A Sunny Day for a Lap Around the Bay

After a brief thunder and lightening storm last night, J&B and I headed out this sunny, clear morning for a lap around Port Phillip Bay. Some of you may remember that Jim and I did this trip a week or so ago. Today some things were the same, but there were a few different things.

First different thing was that I did not have Sheila on my windshield as my navigator. Jeannie assumed those duties but she refused to adhere herself to my dashboard! She did a great job, especially since I wanted to stay off the freeway and take the roads that were closest to the bay.

Our first stop of the morning was for gas and coffee to fill up the car and Britni. We drove south and east along the bay to the town of Frankston where we took a break to walk the pier. It was a lovely morning, with minimal wind. But we had miles to go before we could sleep so it was back in the car to Point Nepean National Park at the tip of Port Phillip.

Frankston Pier

We did a quick walk around the buildings that once served as a quarantine station for immigrants and later as army barracks. From there we took the bus to the very tip of the peninsula where we got great views of the ocean and the bay. We walked around to see the various tunnels and gun emplacements that were integral in WWI and WWII.

Buildings at Point Nepean.

Decontamination chamber for immigrant’s belongings at Point Nepean.

Gentle waves lapping at the exposed rocks at Point Nepean.

Love the Caribbean blue of the bay water!

Looking back on the Mornington Peninsula with the bay on the left and the ocean on the right.

We needed to get ourselves across the mouth of the bay and the only way to do that with the car was to buy a ticket on the Sorrento to Queenscliff ferry. It was a great day to cross the bay as the water was calm and the wind inconsequential. Once back on land in Queenscliff we headed for the Rolling Pin, the lunch place that Jim and I found on our lap that serves up the best meat pies in Australia! And we once again were not disappointed.

Almost a private ferry!

Point Lonsdale was next in our sights and our stop there included a walk on the pier, a hike up to the lighthouse and a stroll on the beach. Again, it was a perfect day to be by the water.

Point Lonsdale pier.

From the pier back towards the lighthouse at Point Lonsdale.

Fun in the rock art.

From the beach back towards the other side of the lighthouse.

 One thing I love to see when I am down by the bay is the HUGE ships that come and go out of the port of Melbourne. I was hoping that today I would get to see a ship or two a bit closer as we were on the 2 points of land that form the opening to the bay or while crossing the bay on the ferry. But no, once again there were no ships! And I was told that this is the busiest port in all of Australia with about 20 ships coming and going per day! Where are the ships???? There were no ships on the Sunday I was here with Jim and no ships today! What’s up??

Geelong was our last stop and we walked the pier and along the waterfront so J&B could see the bollards.

A sea bird at Geelong.

The Beach Beauties!

We arrived at 604 at 6:05PM and a pork chop dinner was on the table at 7:07 PM. Not too bad.

 We had a first tonight as the smoke detector went off in our apartment (and it had nothing to do with me cooking dinner!). We think the combination of running the dryer and 3 of the 4 burners on the stove must have been too much for the sensors. It is good to know the detectors work!

Tomorrow J&B and I are taking a quick morning trip to the CBD and then going to Philip Island to see the penguins. 

One more artsy photo:

Rocks and waves.

Cheers!

You Are Exactly Where You Are Supposed to Be!

Today’s blog title is the saying that Jeannie found in the wrapper of her Dove chocolate piece. We thought it was perfect! J&B are exactly where they are supposed to be and we are so glad to have them here.

Our A.I.S time (an Everybody Loves Raymond TV show reference) was 8:30 AM and we beat that by pulling out of the parking garage at 8:26 AM. We were off to a good start. Our destination was to the Cape Schanck light station (lighthouse) and then do some exploring of that eastern part of the Mornington Peninsula. Today was a cloudy, windy day, but we never got rained on and the temps were about 13 degrees C. (55 degrees F.). 

Cape Schanck light station.

