11/6

We took the ferry back to Adelaide and the next morning we boarded the short bus for our 6 day trip through the red center.  The tour hiked through Alligator gorge and we saw aboriginal cave paintings.  We ended the day at Pachilna where we ate kangaroo, emu and camel for dinner.

 

Our tour went through another gorge where we saw yellow footed rock wallaby, emu and a shingleback lizard whom we affectionately refer to as a turd lizard.  Their tail resembles their head and as it was described to us, a predator might bite the shingleback’s ‘fake’ head and get a mouthful of something not delicious.  Later in the day when it was much warmer, we climbed Mt. Ohlssen-Bagge.

The following day we drove to Lake Hart salt flats.  It was the first time I’d ever seen salt flats and it was pretty neat.  It was also very flat.  After that short stop we continued our trek to Coober Pedy where they mine opal.  They had these crazy vacuum vehicles made of old pickup trucks.  They use these vacuums to suck the dirt up from inside the mines.  It was very hot there, so hot that the houses are built underground.  We fossacked dirt piles for a while trying to find opal but gave up and bought one.  The breakaways are near here, and a lot of movies like Mad max and Pitch Black were filmed in this region for the desolate landscape.  That evening in the dining hall where we stayed, we saw a giant spider and learned that everything in Australia can kill you.  You should listen to the ‘Come to Australia‘ song.

11/9

We made it to Uluru.  It was quite hot.  That night we camped under the stars.

The next day we had a chance to walk around Uluru (or climb it).  We read that it is disrespectful to the Aboriginal people to climb it, so we admired it from the ground.  After a few hours at Uluru, we hiked at Kata Tjuta.  We camped in cabins that night and saw more of Australia’s poisonous spiders.  I’m pretty sure that’s a redback.

After packing up camp, we head to King’s Canyon where we hiked for a few hours.  It was very hot once again.

Leaving King’s canyon we drove the rest of the way to Alice Springs.  In Alice Springs we bought a painting by an Aboriginal artist then took a flight to Cairns.

11/1

After visiting the tourism information center, I did their walking tour #5.  I also saw the Royal Exhibition Building and the Old Melbourne Gaol.

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The next day we flew to Adelaide.  After checking into the hostel and getting some groceries, we rode the tram awhile and saw the Chinese market.  Then we walked around the park and saw the river and sculptures there.

The bus for our Kangaroo Island tour picked us up the following day.  Aboard the Sealink ferry, we crossed over to the island.

The tour took us to a farm where we were able to pet koalas, feed kangaroos, and hold a joey.

After the farm we went to a beach with sea lions before continuing on to watch a man feed pelicans.  Jenn loved it.  The pelicans were pretty ornery and threatened to eat a gull that sat atop the man’s head.  That evening, we walked along to beach to see penguins.

The tour bus picked us up the next morning and took us to a eucalyptus distillery, remarkable rocks and a dairy farm where we enjoyed fresh sheep cheese.

10/24

In 2006 Jenn and I had a good opportunity to go to Australia.  She was in a lab in Baltimore and her PI sent her to a meeting in Melbourne.  We decided we would take off about ten weeks and see both Australia and New Zealand.  The company I worked for would not authorize that much leave so I was forced to quit my job.  We packed all our things into storage and gave back our apartment.  It was a little unnerving, it felt a bit like we were planning to never return.

Early in the morning we caught our flight from Baltimore to Denver.  We had used a travel agent to help us plan the trip, and at her suggestion we planned an 8 hour layover in LAX so we could leave the airport and go to Santa Monica.  That didn’t work out and just made the very long flight from Baltimore to Melbourne longer.  After LAX, we had another stop in Auckland, then on to our destination of Melbourne.

We arrived in Melbourne in the morning.  We were extremely tired but we were going to try to stay up and go to bed at a reasonable bed time.  First we checked into our hostel.  This was the only time our hostel was not a private room so we were in a co-ed room with about 6 bunk beds.  We went to a grocery store for some food then wandered around St. Kilda for a bit.  We couldn’t hold out though and went to bed for a long, long time.

10/26

Did the Great Ocean Road tour.  On the tour we saw Bell’s Beach, a shipwreck site, some Australian rain forest and several ocean formations including the 12 apostles and London bridge.  We also saw a house from Mad Max.

The tour was pretty good and we got to see Koalas right off the highway.

The next day we visited Queen Victoria market, the botanic gardens and the shrine of remembrance.  It was a lot of walking.  The National Gallery of Victoria and the Ian Potter Center were fascinating museums.  Jenn had to attend the conference for the next few days so for dinner those nights we walked to different areas of town, visiting Chinatown and Little Italy.