Okay I know it’s been eons since I posted last, but I just haven’t gotten a chance to put anything up. I’ve been too busy seeing Australia! But anyway, here is a really massive post about what I’ve been up to the last week-plus around Oz.
James & I picked up the brand new white Nissan Maxima at the Hertz in Dandenong around 10am or so last Wednesday morning, and then I decided to head back towards the city to see a couple sights that I’d missed so far. First I went to Brighton Beach, which is home to a famous set of very colourful bathing boxes right on the beach, with the Melbourne skyline visible in the distance behind them across Port Phillip Bay. It was cool finally getting to see in person what I’d only seen on several postcards previously. After that I headed north a little bit to St Kilda, a nice inner-ring suburb just south of the city, where I walked by the marina (where cranes stack the boats like books in a bookshelf three high, it’s really a strange sight), the pier, and the amusement park Luna Park, another fairly famous Melbourne landmark.
After that it was time to turn around and finally head east out of the city. I took the Princes Hwy east through the beautiful region of Gippsland to Bairnsdale, where I got out and stretched for a bit at Bruce & Joan’s house, before moving on to the coastal town of Merimbula. A large section of Princes Hwy between there (actually between Orbost & Eden) was quite desolate, over 200 km of nothing but dense eucalypt forest. And the road was pretty curvy too, there weren’t any straight stretches of road along the way, it was amazing. And yeah it was late when I finally pulled into Merimbula, so I drove for an hour or two in a foreign country in the dark on the other side of the road by myself. Fun times! Oh and when I got to Merimbula the coppas pulled me over for an RBT — a random breath test (of course I blew zeros, I was driving). It was the first RBT setup I’d ever seen, although I’d heard much about them. Usually at an RBT the police will pull everyone over and give all the drivers breathalyzers, to try and catch the drink drivers. But anyways it took me forever to find the YHA hostel in Merimbula in the dark, I had to have driven around that block four times before I finally spotted it. Sigh. At least it was a very nice sleep. And there weren’t many boarders there that night, so I even got my own room. Score!
Thursday morning I woke up and drove on a couple of lovely side roads from Merimbula up through the Great Dividing Range to Cooma. I had wanted to fit in seeing both Mt Kosciuszko (Australia’s highest point) from Lake Jindabyne, and Question Time at Parliament in Canberra, but on my way over to Kozzy I discovered that I wasn’t gonna have time to fit in both, so I turned around at Berridale to head back to Cooma and zoom up the Monaro Hwy to Canberra. Question Time started at 2pm, and I got there just in time fortunately. At Question Time in the House of Representatives (which is open to viewing by the public), individual legislators ask questions of other legislators, either softball questions to members of their own party, or very pointed accusatory questions of the other party. What makes it really hilarious is that all the MP’s (members of parliament) yell and hurl insults at each other either during the questions or answers, it’s more entertaining than any television program. This particular Question Time was more testy than usual because the Opposition (Labor Party) was levelling accusations against the Deputy Prime Minister of attempted bribery of one of the Labor MP’s. So of course each and every time the Labor MP’s would ask the same (but slightly re-worded) question, the Coalition (Liberal Party) MP’s would be shouting stuff at the Labor people, and each time the Deputy PM would be giving his categorical denial the Labor MP’s would be yelling and heckling him. It was just heaps of fun to hear and see all the guffaws. It even got so out of hand at one point that the Speaker of the House ruled one of the Labor MP’s out of order, and all the Liberal MP’s were shouting stuff like “kick her out!” and “why is she still here?!” Needless to say, it was a very entertaining hour. And it was free too! But after that I wandered around the Parliament House a bit and learned a fair bit about Australian government and history, it was quite interesting. I even got to see a real copy of the Magna Carta, which was really cool. It is an original, one of only four made, and as it is the fourth one that King George wrote, it is the one that was officially codified into British law. 
Then I drove down to Constitution Park to head down to Regatta Point on the shores of Lake Burley-Griffin, where there was a memorial to Captain Cook. It was a pretty cool globe that traced out each of Captain Cook’s circumnavigations of the Earth. After walking a little bit by Lake Burley-Griffin, the manmade lake in the middle of the Australian capital city of Canberra, I drove down to the suburb of Tuggeranong to James’ friend Simon’s house, where I stayed the night. Simon was pretty cool, and I went out bowling with him and his friends Gareth, Chris and Andy, that was pretty fun. And I scored a century in both games, a 125 and a 102, so that was nice.