A big surprise was in order when we started hiking at Cape Schanck and that was that the tide was at its lowest point and the beaches looked so different from when we were there with Bob and Sally. What fun we had exploring all the rock shelves and tide pools that were hidden from us during our earlier visit! Even though the wind was howling, the ocean was fairly calm so I don’t have any crashing wave pictures. Sorry! Here are “before and after” photos of looking down on Pebble Beach from the boardwalk.

In June. . .

In July.

The tide pools were fun to explore and we found some star fish and anemones. The rocks were not slippery to walk upon which was a pleasant surprise.  

A beautiful tide pool.

Starfish.

Here is another set of “before and after” photos from when we were at Pulpit Rock beach with Bob and Sally and then today with J&B. 

In June with Sally and Bob. . .

In July with Jeannie and Britni.

We spent a lot of time walking these beaches before climbing up the stairs and ramps of the boardwalk to get back to the car to continue our tour of the peninsula. Jeannie had read some of the tour books that we left for her in the guest room and she saw something about a maze and garden that sounded interesting. Mazes seem to be a popular attraction here in Australia  because we have seen a variety of them advertised in our travels around this country. So today was the day to check one out. but, before we got to the maze we discovered the pier in the town of Flinders so we had to stop and walk out into the ocean.

Upper and lower decks of the Flinder’s Pier.

Finally we went to the Ashcombe Maze and Lavender Garden, oldest and largest hedge maze in Aussie-land. We paid our $17.50 entry fee and headed for the first of 2 hedge mazes.

A photo of the aerial view of the mazes.

The challenge in the hedge mazes, in addition to finding your way through it, was to locate 4 ceramic tiles that were placed near each of the corners of the maze. We were successful on both challenges and documented the each tile we found. The hedges were about 9-10 feet high and so dense that you couldn’t see through them. If you lost someone in your group, you could call out their name and follow voices to re-connect. The paths through the hedges were about 24 inches wide and there were some blind turns and lots of dead ends. We had great fun!

One of the tiles we had to find.

Wrong way, Jim!

There you are!

After completing the 2 hedge mazes, we moved on to the rose garden maze (only a couple of blooms on the bushes) and then onto the lavender maze, which was still a light shade of purple. The surrounding gardens were full of interesting trees and shrubs. 

By now it was approaching 2 PM and you may have noticed that there was no mention of lunch. That’s because we were too busy, and there was always one more thing to see and do! But our next stop was a winery that had a cafe.

Our guide book outlined the services of the many wineries in this area so we picked one that served food.

We picked the right place because in addition to being a winery with a cafe and a restaurant, there was a walking track that went through the vineyards to a bunch of different sculptures. We ate our lunch at an outside table, overlooking the gardens and vineyards~a lovely setting. After pizza and wine for lunch we went on a  sculpture tour and enjoyed the walk as well as the art. 

Grounds of the Montalto Winery.

Not the Big Bird we know!

Binary language sculpture.

Our final stop at the winery was the Cellar Door (the Aussie term for a tasting room). Jim, J&B tasted while I took some photos. I was the designated driver.

A sip of this and a sip of that!

So I drove everyone home, where we had a salmon dinner with snake beans and salad. We discovered snake beans at the market yesterday and decided to give them a try. Here is a photo of the beans.

Snake beans.

They tasted like green beans!

Tomorrow Jim returns to work and J&B and I will do the lap around the bay. 

Cheers!

 

The Market, the Beach, the Footy!

We had a full day here with our newest arrivals. Jeannie and Britni (from here on out, known as J&B) had a good night’s sleep and were raring to go this morning.

 We went downtown to the Queen Victoria Market. The “Queen Vic” has been in operation for over 100 years and takes up a couple of city blocks. We started our tour by walking through the clothing and souvenir section of the market. J&B were impressed with the wide variety of everyday items as well as unusual and unique things. We stopped to admire the sheep and kangaroo hides as well as the wig display, which included a rainbow of color choices!

Britni admiring all the wig choices. We couldn’t convince her to buy one!

