Tina & Rob’s excellent adventure

We are visiting my sister Maria and brother in law Helge in Christchurch. The first two pictures were taken on a hike in the hills around the city. The next two are the old university and the cathedral followed by the view from Maria and Helge’s house overlooking the city. The last picture is of the New Zealand part of the family. Our beautiful nieces Jessica and the very pregnant Amber, Maria and Helge and Amber’s husband Andre.

While visiting Sydney we met up with George and Cheryl Knight of St. Pete. They live in Sydney part of the year, lucky dogs and were great hosts. We walked all over the city visiting sights, restaurants and pubs. It was great meeting them and we can’t wait to see them again in Florida. The first photo was taken at Bondi beach where a surfer had recently been bitten by a shark. The Queen Mary 2, the largest cruise ship in the world, pulled in a block away from our hotel. She woke us up at 6am as she announced her arrival, and again at 1am upon her departure. There is so much going on in Sydney, we would like to stay longer, but our next destination awaits. Off to New Zealand next…

After 22 days in our camper we are back in the city. We have a beautiful apartment in Woolloomooloo, Sydney a block away from the waterfront. It has only been 2 days since our arrival here but we already love this place. The public transportation is wonderful. We take the bus to the waterfront and jump on one of the many ferries that take you all over the city or to one of the many beaches. So far we have visited the opera house, Darling Harbor and Watson’s Bay. The weather is also cooperating to make life even more enjoyable. A far cry from the misery that a lot of people here are experiencing with the flooding and fires.

After 6 days the rain finally cleared up and we wrapped up our great camping adventure in the Blue Mountains, west of Sydney. Part of the Great Dividing Range, it has fantastic scenery with gorges, cliffs, and the famous Three Sisters rock formation.

We also visited the Billabong Koala Rescue to finally see some koalas. They are almost impossible to see in the wild because they are nocturnal and actually quite small. We were able to pet a koala and hold an orphaned wallaby joey.

We spent a few nights in Giraween National Park– known for its landscape dotted with huge granite boulders. We hiked the rocks, followed water fall trails and looked for wildlife. The rain has caught up with us here so we headed back to the coast to Port Macquarie about 370 KM north of Sydney trying to find some sunshine. No luck here– the weather is absolutely miserable… torrential rains from a cyclone driven tropical depression. We are talking 10 hours of straight downpour! Luckily we have a very comfortable camper and have stayed dry. There are quite a few people here that had their tents flooded and do not know where to stay.

Our journey so far has taken us up the eastern coast of Queensland “the sunshine state” with its pristine beaches. Enough of sun and surf; we decide to head for the hills and end up at Bunya Mountain National Park. We are greeted by the resident wallabies (we thought they were kangaroos until a local set us straight). Beautiful hiking here through the rain forest and grasslands. We plan to visit more national parks as we make our way south to Sydney

It is amazing that after only 9 hours in an airplane you can land on a different continent and be back in a western culture of Fish and chips. It boggles the senses. “OZ” as Australia is known is a huge land with “heaps” of sunshine and beautiful unspoilt beaches. It seems everyone is a surfer. We have hired a camper van to explore the east coast, stopping at caravan parks along the way. Australia at the moment is having weather extremes from a heat wave in the south to massive flooding in the north. We are stuck in between in Queensland enjoying the beach life. Here are the photos from our journey so far. The last two shots are of the “everglades” part of the Noosa  River.

In the early AM we started our tour to Northern Thailand to visit the Golden Triangle, the point along the Mekong River where Thailand, Laos, and Myanmar (Burma) meet. The photo of the bottles was taken in Laos where they make whiskeys using the bodies of snakes, scorpions, and lizards. They believe they have medicinal properties. Like the one using Tiger testicles is the Laotian Viagra. NO we didn’t buy any!

Next stop was to visit a village where 3 separate hill tribes live together; The Karen “long neck”, the Akha, and the Karen “big ear”. The people from the Long Neck tribe are refugees from Myanmar. All the tribe people make their living from selling goods they make themselves. Women weave cloths and make jewelry. The men make wood carvings which the women sell. There is also a fee charged to enter the village which the villagers communally share.

Inside its old city center alone Chiang Mai has 300 temples. Luckily we won’t have time to see them all, but here is a sampling of a few of them. Rules of etiquette require men to wear long pants, and you may rent them upon entering the temple for 15 Baht. You can see Rob modeling the latest fashion for the well dressed temple-goer in the photo above. We are learning a lot about the habits of worship in Buddhism by witnessing the people who come to pray, make offerings, and receive blessings from the monks.

What a breath of fresh air Chiang Mai is after the hustling streets of Patong Beach. Even though Chiang Mai is a city of 1 and a half million people it has a much more relaxed feel. Our guest house is quiet and shady and located near the Night Market. Thousands of vendors sell much the same goodies as in Phuket but without the aggressive sell. The best part of all is the massage chairs set up along the square where you can enjoy a foot massage. Now that’s heavenly after a long hard day of sightseeing!

During the day we join tours and our favorite so far was the Day Trek to visit one of the hill tribes. The people live in huts made from bamboo without indoor plumbing and a fire in the room provides heat as well as a place to prepare meals. The day also included an elephant ride and a river rafting trip on bamboo rafts. Our young captain could not have been more than 10 but he was the best on the river navigating the rapids and rocks like a pro.