After Wednesday and Thursday being sunny and hot (around 90), Friday was much cooler, cloudy and a bit rainy. I drove down from Canberra to Bateman’s Bay and then up the coast the rest of the way to Sydney. Just north of Bateman’s Bay I stopped at a really out of the way and relatively unknown beach, Pebbly Beach. James & Ali had quite highly recommended it to me because of the really tame kangaroos that are always at the beach. And I certainly wasn’t disappointed, there were quite a few kangaroos there, some eating grass, some sleeping. And a couple of them even let me pet them, that was so awesome! A bit further up the coast I stopped by Jervis Bay National Park, which had some wonderfully squeaky and serene white beaches, despite the rain. Even further up the coast I stopped by the town of Kiama, because I wanted to see the famous blowhole at the Kiama beach. 
Instead I wound up going up to the Mt Saddleback lookout — which had some breathtaking views of the countryside, by the way, despite the rain and grey weather — but on my way back down I got totally lost out in the countryside. By the time I finally found my way back to Princes Hwy and Kiama I was too frustrated to go on a search for how to get to the blowhole, so I just got back on the road to Sydney. After some adventures of my mobile phone deciding not to work at all that evening, I finally got to James’ brother Ben’s house in the Sydney suburb of Dundas around 9pm. But I must say that I was rather pleased with myself, in looking at the map once in a far southern suburb, and making it the rest of the way to his house about an hour later without having to look at the map again even once — at night in the rain in Sydney, with its messed-up and confusing roads.
I got a bit of a late start on Saturday, although I didn’t mind it a bit, since I was finally able to sleep in again. It felt like it’d been ages since I’d been able to do so! Early afternoon I decided to take a little drive out to the Blue Mountains west of Sydney, to Katoomba. The weather was still cloudy that day, but at least dry. The downside was that as soon as I got up to Katoomba I reached the base of the cloud, so it was very dense fog up there. I went to Echo Point lookout to see the Three Sisters rock formation and some other stuff, but the fog was so thick you couldn’t even see 10 meters in front of you. Bummer. It was the same story at ScenicWorld, where I’d been hoping on taking a ride down the mountain slope on the world’s steepest railroad, the tracks have a 45 degree slope. But alas, it was too foggy to see anything, so I didn’t go on it. I got back to Ben’s place, where we rounded up a couple of cars of his friends and we went into Sydney for the night to see the Opera House and the Harbour Bridge (basically to show me around, since I hadn’t seen them yet). 
It was so cool! The one downside was trying to park in downtown Sydney, we were driving around for a full hour before we found a spot. But we went out to Mrs Macquaries Chair in the Royal Botanic Gardens, where we were able to get a beautiful view of the Opera House right in front of the Bridge with all their lights, right across a small bay in Sydney Harbour. Then we went back over to the Opera House and walked all around it. There was a wedding reception going on in the Opera House while we were there, which looked super-nice. Now those must be some people that are filthy rich! I got a ton of cool night shots of both the Opera House and the Bridge, but the highlight of the night was the fireworks display that suddenly started up at 10pm at the Sydney Harbour Bridge. 
Everyone was surprised by it, because they usually only have fireworks displays for New Years Eve, Australia Day and maybe ANZAC Day (as it turned out, it was just rehearsal for the following night’s “Australian Idol” Grand Final, which was to be held at the Sydney Opera House). But I thought it was a super-special treat, and even a gift from God, because I was getting to see what I’d been planning on staying an extra two weeks past New Years to see — fireworks at the Harbour Bridge. I had been partly bummed about having to come home before Christmas because I wasn’t gonna get to see that in person, so now I’m ecstatic that I got a chance to see it. And on the way back to Ben’s place we drove over the Harbour Bridge! What an awesome night!
Sunday morning I had to get up fairly early to go to the Sydney airport to meet my parents. Their flight wound up being about an hour late, but it was great to see them again finally. As sort of a “welcome to Australia” thing I drove them over the Harbour Bridge on our way to the Aylings’ house in Dundas, where I’d been staying (Ben’s parents, Arturo & Patricia, and his sister Liz, who all live in the house, welcomed us all to stay there that night). After letting them have a breather for a few minutes we took the ferry from nearby Parramatta all the way down the Parramatta River, which becomes Sydney Harbour, under the Harbour Bridge to Circular Quay in the heart of the city. From there we hopped on another ferry that took us the rest of the length of the harbour to Manly Beach, one of Sydney’s best-known beaches, behind only Bondi Beach in terms of tourist popularity. It was still cloudy and kinda cool on Sunday, but Manly was actually a fairly nice beach, lined by beautiful gigantic Norfolk Island pines. My mom really enjoyed getting a chance to dip her feet into the South Pacific Ocean for a bit. 🙂 After a bit we took the Manly Ferry back to Circular Quay and walked over near the Opera House. 