 We continued past the live chickens into the meat and seafood building. This is always an impressive place to first time visitors as vendors are standing in the aisles shouting out their specials for the day and every part of cows, lambs, pigs and goats is for sale! It is actually quite educational if you can get past the “yuck” factor! We bought some pork chops ($6.99/kg) and some salmon fillets ($26.99/kg).

What’s your favorite?

 We proceeded into my favorite area the cheese, deli and bakery section. And we bought some cheese, sliced ham for sandwiches and a couple of bagels. We bought a Spicy Lamb Borek, which is a lamb mixture with spices and veggies wrapped inside a pastry crust and served hot. I believe it is a Turkish pastry and we all sampled the one we bought and declared it, “delicious!”

Because we bought some meat items we needed to make a stop at home to get our cold stuff into the refrigerator. This also provided me an opportunity to provide lunch to out guests. Apparently I have a reputation of getting so caught up in my tour guide responsibilities that I forget to give our visitors some lunch. So let it be known that J&B have now had lunch 2 days in a row!

Lunch!

Our afternoon destination was the St. Kilda area and Middle Brighton Beach. I wanted to show J&B the Brighton Beach Boxes and we realized that Jim had never been there either. They were as lovely as usual, and we took lots of photos and had some fun with them! We walked around the whole shoreline of Middle Brighton Beach enjoying the tide pools that were revealed by the low tide.

Middle Brighton Beach Boxes

Wow! Britni is good!

Having some fun!

Britni loves the black swans!

Tide pools are always interesting.

 We drove to another car park so we could walk along the boardwalk and out the St. Kilda Pier. This is such a beautiful area and makes it enjoyable to explore for bikers, walkers, runners, and skateboarders, young and old. We stopped to look at the skateboard park, which was seeing lots of use. So many towns make skateboarding a crime when they should be building facilities for kids to safely skateboard and develop their skills. St. Kilda has a first-class facility for kids and it was fun to watch the kids zip up, down and all around the park’s features.

St. Kilda’s skatepark

Our afternoon was fading away and we needed to head to the MCG for a footy game. We knew we could buy tickets just before the game started because one of the better teams (Collingwood) was playing the last place teams, who hadn’t won yet this season (Great Western Sydney). We were pleasantly surprised when the game was competitive up until the fourth quarter when Collingwood pulled away for a convincing win. There were also lots more people at the game than we thought there’d be with an attendance of over 32,000 people. J&B seem to be new footy fans and really got into the game! Please note that I did not provide dinner at the game but everyone made their own choice to drink a beer and eat almost a pound of pretzels (that J&B brought to AU).

Love the footy!

Bundled up at the game. About 50 degrees F., with a breeze and we were sitting on cold seats!

 Tomorrow we are planning to go to Cape Schank, where we went with Bob and Sally, and then do some winery tours on the Mornington Peninsula.

A good AU photo! Thanks Jeannie!

 

G’Day Mates!

The Guest Room is Occupied!

They made it! After a short delay in Sydney, Jeannie and Britni arrived here just before noon! I was at the airport to pick them up and we drove to where Jim is working and all went to lunch together! It is great to see them both!

Jeannie and Britni looking so happy to be Down Under!

They brought the sun with them and after a quick stop at the apartment we went for a walk to the Botanical Gardens. The late afternoon shadows provided some lovely views across the gardens. I haven’t been to the Botanical Gardens in a few weeks and it was interesting to see what is now in bloom. The trees and birds were of interest to Jeannie and Britni, especially the Moreton Fig Trees and the black swans and kookaburras.

Britni hiding behind a huge Moreton Fig Tree.

Checking out the black swan at the Botanical Gardens.

Jeannie and Britni brought us some treats~pretzels, dark chocolate and a Tennessee specialty: Moonshine! And not just any old moonshine, apple-pie flavored moonshine! When Jim got home we toasted their arrival with shots of moonshine in our champagne glasses! We have no shot glasses, but we do have 6 champagne flutes and 6 wine glasses!

Treats!

Cheers!

