Australia

As we all know, Australia is a large country, so large that it is also a continent. The question is, how do you experience a country that large without spending a lifetime there? Given almost unlimited options, of which I’m sure we only scratched the surface, we started out by flying into Melbourne, then to Alice Springs to visit Ululu or Ayer’s Rock and to experience the culture of Aborigines. We then flew to Cairns to see the tropical rain forest and the Great Barrier Reef, and then to Sydney as a departing pointing to London. Flying between these time zones, we also hooked up with some of our Aussie friends, whom we had met earlier during our journey in other countries, and had the most wonderful time getting together again.

We flew into Melbourne late in the afternoon and took the airport express into the city center to a large train station called the Southern Cross Station. From there, we took a short train ride to our apartment, which was conveniently located close to a train stop. For the first time, we tried the ‘fully serviced apartment’ (more like renting a condo with maid service in the U.S.). It worked out great. It made us feel like a local.

The next day we checked out the city by taking a short walk to the Royal Botanical Garden and then hopping on a free city circle tour bus designed just for tourists. We then went on a short walk to the city center to a museum and stopped at the information center. We found that Melbourne is extremely tourist friendly. It has a large tourist center and free buses and trolleys that take you around to all of the sights and attractions in the city.

Inside this beautiful museum, they were holding a special Bugatti exhibit where we got to see the three generations of Bugatti’s sculptures, automobiles, furniture, and art.

This building is the central train station across from the Federation Square and the tourist information center.


Federation Square is the central meeting point for the residents of Melbourne. When we were there, there was a benefit concert for the families who had lost their homes and loved ones from the devastating brush fires a few weeks prior to our arrival. One of the performances was by the performers from the musical “Wicked”. The day was scorching hot and yet the very next day, the temperature suddenly dropped by about 20 degrees F. The temperature variance was due to the direction of the wind; from either the cold Antarctic air from the south or the hot and dry desert air from the north.

As a part of the free tourist center program, we signed up for a guided walking tour of the city. Another couple from Seattle, who were on a cruise ship (which had docked), spent a very pleasant three hour walk with us around the various alleys and historical buildings.

Skyline of Melbourne.

The war remembrance memorial building with an eternal flame.

The next morning, we rented a car to drive about 3 hours north to a small town, Howlong. We went there to meet up with our friends whom we had met in New Zealand. They had invited us to visit them at their farm in Burrumbuttock near Albury. Kevin met us at Howlong to lead us to his farm. We drove for another ten miles or so on country roads to get there. Our GPS system failed in finding their farm.

At the farm house, we met the entire family of Kevin and Tess Hunt. Their son Adam, and her parents, Les and Josephine. Instead of the typical Aussie BBQ, Tess cooked us a wonderful corn beef dinner – totally delicious.

Afterwards, we sat out on their front porch to watch the sunset with this idyllic background. It was the most peaceful and relaxing scene from a front porch that I have ever seen, especially with a cold VB in our hands– Kevin’s favorite Australian beer.
I have always wanted to see the star formation of “the southern cross” since it is only visible from the southern hemisphere. It happened that Kevin’s neighbor was an astronomy buff. All of Kevin’s family, along with the two of us, hopped on Kevin’s pick up truck to drive over (took about 5 minutes) to his next door neighbor’s house. He could name all of the stars, constellations, galaxies, clusters, and planets for us. He even had a powerful laser pointer, which he used to point out exactly where “the southern cross” is as well as other various formations in the sky. With no lights around the farm, the sky just glittered with millions of stars, like sparkling jewels.


We slept well in their house for the night. The Hunts were the most eco-friendly family that we have ever met; the farm was self sufficient with its own water tank filled with rain water, nothing gets wasted – all of the leftovers gets fed to the animals, and a lot of things are recycled.

Since both Kevin and Tess had to go to work, Les cooked us a lovely full breakfast, turning up the Barbie in the back patio – a first time for us to have BBQ breakfast. Les, Joanne and I were supposed to get a round of golf in the next morning, but instead, we went out for wine tasting in a local winery and spent the afternoon with Les and Jo. In the evening, we invited the entire Hunt family out to dinner (we let Tess pick her favorite restaurant), including Hazel, Adam’s great grandmother (she was as fun and jovial as the rest of the family). After dinner, we drove back to Melbourne in preparation for the early morning flight to Alice Springs. More than any other sights we saw in Australia, the time we spent together and the fun we all had, will be remembered and will remain as the highlight of our trip to Australia.

This is an emu bird; it looks like an ostrich. Look very closely at the bird’s eyes. The small dark spot in the middle of the lighter patch, is not the eye! The eyes are actually located in front of that dark patch.

Here’s looking at you kid!

Uluru, or Ayer’s Rock, is considered a very sacred place by the Aborigines. This is located in the very center of Australia, in the middle of a vast desert; the Australian Outback. I expected this area to be super hot; it is not uncommon for the unprepared tourists to suffer from heat stroke. However, on the day we were there, the temperature was very pleasant with even a light drizzle sporadically. From Alice Springs, we decided to tour this area by joining a tour. This was a long one- day tour; lasting from 6:00AM till 1:00AM. It took 5 hours to drive there and 5 hours to drive back; good thing I didn’t have to drive.

On our way to the ‘valley of the wind’ – we were lucky the temperature was nothing like the day before from the rain the night before.

Another thing we needed to prepare was a fly net around our face. Without it, what you see on Joanne’s hat would have ended up in our mouth, nose, eyes or ears.

A mishap of wearing a fly net is that you could look like a jellyfish when the wind blows. Everyone in the tour got a good kick out of me looking like I was about to fly off at any minute.
One of many natural overhangs for the Aborigines to cool off and provide shelter.

We found a number of wall paintings left behind by the Aborgines, inside the caves. All I remember is that the concentric rings represent water.

Uluru during sunset was magical – the shade of color changed ever so subtly. The barbeque dinner complete with Champaign got all of us in a happy mood. Afterwards, we all had a long five hour bus ride back to town.

Joanne took this picture from the plane as we flew out on our way to Cairns. We also witnessed a fresh water river flowing from Queensland (where it had been flooding) to the desert. The pilot told us that this happens only once in about ten years.

This is only a part of our trip to Australia.  More will follow very soon.  We're in Ireland now.  We will need to update on our trip to UK as well.