But we couldn’t actually get to the Opera House itself, or even to the forecourt, as it was all gated off for the Australian Idol Grand Final. But we did get to see the Opera House with thousands of screaming teeny-boppers outside. Then we walked around a little bit in the Botanic Gardens, and my parents were fascinated by all the new and strange plants and trees that were there. We took the train back to Parramatta, but then got lost on foot trying to find the ferry station where we’d parked. Not good, and it was basically my fault for leading them in the wrong direction initially. And then after being unable to figure out how to navigate Paramatta’s confusing maze of one-way streets to find a fast food restaurant, we gave up and went back to the Ayling’s house. We were just gonna ask for directions to a place to eat, but when we arrived they were just sitting down to dinner. They quickly added three more places to the table and made a little more food, their hospitality was amazing! And it was good for my parents to get to know them a bit and get to talk to them for awhile. But my goal of just getting my parents to stay up until at least 9pm (to help them get over jet lag) was easily exceeded; they didn’t go to bed until 11pm, I was shocked!
Monday morning we stayed at the Ayling’s for a wonderful late breakfast before making our way to Canberra. After stopping for lunch at Hog’s Breath Cafe (a wonderful restaurant chain here in Oz), we went to the Australian War Memorial. It was a really cool place, with lots of awesome displays and information. We could only spend an hour there, but I could’ve spent all day in there quite easily without getting bored. Then we went up to the Mount Ainslie lookout directly behind the War Memorial. It provided a spectacular view of Canberra, looking straight down Anzac Pde all the way from the War Memorial straight up to Parliament House, it was a beautiful sight.
It was starting to get late in the afternoon so we moved on to Bateman’s Bay, but before stopping there for the night we made a quick drive into the sticks a bit north of there to Pebbly Beach, mainly so that they could see some kangaroos. It’s way back in the boonies in Murramarang NP and on an unsealed (gravel) road, so not many people even know about it. But it’s definitely a jewel of a place, particularly because of all the relatively tame kangaroos right there at the beach (normally you won’t see them that close to the ocean, and it’s also rare for them to let you get close to them and pet them).
On Tuesday morning my parents were awoken by some noisy peacocks at our motel in Bateman’s Bay. Peacocks aren’t usually found in Australia, so that was kinda cool to see and hear them. But we got our stuff together and drove down the Sapphire Coast and stopped for a bit in Narooma, which is a gorgeous coastal town with some beautiful clifftop views and a really pretty rock pier. We could’ve spent all day there relaxing and enjoying the views, but we had to get moving. Further down the coast our next stop was for a picnic lunch at Ben Boyd NP down by Eden, which had some amazing red wave-rock formations at the coast, it was pretty cool.
Then we kept on going down Princes Hwy all the way to Bairnsdale, and for most of the way it went through dense eucalypt rainforest. At one point in the South East Forests NP we had to break for a huge monitor lizard that was sunning itself in the middle of the road, which was cool. It really was quite a barren road, and constantly curvy — there was never a stretch of more than 100-200 meters that was straight, so I was getting quite a workout at the steering wheel. We got to Bairnsdale to Bruce & Joan’s place just in time for the big family dinner, since their daughter Angela was back in Australia for a visit with her fiance Joey from Texas.
Wednesday was more of a relaxing day. Bruce & Joan took Angie & Joey, my parents and I around some of the spectacular countryside right outside of Bairnsdale, where Joan had grown up, and where her brothers still have farms. We just spent the afternoon at Bruce & Joan’s relaxing though, it was great to have a break from driving all over the place for a day. For lunch we introduced my parents to the very Aussie tucker known as meat pies. I’m gonna miss pies…
Thursday morning it was time to hit the road again, and we drove through scenic Gippsland to Wilson’s Promontory NP. I had been to the Prom for four days back in September, but I took them to a couple of beaches that I hadn’t been to yet. We brought a picnic lunch to Whisky Beach and spent a bit of time there before driving down to Tidal River. I was hoping to show them one of the marauding wombats that roam freely at that campsite, but instead they got to see some rosellas (red parrot-like birds) and a laughing kookaburra. I hadn’t even seen a kookaburra that closely, so that was a treat. We drove up to the lookout at the Mt Oberon carpark and then back down to the marvelous Squeaky Beach. The sand at Squeaky Beach is pure white silica sand just like at Whitehaven Beach up in the Whitsundays, so it squeaks when you walk on it. We had to have spent a couple hours there, long enough for my upper arms and face to get all nice and sunburned. I’m way too stubborn when it comes to (not) putting on sunscreen, sigh. 
On the way out of the Prom my mom was just saying how she was kinda bummed how we really hadn’t seen much wildlife yet, when all of a sudden we had to brake for an emu in the middle of the road. Gotta love Australia! We made it over to Phillip Island a little before sunset, early enough to quick show them Woolamai Surf Beach and The Nobbies before we went to the Penguin Parade. It was so cool watching all those groups of tiny fairy penguins waddling up the beach, and also the thousands and thousands of shearwater birds flying in during almost the entire penguin parade. They banned all photography there though (so as not to hurt the little penguins’ eyes), so I wasn’t able to nab any pics of the parade, bummer. We finally rolled into James & Ali’s place in the Melbourne suburbs after 11pm, we were all exhausted from a really full day.
