From Portland, Oregon to Melbourne, Australia is 8,757 miles. That adds up to about 16 hours of seat time. We were greeted with a passing rain shower and 66 degree weather that made us feel right at home. We found Melbourne (Melben to the Aussies) to be a friendly, easy to navigate large city of 4,530,000.
Melbourne
Great Ocean Adventure
Our bus driver told us there was 181 curves on this road. He wasn't kidding!
We saw hundreds of stone piles along the beach called cairns.
A cairn is a human-made pile or stack of stones.
Looks and feels like Southern California.
We learned hat constant erosion of the limestone cliffs of the mainland beginning 20 million years ago, the stormy Southern Ocean and blasting winds gradually eroded the softer limestone, forming caves in the cliffs. The caves eventually became arches and when they collapsed rock stacks up to 80 feet high were left isolated from the shore. The stacks of rock is now called The Twelve Apostles.
Camel Farm
Another very hot day. 103!! Today we rode one lap around a dusty track on our stubborn camels who decided to beat feet in the final turn! Australia's wild camel population is the biggest in the world. Over 700,000 feral camels roam the central desert regions.
Alice Springs
Alice Springs is in the Northern Territory of the central desert of Australia. We visited the School of Air and the museum of the Royal Flying Doctors.
Ayres Rock or Uluru
This beautiful site includes many caves, waterholes, and ancient rock painting. Uluru is a massive sandstone rock in central Australia that is sacred to the Aborigine of the area, who are known as the Anangu.
Waterfalls came roaring down the Rock after a brief rainfall.
This mysterious rock changes color according to the weather and light. 
There are just over 23,000 Indigenous in Australia. Many have left their traditional lifestyle of hunting and gathering, and have moved to suburbs. There is a 40% unemployment rate in many Aborigines populations. Aborigines are widely discriminated against which causes some people not to hire them. Even the police and government discriminate against them.
crocodile kangaroo emu wallaby
Cairns Great Barrier Reef
Cairns is the jumping off point to the Barrier Reef, a 90 minute boat ride away. The Cairns region is the fourth most popular destination for international tourists in Australia after Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane. The Aussies pronounce Cairns as Cans.
Divers and tourists from all around the world come to this area to dive at the
Great Barrier Reef.
Tjapukai Aboriginal Culture Park
Here, we learned how to throw a spear and boomerang. Later we watched performances of the rainforest’s indigenous people.
Kiwi Wildlife Park
We traveled by train through the rain forest up to the Kiwi Wildlife Park.
On the return down the mountain,The Skyrail cable car took us high over the canopy. Amazing!
Sydney
We spent 3 days in beautiful Sydney which included: tour of the Opera House, Harbor tour and hop-on-hop off bus tour.
Enjoying dinner with our fellow travelers. Great view from our hotel room.
Sydney Opera House Facts
seven performance venues
cost to build the Opera House was $102 million
There are 1,056,006 roof tiles covering the sculpted roof area
8 Boeing 747s could sit wing to wing on the site.It took 10 years complete the Grand Organ.
Christchurch, New Zealand
We flew from Sydney to Chistchurch, New Zealand's on southern island. Here, we enjoyed a wonderful Kiwi homemade meal. Five years ago the area experienced two 7.5 earthquakes which destroyed most of the buildings in this 300,000 city. It's been a slow recovery and rebuild.
Queenstown
Founded in 1863, Queenstown now has an urban population of 13,150. Queenstown boasts of 220 adventure tourism activities. Sunniest month is November. Lord of the Rings was filmed here.
Bungee jumping is very popular. It's a wonderful view from the Skyline Gondola.
Our evening ride was a steam powered boat to Walter Peak where we had a
wonderful dinner and sheep shearing demonstration.
Walter Peak dinner and sheep shearing demonstration
Arrowtown
Arrowtown, population 2,015, is an historic gold mining town in the South Island of New Zealand.
Our next flight was from Queensland to Rotorua in New Zealand's north island.
Rotorua
Tonight we enjoyed a traditional hangi feast. The Mori are the indigenous Polynesian people of New Zealand. The Mori originated with settlers from eastern Polynesia, who arrived in New Zealand in several waves of canoe voyages at some time between 1,250 and 1,300 AD.
Hobbitown
Two of the Hobbit movies were filmed here.
Auckland
Auckland is a modern cosmopolitan city with a population of 1.45 million people roughly one third of New Zealand's entire population reside in Auckland.Today we took an elevator to the top of the 1,076-foot-high Sky Tower in Auckland.
Yes, people skydive from the tower!
We took a water taxi to a nearby island. We hiked to the top
where a great view of the city lay before us.
Auckland Harbor
Sunrise on our way home from a wonderful trip down under.