Tonight there is a big, important footy game on TV so Jeannie and Britni are getting an idea of how the game is played. We may try to get tickets to a game at the MCG tomorrow afternoon.  

I’m sure our guests will be turning in early tonight, but Jim and I will be up until the last whistle blows in the footy game!

G’Day Mates!

I finally saw the Geelong Bollard that welcome visitors to the Melbourne airport.

What, Downtown Again?!

Yes, I was downtown again, but to some places that I hadn’t been to before. But for putting 22,000-plus steps on my pedometer, I guess I really didn’t do that much new and exciting.

I did get my haircut again, because it was in my eyes. It is shorter this time and I am anxious to see what I will do with it after I wash it!

The newest cut.

I took the #8 tram to the CBD again after lunch today, but then did something new – I transferred to the #70 tram – all by myself! This tram took me to the Harbor Town shopping area and after one hour I was done. I did buy something fun though – an inflatable kangaroo. I don’t know what I am going to do with it, but someday I will be glad I have it!

There were a couple of noteworthy things at the Harbor Town, the first one being a pile of snow for children to play on! Yes, I was surprised to see this and the adults were playing with it as much as their children were!

Banners all around announced that there was snow in Harbor Town!!!!

 

Snow! Notice the winter coats on the folks~it must have been 50 degrees F.

As a snow expert, I had to check it out and it wasn’t bad for manmade snow.

Second was I got up close to the huge seatless-ferris wheel. We have seen this humongous wheel every time we have come in and out of the city on the west side and always wondered about it. There were never any seats or passenger pods to sit in to ride it and it was never working. Jim got the scoop on this landmark from the guys at work. Apparently some developer had this 394-foot ferris wheel built as a tourist attraction for this shopping area in December of 2008. It was operational for about 40 days when it was initially thought that the summer heat caused the metal on the ferris wheel to expand, cracking all the welds, forcing the closing of this giant. Later investigation put the cause of death as a design problem, and that could mean anything! Whatever the reason, there have been a couple of attempts made to repair it and that is the stage it is going through today. I stood near the base of the big wheel, in the shopping area, and got to look straight up at it. There were men working on the wheel as I took this photo. 

The Melbourne Star, or white elephant!

From Harbor Town I took the very crowded free City Circle tram back to the CBD. The tram was mostly full of the Liverpool soccer fans for tonight’s big game. I walked around the CBD, checking out a new (to me) yarn store that my research identified. It was a lovely shop with lots of yummy yarn. I didn’t buy any!

CBD yarn shop.

The roof over one of the unique laneways in the CBD.

I took my chances that the rain would hold off while I walked home and it did. The soccer fans were out in force in Federation Square and I know that they were soccer fans because they were all wearing red shirts or scarves and there were groups of fans, mostly men, mostly in the adjoining bars, singing the Liverpool team song! It was lively!

Tomorrow I have yoga and then I need to go grocery shopping before our guests arrive. I may have a reputation of being a hostess with minimal food in the apartment! I will try to do better this time when Jim’s sister, Jeannie and her daughter, Britni, are our guests. They arrive on Friday and the excitement is building here in apartment 604!

A few of you have asked about the Aussie’s reaction to the Royal Baby! Well, I assume that nothing else happened in the world after that little guy was born because there was no other news, besides baby news, hours  and  hours of baby news!! When I was in the Pandora store yesterday, I was told that I could buy the limited edition of the royal baby carriage bead/charm in honor of the baby’s birth. This bead is only available in the UK, Australia and Canada. I am very happy for Will and Kate and the British folks, but I passed on the bead!

Cheers!

Sheep Show

Today our destination was Bendigo, Victoria, about a 2 hour drive northwest of Melbourne, for the Australian Sheep and Wool Show. I have been looking forward to this since shortly after we arrived here and I learned about it from a local shepherd. We put lots of layers in the car because the forecast was for cool rainy weather and it rained most of the way there. 

