Australia, 16-30 Sept
After 9 months in sultry and never-ending-summer Asia, we made our way to Australia, where it was just emerging from their winter. Stepping off the plane in Melbourne from Indonesia the air was instantly chilly to me. Forgot that I gave up my coat about 20 countries ago - oops!
As usual, if you can make it past the pictures, there are more words at the bottom...
Melbourne
Tasmania
Sydney
We came here in 2010 during my “Starter Retirement” and spent a couple months in Australia and New Zealand, including a drive along the coast from Melbourne to Adelaide. I got my Scuba certification in Cairns and did my first dive at the Great Barrier Reef before wife joined me in Sydney a couple of weeks later (she was still working - sucker!).
A couple of quick facts about Australia. It is BIG, roughly 80% the size of the US but with fewer people than Texas (@27 Million people versus 335M US and 745M for Europe - w/Russia). The biggest cities, Sydney and Melbourne, each hold about 5.5M people…a little smaller than Miami. Nearly all of the population is spread along the coast in major cities, so it’s actually an easy country to see a lot of, oddly, even with the large mileage between cities. It’s also a great place for a road trip - you see tons of camper vans along the roads with hippies, surfers, retirees and other showerless mass type people.
I LOVED that road trip, where we got to see the 12 Apostles (actually 7 huge rock towers off the southern coast of Victoria) and Santa Claus preparing for Christmas toys in 100 degree weather instead of snow. December is the height of their Summer, so here Santa’s sleigh might be a jet ski or safari vehicle instead and Santa would be better served in a speedo than a big ass coat. Not a great visual.
Melbourne
Melbourne is the 2nd city, with almost/or more population than Sydney, depending on how they count it. It ‘sort of' reminds me of a cross between Portland and San Diego, with a strong coffee/market/arts scene but also great ocean spaces including the wonderful St. Kilda beach area. We found ourselves googling home prices as we walked along this beach - hmmm…? It’s a short drive to the Yarra Valley wine region and is also the start of the trek to the Great Ocean Road. The city markets are fantastic and worth structuring your trip around - we were able to visit both the Queen Victoria and the South Melbourne Markets walking from our CBD hotel. They have a LOT of land here so they can grow and raise a LOT of stuff. It's tough to walk away and NOT buy every amazing food item you see. Cookies and coffees and meat pies and tacos and ramens and cheeses and strawberries and mystery fruits are everywhere. My only form of self-control is related to the fact that I live in a hotel now and can’t carry everything with me every day.
A few Melbourne highlights. We lucked into owners seats of the Melbourne Ballet performance of Dracula, which was wonderful. The show was sold out but we walked to the box office by chance and, as usual, I charmed the locals (haha!…eye roll from wife) into selling us the owners seats that they weren’t using that night. The show had some of the most amazing choreography, set effects and costuming I’ve seen. Since it was Dracula, the lighting and costuming was mostly black and white, so the ethereal lacy white dressed lady support vampires were able to pop in the dark setting. I don’t know enough about ballet to critique the dancing, but I was mesmerized at the athleticism and delicacy they danced with. I just wish that the theaters would have a small, five minute special session to allow the audience to take photos, because the only photo memories we have are of the banner from outside the theater.
We took a day long wine tour of the Yarra Valley, which produces some wonderful wines and great scenery, but, as always, the highlight of these tours is getting to meet and hang out with total strangers for a time. For some reason (?) the conversations always become a little more fun and free-flowing later in the day. One of the other guests, Erik, was from Norway and was in Australia working on a university degree. He worked in IT for years and was able to take a three year sabbatical in order to do whatever, so he chose to go back to school for a completely different field. When his sabbatical ends he will be able to go back to his company, if he wants, and continue his old work - Europe and their policies surrounding work can be incredible! As a bonus, we were able to meet up with Erik again later in Tasmania and then in Sydney for meals - travel and technology can be amazing that way!
Another highlight was the National Gallery of Victoria, which housed a diverse collection of fine art, including work from many impressionist masters, in an architecturally beautiful building. An interesting factoid here is this museum had a major theft in 1986 of one of Picasso’s famous Weeping Woman paintings. The painting is from a series related to his monsterpiece Guernica, so, significant among Picasso and Spain fans. It was stolen and held for ransom for, interestingly, increases to funding for the arts, and then anonymously located months later unharmed in a locker. I loved the painting but the story behind it made it even more interesting.
Tasmania
I came here by myself in 2010. Lyd had to go back to work so I left her in Sydney, and had a week or so to spend exploring the island. It’s not a huge island but driving around it can take longer than expected due to windy roads, wandering wallabies and regularly stopping every little while to gawk and marvel at the scenery. I had bragged to her that it was the most beautiful place I’d ever been, rivaling New Zealand and later, Alaska. It was also the 2nd place I ever dove and a world away from the warm Barrier Reef waters up north. The waters here are frigid and I remember being amazed at the kelp forests but struggling at the end of the dives to keep my teeth from chipping I was chattering so furiously from the cold. The water is still as cold as I remember…possibly even colder since it’s not fully into their spring now.
