grandchildren and went to a seafood restaurant in nearby Mordialloc for supper.

Sunday 10^th February
Did some shopping in Frankston to prepare for the upcoming trip to Adelaide and then Sydney.

Monday 11^th February
Took the train from Frankston into Melbourne to pick up the rental car from Europcar (half the price of the big names like Hertz) and then headed back to Aunty Vera’s to load up our stuff and set out on our way to Adelaide. The car we were supposed to have had malfunctioning air-conditioning so we lucked out and got a newer vehicle, (an automatic Subaru Impreza with cruise, electric windows and locks and working a/c). Not bad for 14 days unlimited mileage and a drop off in Sydney for 540 Aussie dollars.

We could have driven back through Melbourne but decided to take the ferry that cuts across the outer part of Melbourne harbour. It leaves from Sorrento and arrives in Queenscliff. It was a beautiful day and a pleasant trip on the catamaran ferry.

We made it as far as Torquay that night but failing to find a Fawlty Towers we settled for a caravan park cabin.

Tuesday 12^th February
Breakfast in Torquay and then off we go down the Great Ocean Road, built by servicemen returning from WWII, past the incredible structures called the 12 apostles (one fell down last year so now there’s only 11).

First though we visited the Otway Fly Tree Top Walk where someone built this incredible steel structure that’s 600 metres long and permits you to walk at tree top height in a forest of monstrously tall trees.

Ended up in a cabin in Port Campbell with all mod cons.

Wednesday 13^th February
Breakfast in Port Campbell and then on, hugging the coast towards Adelaide. Man these Aussie cities are way further apart than New Zealand cities.

We saw more spectacular coastal scenery formed by erosion in the form of London Bridge

The first span fell down so they don’t allow you to walk anywhere near things now.

the Grotto

then the Bay of Islands

We spent the night in Beachport which doesn’t have much to recommend it except for a very long jetty

Thursday 14^th February
Back on the road for Adelaide through the dry and dusty Courong National Park and past this roadside artifact.

We spend the night in the St. Francis Winery in Noarlunga south of Adelaide. It’s really just a gambling place but since it was St. Valentine’s day we didn’t have a lot of choice of places to stay.

Latest progress:

Monday 28^th January

Up at 4:45 am to catch the plane from Auckland to Melbourne with another couple (Australians Nikki and Ross) staying at the same motel, who we chatted with at the airport while we waited for the delayed flight. My old school friend Tony (aka Tone) Rigby and his wife Margaret had a bit of a wait, but eventually we were zipping away from the airport to their beautiful restored Victorian townhouse in the Albert Park area of Melbourne.

We took a walk in the Botanical gardens on what was the Australia day off and it was very pleasant sharing the lovely sunny (and not too hot) day with the tourists and the Aussies.

Tuesday 29^th January
While Margaret went off to work but Tone is self-employed, so his boss gave him time off and the three of us took the tram downtown the next day to one of the two huge covered Melbourne markets. Melbourne has some beautiful old Victorian architecture such as this train station

as well as some very modern buildings such as this highest residential building in the Southern hemisphere.

After an excellent outdoor lunch Tony headed back home to pick up Margaret from work and we went to take at look at the Australian Commission for the Moving Image, a sort of movie museum where we were treated to an exhibit of the work of Chris Marklay which had its moments.

We were squashed into the tram on the way back ‘home’ so I was quick on the uptake when Tone suggested a trip to his local for a few schooners (the other sized glasses are called pots) of beer. Afterwards it was back to their place for wine and a great meal and an earlier night. This is not great place for abstinence.

Wednesday 30^th January
In the morning Tone took me to his favourite liquor store which he is justly proud of. The picture only shows a small part of it and the prices were incredible – quite quaffable Australian Shiraz at 4 bucks a bottle.

In the afternoon we went off on the tram to the aquarium where we spent a couple of entertaining hours looking at some very strange fish.

No, that isn’t a piece of seaweed, it’s a ‘dragon seahorse’.

When they built a huge casino complex in Melbourne they transformed a crummy area along the river and it now has a walking area flanked by the river on one side and an endless row of restaurants on the other. On Wednesdays they practice bell-ringing in the church opposite a huge food court where you can choose from several ethnic foods, buy wine and beer and then take it outside and eat with a terrific view of the city. And that’s precisely what all four of us did.

Thursday 31^st January
They day started with welcome (to Melburnians anyway) rain. This was the day set aside for Tony to drive us up to Healesville which is in the Tuscany-like wine growing Yarra valley. After retrieving yours truly’s wallet from the bar of the previous night we set out in the rain to visit the wildlife sanctuary and perhaps do some wine tasting. After an excellent (I use that word a lot but it’s well deserved) lunch we went to the sanctuary where thankfully the rain eased a little and we had a very special time wandering round the facility. Highlights were wallaby's

koalas,

platypuses (at the end of the rather dark clip he/she was rolling round on its back)

and birds of prey.

Friday 1^st February
We hit the city again on the tram and did some shopping at the Victoria market and a few other places and then back to Tony & Margaret’s before going out to pick up some most excellent fish and chips at the classiest fish and chip shop we’ve ever seen.

Saturday 2^nd February
It’s the weekend and Margaret is off work so the four of us head for the Mornington peninsula at the lower end of Melbourne bay. Lunch in Sorrento and a swift half in Portsea both very popular places on a weekend. Then we did our first down under wine tasting with a trip to the beautiful Red Hill Estates

Where we got to sample several of their wines

and came away with a couple of bottles of their dessert wines.

On the way back to Melbourne we were dropped off at Carol’s Aunty Vera who has lived in Foxton since she emigrated 43 years ago.

Sunday 3^rd February
A day of rest at Aunty Vera’s and a chance to update the blog and organize photos etc.