Our first stop in Bendigo was at the Bendigo Woollen Mill, a stop the ladies in my knitting group said was a must see. This mill (with Woollen spelled with two l’s) is the largest producer of hand-knitting yarns in Australia, producing 80-100 tons of yarn a year, using wool from Aussie sheep! I was encouraged when I pulled into the muddy parking lot and saw lots of cars and a tour bus! The small store attached to the mill was packed with knitters oohing and aahing over the luscious colors of yarns. I had done some research ahead of time and was interested in getting a couple of their knitting patterns and possibly some yarn to make one of those patterns. After looking in the 2 rooms of the store and touching lots of yarn, I made my selections. While I was wandering around Jim found a map to the Sheep and Wool Show-lots of people must ask how to get from the mill to the show!

The main room of the Bendigo Woollen Mill.

The back room of the mill shop.

It had stopped raining by the time we got to the mill and when we arrived at the Sheep Show the sun was making an appearance! We paid our entry fee ($20 each!) and checked a map to get a feel for the layout of the show. We turned right and just started going in each building as we came to it. The first few buildings had vendors selling yarn, hand-knit garments, fiber and knitting accessories. There was a building that housed all the entries in the wool competitions and there were many lovely projects that had been knit, crocheted, sewn, felted and woven. There was another large pavilion that had vendors but also a runway where there had been a wool fashion show earlier in the day.

Wheels of braided spinning fiber just crying out to be touched!

This wooly bike added to the festive atmosphere.

Some of the winning lace projects-my favorites! They were very impressive!

 

This is what happens when I put Jim in charge of the camera!

We saw a huge new building that housed all the different breeds of sheep. What fun to walk through all the pens and see the differences in sheep! We spent a good deal of time touching all the fleeces that had been entered in the fleece competition and by then time we finished that our hands were very soft from all the lanolin in the fleeces.

The petting pen was popular with families with small children.

This big guy was more friendly than most.

 

The sheep building.

Lots of fleeces to touch and compare.

This is a Before and After photo!

Mom was pretty protective of her baby!

The main outdoor arena hosted the sheep dog competition and that is always interesting to watch. Those dogs are amazing! 

Dog at work!

For lunch we stopped for lamb burgers which were delicious. We sat and ate them in a building that was hosting Bendigo’s Festival of Lamb. The restaurants in the town of Bendigo were featuring lamb dishes this whole week and throughout this show various chefs from these restaurants were demonstrating how to make their lamb dishes. We ate our burgers while one chef was showing how to make a pistachio-crusted lamb rump with a wine reduction sauce. It sounded delicious!

Lamb burgers on the grill.

Lamb burger on my plate! Yummy!

It started to rain as we were thinking about leaving, but we decided to stop into the sheep shearing building and see if anything was happening. And we were right on time to watch four shearers see who was fastest. Each guy (they were all men, didn’t see any women shearers) had to shear 3 sheep and the winner did it in just under 10 minutes. Once a sheep was completely sheared, a helper would gather up the fleece and then throw it up in the air so it landed in one large piece on a large table so it could be picked over and then rolled up to be processed. It was all fun to watch. The announcer said that good shearers would shear about 150 sheep in a day! 

Shearing competition.

Shearing competition.

Shaking out the completed fleece, all in one piece!

So we had a good trip to the Australian Sheep and Wool Show. They advertise that this event is the “largest in the world of its kind,” whatever that means. It certainly wasn’t as big as the New York or Maryland shows and not nearly as crowded with people, but it still was a big deal and one we really enjoyed. 

Now, in response to requests, Jim took a photo of the Big French Fry as we drove under it this morning. Here it is-I call it An Accident Waiting to Happen!!

The French Fry, which is an odd name considering the Aussies call these “chips!”

Tomorrow’s plan is to take a road trip around Port Phillip Bay. Stay tuned. . . 

Public Art

Jim and I have been really impressed with the displays of public art that we’ve seen throughout Australia. There will be large sculptures at the off ramps of expressways, mosaics embedded into sidewalks and art on bridges, buildings and in parks. When we bring guests from the airport, as we approach the city, there is a large yellow beam, angled over the freeway ( the locals lovingly refer to it as the “french fry!) and this is just the start of the art.