Friday we got a bit of a late start, partly from having to stop by the mall so I could close my Australian bank account and pick up a couple odds & ends, so we didn’t end up taking the ferry from Sorrento to Queenscliff until 3pm, ugh. It was a pretty drive along the Great Ocean Road, but a bit tough since it’s an extremely curvy road and I was driving west, looking straight into the sinking sun. My goal had been to make it all the way out to the Twelve Apostles to see the sunset, but when we got to where we were staying in Apollo Bay we all realized there was absolutely zero chance of us making it out there in time,
so we just got settled into our motel room (which was just 50 meters from the beach!), and then got to relax and enjoy a wonderful sunset from the beach there. For supper we went to a fish & chips shop in Apollo Bay, the first time my parents had ever been to one. The food was so greasy (as it always is at a fish & chips shop) that I expect they’ve had their fill of the stuff, hehe. But it was so peaceful being able to sit out on the patio at our motel room and work on some stuff with my photos on my laptop while listening to the surf (and seeing it, since it was a full moon that night).
Saturday we got up and kept heading west along the Great Ocean Road, through the Otway Ranges and on to Port Campbell NP, home of some very famous sandstone cliff formations, including the Twelve Apostles and Loch Ard Gorge. I’ve seen so many postcards of those things, it was awesome to get to see them in person finally. But after a few totally sunny days (and really warm, Friday it was 98 degrees F), Saturday was cloudy and a bit hazy, but still in the mid 80s with high humidity, which just sapped all of us of energy. 
But after lingering around the Twelve Apostles, Loch Ard Gorge and the Razorback for a bit we went all the way back to Melbourne along the Great Ocean Road. But on the way we stopped at the Otway Fly Tree Top Walk in Otway NP. It was absolutely amazing! It was this really cool walk along metal platforms that were as high as 25 meters above the ground, and a big tower in the middle of it that was 47m tall. It was definitely a different perspective to see the forest from in the midst of the canopy. It was night by the time we got to the city, so I took them for a bit of a drive through Melbourne’s beautiful downtown business district and along the Yarra River on our way back to James & Ali’s for the night.
Sunday (today) we decided to take it a bit easy again, just staying in Melbourne and seeing only a couple of things. Around midday we went to the Queen Victoria Market, an absolutely huge market on Sunday mornings selling everything from arts & crafts to souvenirs to fresh produce and meat. I hadn’t been to Queen Vic yet, and my parents had never been to anyplace like it, so that was pretty cool. We loaded up on quite a few souvenirs. I even managed to find a Minnesota Twins jersey down here for $A40, which was dirt cheap. The same thing would’ve cost $US40-60 at least back in the States. But we were all shocked to find even American stuff like that at the market, it was incredible. 
Mid-afternoon we drove a couple miles up to the Melbourne Zoo to give my parents a chance to see some native Australian wildlife, like koalas, wallabies, platypusses (platypi?) and other cool animals like giraffes and zebras. It was really a very nice zoo, with very humane and spacious enclosures, and healthy-looking animals. But the coolest part of it was probably the butterfly enclosure. There were so many endangered butterflies in there it was amazing, but they were all flitting around so much it was hard to get many good shots of them, but I did get one spectacular photo of a very colourful butterfly. After that we came back to James & Ali’s for dinner, conversation and packing up all our stuff again for our trip to New Zealand in the morning.
I can’t believe that my time in Australia is done now. It’s flown by so quickly. And right now I’m so tired and exhausted from driving 4500 kilometers (2700 miles) the last 12 days and being the tour guide for my parents that I can’t really come up with anything really profound to say about my incredible experience here the last five months. I’ve met some amazing people, seen lots of beautiful places and learned quite a bit too, about myself and other things. But one stage of my journey is over, and now another begins. We’re gonna try to leave James & Ali’s around 5am to beat the city traffic to the airport (since the airport is way the heck on the other side of the city), and our flight to Christchurch leaves at 9:35am. I’m really looking forward to seeing New Zealand, but I really don’t wanna leave Australia. I almost feel like I belong here. But I’ve been so busy with preparations and planning for the Australia portion of this trip with my parents that I haven’t even looked in the Lonely Planet guide for New Zealand yet. That’ll probably be my airplane reading material. But my parents have some friends, David & Karen, who live in Ashburton, a town not too far from Christchurch, who we’ll be staying with. And they’ll be showing us around the whole week that my parents are there, so I’m excited that I get a break from being the chauffeur. 😉 I’m sure I’ll be able to relax heaps more and soak in the landscape. But I’ve really gotta get to bed, I’m only gonna get less than 4 hours of sleep as it is. So long from The Land Down Under! Talk to you all again in Middle Earth!