Hobart, the biggest city of Tasmania, is really easy to manage in a day or so, but also one of those that you can spend a few days and just relax and enjoy. It’s easy enough to walk everywhere along the waterfront/CBD and has possibly the best Crowne Pointe in the entire IHG network. My one regret was that we missed the supposedly amazing MONA museum, which was closed on the two days we were in town.
Our next stop was to Bruny Island, south of Hobart, where we took the car along on a small ferry and promptly stopped at the local whiskey shop so wife could do some ‘travel research’. Bruny is home to one of the most dramatically beautiful lighthouse scenes in the world. Many of the most beautiful pics we took are from this lighthouse, which sits high on a cliff overlooking about 270 degrees of coastline. We then stayed overnight at the cutest little shipping container cabin, drinking wine on the patio as we watched wallabies hop around ignoring the sunset. There are some…no, many, places that I wish we could stay long term versus just one or two nights. Definitely this sits near the top of that list.
From there we travelled north to Bicheno, on the Eastern Coast and caught the nightly Fairy Penguin procession. Their little colony looked so cute and timid when they were startled by a wallaby hopping innocently into their path. I love penguins.
The weather is beginning to warm up and left us with a stunning day to hike to one of the most amazing beaches in the world, Wineglass Bay. The beach is regularly listed as one of the most beautiful in the world, and rightfully so. It comes with a 90 minute hike that has gotten much easier since I first visited, as they completely redid the trail. What the long hike and COLD water temps leaves you with is basically a secluded beach that is too hard for large tour groups. At times we were the only people on the mile long stretch of sand looking out into the clear blue blue blue water. We waded for most of the walk and hoped the freezing waters would help our sore calves and feet a little for the walk back! The way the waves broke in the middle part of the beach created an odd wall of water effect - I think one or two of the pics show how cool it looked.
Finally, from Bicheno and Wineglass Bay we travelled south, to some wineries (again) on the way to Eaglehawk Neck, which is where I dove 16 years ago. There is an odd rock formation called Tessellated Pavement, which is created through salt crystals, tide and time and creates a cool tiled effect. Our hotel on the cliff above the rocks gave us a full panoramic view of the coastline and a wonderful birdseye view of the pavement from above.
One of the things wife most enjoyed about the island are the proximity to oyster shacks. The shacks let you buy shucked oysters in takeaway packs, so you can have a cheap insta picnic.
Sydney
This city was recently voted the Number 1 city in the world…by this writer. Completely official, btw. What an amazing place and if this wasn’t so far away from EVERYTHING I believe I could have convinced wife to stop traveling now and find a place for a few months. It really has everything a great city needs. Stunning beauty - oh yeeeaaah, check. Amazing architecture - check. World class beaches - lots-o-checks. Opera - check. Wine region nearby - check. Cool people - check. Water taxis - check. Bikinis - check. Diving nearby - check. Huge ass bats that fly in on summer nights - check. Strong mullet culture - check. Great soccer - well, maybe we’ll not include that one. So, to summarize - this is an awesome freakin city!
We were here before and had an amazing time but we didn’t get inside the one thing I really wanted, the Opera House. The Sydney Opera House is one of the greatest buildings in the world…not just because I’m an opera lover, but also because it’s just architecturally striking. We lucked into a prime hotel location just blocks away and could see the opera house from our rooftop lounge. And then wife got us tickets to a sort of Best Of concert featuring some of the Opera Company team. There are quite a few pics of me either fan-boying with the docents or just flashing a stupid grin because I was so happy to be there. Also the free wine from the hotel lounge didn’t hurt. The show was pretty fantastic and they did all of the major numbers, but the real treat was actually being inside the building. Such an amazing place!
One of the really fun things to do in Sydney is to get on a ferry boat and simply ride around. You can get off across the bay somewhere and then hike around or drink around and then just hop back on the ferry home. What an amazing bonus! We hopped down to do the Bronte-Bondi beach hike and walked and gawked at everything for an afternoon. There is such a water culture - there are hidden beaches everywhere and then lap pools built into the side of a cliff next to the beaches, so you can swim next to the ocean without getting beaten onto the rocks. Inside the bays there are diving clubs and rowing /paddling clubs, there are waterside amphitheaters and amazing botanical gardens and it’s all clean and beautiful. I love this city!
Thank you guys, so much, for sharing this journey with everyone! Truly amazing! Beautifu! All the good words!!