So here are some of our favorites from our time in Western Australia:

Here is a sundial that was by the ocean in Perth. Jim’s watch in the second photo shows that the sundial is accurate. This was very cool!

 

One o’clock on the watch and the sundial.

Statue in Hay Street Mall.

Fountain Pens, each about 8 feet tall, near the Supreme Court building in Perth.

Mosaic on the boardwalk near the waterfront, Perth.

Statue of a child wrapped in a town by the beach and jetty in Busselton, WA.

Fancy wind vane on the jetty at Busselton, WA.

Statue outside of a brewery/winery in Margaret River, WA.

Pirate Cow at Cape Leeuwin National Park.

Granny Smith Apple decorations in Harvey, WA.

So that is just a small sample of the art we’ve seen around Aussie-land. It is a tribute to the all the local communities who place an importance on art. 

Tonight we went to a footy game at Etihad Stadium, a new venue for us. We had good seats and saw an exciting game. Carleton beat North Melbourne by one point! Tucker, Carleton is your team! We sat next to some very friendly Aussies who were very willing to explain the finer points of the game.

Tomorrow, Saturday, we are going to Bendigo, Victoria for the Australian Sheep and Wool Show. We have a 2 hour drive to get there and I am looking forward to seeing the similarities and differences from the Sheep and Wool Festivals I’ve attended in the USA. 

G’Day Mates!

A Strange and Wonderful Day!

Our stay in the Walpole Lodge youth hostel was great. In addition to having strong, reliable Internet, our room was quiet and comfortable, all at a very reasonable price.

We were on the road by 8AM after brekky at a Walpole cafe (baked beans on toast for Jim!) and we were trying to make the most of the sunshine we didn’t expect to see this morning.

We drove east again on the Great Southern Highway, this time taking two side roads off the main road. First we went on a hard-packed dirt road that took us to the largest known Tingle Tree. We had to get out of the car and walk about 400m to see this mammoth of a tree-24m in circumference! Large Tingle trees are usually hollow at their base and we marveled at how they could hold their tall, 75meter trunks up! They are beautiful trees and are a nice contrast to the other famous trees in this area, the Karri trees, which are almost as tall but have very clean, smooth trunks and are not hollowed out. It was a lovely walk through these forest giants!

We then drove across the Great Southern Highway to another well-maintained dirt/gravel road to Conspicuous Beach where, you guessed it, there were crashing waves! But before we got to the crashing waves we had a close encounter with 2 kangaroos! We came around a corner and these 2 roos hopped out of the bush on the side of the road, right on front of the car! Good thing I was only going about 25kph at the time or we would have been picking kangaroo fur out of the hood of the car! After parking the car, we walked up a hillside to an overlook of the beach and surrounding cliffs. For a long time we watched as whales spouted and breached a ways off shore! What a treat! We then hiked down to the beach and as usual, enjoyed watching and listening to the surf crash into the beach. It was quite windy and it was fun to watch the tops of the waves blow off as they started to break! I cannot get enough of this stuff.

The clouds started to roll in around 10 AM and that was our signal to get on the road back to Perth. We had about 450k to drive and sometimes we could go 110kph and other times 50kph, so we knew it would take a big chunk of time to make the drive and we knew that we would make some stops along the way.

The rain returned and we were in and out of it all day and fortunately we never had flooded roads, but we did have one other “water on the road” incident which I will share at the end.

While I was driving Jim was reading the pamphlets we got on this area and discovered that there was a large Karri tree that had a set of spiral steps up it to a lookout platform on the top! That piqued our curiosity so we pulled into the Diamond Tree turnout to see what we could see. And there it was, this very tall tree with rods hammered into it, spiraling up 51m to a platform in the canopy! Now here is the truly amazing thing: there were no safety precautions for climbers, there was no one there in an official capacity, it was free, and it was like an accident waiting to happen! These were not steps imbedded into the tree, these were slippery, wet metal rods about 18″ apart spiraling their way to the top! How can the Australian government let this go unsupervised! Of course, we had to see how high we could climb and it wasn’t very far before our will to live kicked in and we climbed down on those slippery rods! We both agreed that this was much scarier than the Tree Top Walk yesterday! Unbelievable!
Click here to see a video of Jim’s partial climb. You may have to turn your head sideways to watch the movie because I shot it with my camera vertical.

