GIANTS RULE!- uh, hello from Adelaide
To be honest, I missed the first half of the game (Adelaide is 13.5 (yes you read that correctly) hours ahead of NY) and did not feel like racing out at 9 am in the morning to sit in a bar. I arrived at the end of half time (10:30 ish?) and discovered I hadn’t missed much. Third quarter was a snooze, but final Q was great! So I guess most of my friends and family did not get to sleep until quite late. The guy sitting next to me was from Boston- he just barely managed to avoid sobbing out loud at the end.
Really missed my annual Super Bowl party- Johnny, Frank, Bob- if any of you are reading this, I’ll see you next year. No New Yorkers in the bar but there was a batch of people rooting for the Giants- actually they were rooting against the Patriots, so I wasn’t the only one cheering when the Giants won.
So I imagine some of you are reading this to hear about Australia. Don’t want to disappoint a large (but extremely silent and unresponsive) group of followers.
I finished Tasmania with a trip to Mt. Wellington (their highest mountain), a visit to the Salamanca market, and an Australian BBQ for Australia Day. The views from Mt. Wellinton were stupendous and the best part is that you can get on a bus and it goes directly to the top- no hiking involved. The worst part of the trip was that it took me a long time to gingerly edge my way out onto the lookout platforms and we only had 30 minutes at the top, so I missed a few spots. (For those of you bothering to view my photos, that’s probably not a great loss.) The Salamanca market is a don’t miss in Hobart. Salamanca is a restored area by the waterfront that’s now full of restaurants and chichi shops, and the market is a large food/crafts/Tasmanian goods street fair held every Saturday. It seemed at the start to be a pretty cool kind of street fair; about halfway through it seemed like a street fair. The BBQ was with friends of Vicki and Richard and was laid back and very pleasant- and no shrimps were thrown on the barbie.
The next day I made it back to Melbourne and this time managed to settle in peaceably, so Melbourne and I are now equal. Melbourne is a gorgeous city and I did my usual trot all around- an activity which most other tourists don’t seem to understand at all. I try and explain that I just like walking around cities, but this usually meets with blank stares.
Then I had what is becoming my usual personal crisis about how to get to my next stop. Australia is way bigger than it looks on the Mercator (I think that’s the word ) map of the world that all of us grew up on. I believe it’s larger than the US (42 hours from north to south and I have no idea what the east to west distance is). So traveling by bus (like I did in Europe and South America) is not really feasible. (Well, it’s feasible, but I ain’t doing it.) Traveling by train is equally time consuming and not particularly cheap. Many tourists take the train as a tourist activity. Considering that there is apparently not much to see for looong stretches of time, I just couldn’t see it. That leaves traveling by plane- many cheap flights to be had, but still it adds up, or taking a multi-day tour to do the sightseeing along the way.
Let us pause for a moment here to discuss the multi-day tours. Most of them are aimed at backpackers, and the ones that are not are out of my financial range. That leaves the backpacker tours. Ahem. The great joys include sleeping in the great outdoors or in hostels, getting up at 6 am every day, and hiking for 6 to 8 km (4-6 miles?) daily. (Did anyone reading this think Myra for any of the activities in that sentence?)
So, one of the don’t miss sightseeing trips out of Melbourne is a tour of the Great Ocean Road. The GOR runs southwest out of Melbourne and there are a number of tours that run the GOR over 3 or 4 days, ending in Adelaide (which is where I wanted to go next). But then I found a $42 fare on Tiger Airways and wimped out with a 1 day tour and that was just perfect. The GOR is as beautiful as they say, although I do believe that much of the scenery was similar to that in NZ. We saw koalas in the wild, which was kind of cool. One of the rock formations you can see in Australia-3 is called The Twelve Apostles. You will know it when you see it, but don’t try to count to 12, many have washed away.
Not done yet with the touring story… Adelaide is a pretty little town, although I don’t think I would call it a don’t miss type of place. From Adelaide I want to go north to Ayers Rock (Uluru) and onto Alice Springs- pretty much the only things to see/do in central Australia. Qantas has a monopoly on those 2 locations and all of the sleeping options in Ayers Rock are run by 1 company on behalf of the Aborginal owners, so the prices are kind of outrageous. This left- yes, you guessed it!- a backpackers’ tour.
Tomorrow morning at 6:15 am (something else that fails to scream out my name) I leave with Adventure Tours for a 6 day, 5 night trip through the outback to Alice Springs via Ayers Rock. I did opt for the single room ensuite (budget accomodations) upgrade, but that’s for the first 3 nights. The last 2 nights will find me sharing a tent- I plan to skip the sleeping in a swag (as I understand it this is a little single tent like thing), especially after the girl who signed me up told me the part she didn’t like so much was when the dingos come right up to you. She assured me they weren’t dangerous. I also hear the first night dinner is kangaroo- I’m advised it’s very good. I know this is not a joke because kangaroo, along with crocodile and emu, can be found on menus here.
Stay tuned for an interesting update from Alice Springs!
Just in case people are worried that I’ll lose my spoiled pampered NYer edge, I am contemplating spending a few nights in Club Med Lindemann Island. That’s in the Whitsunday Islands, midway down the northern part of the east coast between Cairns (in the north) and Brisbane (pretty much dead center of the east coast). I will be flying to Cairns from the Alice (that’s what the Ozzies call it) and was planning to stop in the Whitsundays after (many recommendations for the Whitsundays).
Since I’m already into this line of thought I may as well finish up. The route from Club Med will be Brisbane, Byron Bay (supposed to be very pretty and full of ex-hippie types) and then I will spend the last week in Sydney before flying out on March 1.
Phew- that was a long entry. I’m so exhausted I will have to head off to the beach now. Yesterday it was 32 (somewhere in the low 90s I believe) and today promises to be beautiful as well.
Love to all and tune in next week.
Tags: Adelaide, Australia, Hobart, Melbourne, Tasmania, Travel
myra_n
You didn’t say if you were actually going to eat kangeroo–just don’t come back and say “tastes like chicken!” Glad you kept up with the Giants–the parade up Bwy (or what little I could see of it) was fun. I’ve started using some of your photos as my screen saver–so thanks! Miss you.
I’m exhuasted just reading your last entry. This mega-travel thing is hard work. Keep the blog coming, it’s fun to read.
I’m glad to see that someone is having such an eventful life later on, as mine consists mainly of sitting around hoping my medicine starts to work.
As for the Giants, well — they earned their victory and it was nice to see the smiles on their faces. I guess I didn’t really need to see Tom Brady on the podium again.