Susan May: Australia and New Zealand February 14

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.