We fueled up our bodies and the car in the little town of Bridgetown and then continued on, still shaking our heads at the Diamond Tree climb!

In Bill Bryson’s book about Australia, “In a Sunburned Country”, he talked about coming across these “big” objects in some random small towns around the country. We saw the “big” koala bear outside of a brew pub on Phillip Island (and that was before we had a beer!) and Jim read about a “big” orange in the little town of Harvey, just off of our route to Perth. We had to make the detour and we are glad we did. Harvey is orange growing country and we saw rows and rows of orange trees heavy with ripe-looking fruit! The “big” orange sits in the orange grove and vineyards of Harvey Estate Winery! We climbed to the top (40 feet up), where inside the orange were some historical photos of the orange grove. We looked down onto beautiful trees ladened with oranges! We bought a liter of Harvey Orange Juice while we were there and will take it back to Melbourne with us! I’ll have to do some research to figure out where some of these other “big” object are!

We were a bit concerned with the traffic we would find as we approached Perth because we saw many signs reminding the locals that lots of the local trains would be out of service from July 12-17 for some major overhaul of the transit system. We did find back-ups in the city and what seemed to be lots of people at the bus stops. But the most exciting thing on the road into Perth was the crashing waves that were splashing up in the freeway! There was a sign warning drivers that “Water May Be on Road Surface” and we immediately thought of flooding, but no, the winds were so strong they were whipping up waves on the Swan River that were breaking on the rocks next to the road, sending sheets of water onto the cars! It was wild! There is a bike trail between the road and the rocks and those bike riders were just getting hammered!
Click here to see a video that Jim shot while I drove through the surf on the road!

So lots of wind and intermittent rain showers have been the story in Perth tonight. The sun is supposed to emerge again tomorrow, when we do our last sightseeing before catching the 5 PM flight back to Melbourne.

Perth-the Most Isolated Big city in the World

July 13, 2013

Today marks the third month of our Aussie adventure and what a 3 months it has been! I am amazed at all we’ve been able to see and do in that time. We are both very grateful for this opportunity. To all the faithful readers of this blog I say, “Thank you” for following along. Your comments and “likes” keep me writing!

I had a much better sleep last night on the train and awoke to a blanket of fog covering the outback. But as we approached the outskirts of Perth, the sun burned it off, which was a good thing as Jim’s plane was scheduled to land here at 11:15 AM.

One more delicious breakfast in the dining car and clearance from the fruit and vegetable inspectors and I was disembarking at the Perth train station! Perth-can you believe it? It has always sounded so faraway but here I am!

I shared a cab with a woman I met in the train and was able to check into my hotel room at 10:00 AM! I then walked a half mile to the car rental place where I picked up a red Holden/Ford Cruz. I put Sheila on the front window and she got me to the Perth airport where Jim’s plane was on time! I missed my traveling partner and was happy to see him come through the Arrivals door!

We decided that we really should go to the Perth beaches and put our feet in the Indian Ocean! Plus it was a warm, sunny day today with rain in the forecast for the next couple of days. We stopped at 3 or 4 beaches and walked along the trails connecting some of the beaches. While driving we noticed lots of people, tents and flags by one beach and decided to check it out. We found a surfing competition going on so we sat on the cliff above the beach and watch surfers trying to catch the good waves and then make the most of their rides. It was fun to watch.

We went back to our hotel in Perth’s CBD, got Jim’s stuff into the room and then went for a walk down to the Swan River pier area. Perth does not sit on the ocean, but rather a couple of kilometers up the Swan River. Our views back on the downtown area were impressive.

I truly enjoyed my train journey. It was a very relaxing way to travel and the train staff took very good care of me and the other passengers. I met lots of interesting people and enjoyed the time we shared. And the scenery was spectacular as well as the human interest stories that go along with that harsh scenery. There is one other Australian train trip I may take and that is between Adelaide and Darwin. I have to get serious about booking that trip. I think that the train schedule may work so that I arrive on a Friday night and Jim could fly to Darwin to spend a long weekend with me in that Northern Territory city.

Tomorrow we head south to the Margaret River area. This region is famous for its wines and its beautifully rugged ocean cliffs.

Here are some photos for our day.

Riding the Rails

July 12, 2013

I didn’t have the best night’s sleep last night as the train’s motions and noises were new. Tonight will be better.

It was raining and apparently had rained hard over night. This now makes two places I have visited where rain is rare and I was there for it – Uluru with Bob and Sally and now the Nullarbor Plain in South and Western Australia.

Nullarbor Plain is the massive land feature across this section of Australia and Nullarbor is the Latin word for “no trees.” When I opened my window shade in my cabin this morning (early, because I wasn’t sleeping!) there were still low trees and small shrubs covering the red earth. And there were lots of puddles! The rocky soil is unaccustomed to rain and it doesn’t drain real well.

By late morning we were approaching the Nullarbor when all of a sudden the trees just stopped. It wasn’t a gradual thing, it was abrupt and rather amazing. One minute there were trees and the next minute Nullarbor! The train stopped in the town (and I use that term loosely) of Cook (named for a prime minister, not the explorer). This is a refueling station for cross-country trains. In Cook’s hay-day it was a wild outpost sporting a school, hospital, gaol (jail), swimming pool and a golf course. The town now boasts a population of 5 and is more like a ghost town!

All afternoon we traversed the Nullarbor. The sun came out and it was beautiful. In the early afternoon I went to the lounge car so I could see out of both sides of the train and maybe chat with some folks. I was successful on both counts! There was a core group of us and others came and went as the dinner hour approached. An advantage of being in a group looking out the windows was that we had many eyes looking for wildlife. We saw kangaroos (the big guys), packs of the feral camels and the huge wedge-tailed eagles. Over the course of the afternoon and many kilometers we watched the sky clear and cloud over several times. At one point we saw an intense rainbow which turned into a double rainbow! It was sooooo big, we could never see the far end of it! So now I’ve see waterfalls on Uluru and rainbows on the Nullarbor, all because of rain in places it rarely rains!

The meals on board the Indian-Pacific train have been delicious. Tonight I had a pork cutlet with a macadamia nut coating. Breakfast and lunch were equally nice. Each meal I’ve shared a table with other passengers and they all have been delightful folks. Once again, my American accent has opened the door for lots of conversation! At one point in the lounge this afternoon I was given an Aussie language lesson, which was fun and for which I received high marks!

The train made an evening stop in Kalgoorlie for a few hours and my fare included an off-train excursion to one of the world’s largest open pit gold mines. This mine is operational 24 hours a day, 7 days a week so we were loaded onto tour buses for a short tour of Kalgoorlie and then a stop at the mine museum followed by an overlook of the Super Pit. At the museum we got to get up close and personal with the enormous dump trucks and front end loaders that load and haul the rock out of the mining pit. The tires on theses things are more than twice as tall as I am and cost $40,000 each! We were able to climb steps to the driver’s cab on the dump truck which sits 5 meters above the ground! These vehicles were massive but appeared quite small when we got to the Super Pit and saw them in the distance slowly making their way up a ramp on the far side of the pit. This pit is currently about 3.5k long, 1.5k wide and 500-700m deep and because it runs all day and night it was well lit in the area where work was being done. It would be interesting to see this gold mine in action during the daylight hours to get a real feel for the size of the pit. The most recent estimates show that the mine has an annual production of gold valued at $800 million!

Hoping for a better night’s sleep tonight after a great day aboard the Indian Pacific train!

Cheers!