Adelaide, Australia

We chugged out of Halls Gap early, and on to South Australia, "The Festival State" After another loooong day in the bus we reached lovely Adelaide. We spent two days here in this small and easily walkable city of 1 million

Lindso makes friends with a black swan.

Grampians National Park, Australia

A road sign you probably won't spot in Nebraska.


We walked down the stairs to Mackenzie Falls. Nice. Not quite Niagra Falls, but for a country in a severe drought...

We hiked to the Pinnacle, a windswept view over the Grampians range

We spent a couple of hours at the Otway Fly inside Great Otway National Park; an area where they have built 80 foot high metal towers and fixed walkways in between 215 foot tall old-growth gum trees. They also had a prehistoric educational area where children (and 35 year old children) can see dinosaur replicas up close.

Great Ocean Road, Australia

We departed on our second three-day tour today, this time with a full bus of 24. We had some Swiss, some Irish, some Brits, and even a couple of other Americans. We left Melbourne at O-dark-thirty and headed out onto The Great Ocean Road.

We stopped by the roadside to view some Koalas. Koalas don't do a heck of a lot. They sleep about 20 hours a day. They eat three hours a day. I guess the other hour is spent watching Oprah.

Toward sunset we drove to the Twelve Apostles. These limestone rock towers are amazing; unquestionably the most stunning view of our trip.

It is said that the Twelve Apostles can make anyone with a camera into an Ansel Adams for a day. This shot was my best effort.

Melbourne, Australia

The best cultural experience of our trip was attending a footy match at the MCG. We saw the Melbourne Demons take on the Hawthorn Hawks in their season opener. I knew from the local sports page the Hawthorn was predicted to be one of the top two teams in the league; while Melbourne was picked to finish dead last. Thus, we planned to barrack (not root) for Hawthorn, since it's the American way to be a fair weather fan. However I also wanted to purchase a t-shirt to support my adopted footy team. My choices were an ugly brown Hawthorn shirt for $35 or a cool navy blue Melbourne shirt for $20. I switched allegiences on the spot and went with Melbourne. Oh what a mistake.

This was not a close game. The final score was 154-50. The Howthorn fans around us told me things like "You picked the wrong team, mate." and "I'm sorry, this is really unusual, it's generally much closer" The Melbourne players appeared as confused about the rules as I was. They seemed to struggle with the concept of catching the ball and kicking it through the posts for a score.

Just the same, it was a great day at the ballpark. Each team has it's own song that it's fans sing at the beginning of the game. I think one song was set to the tune of Yankee Doodle Dandy, and the other to Old Langs Ayne. The manner of cheering is different too. This was the common refrain from the woman sitting next to me; "Go, Yes, Yes, Go, Yes, Yes, AHHHHHHHH! Well Done! Well Done, Robbie. Well Done." followed by polite golf clapping. Slightly different from what you might hear at Fenway; "Hey A-Rod you f#$%ing suck! Go back to New York you glove slapping mo*&%$*%$er!"

We perused the art museum and were please to find the pool in front was named after Lindso. They didn't get the spelling right though.

We walked a couple miles down to St Kilda to find the best pub scene in Melbourne. We caught a rock band at the Esplenade Hotel, which is kind of like a frat basement with the volume cranked to eleven.

Wilson's Promontory, Australia

Crossing the border from New South Wales into Victoria. "Victoria, The Place To Be"

We left the somewhat desolate and windblown town of Lakes Entrance early this morning. I was tired from a late night lesson on the intricacies of Aussie Rules Football from Bones. As near as I can tell, the goal is to smash the head off anyone holding the ball, unless he caught it from someone else kicking it to him. In that case you have to leave them alone and watch them score easily.
I also learned that Bones has been everywhere. I mean everywhere on earth. I flipped through his picture album to see pictures of Bones riding his own camel in the mountains of Afghanistan, Bones climbing a 20,000ft mountain in the Andes, Bones playing cricket with Bhutanese monks. Basically Bones lives the life I would like to live, if I had the nerve to quit my job and sell all my posessions. Note to self, keep saving, retire before too old to hike across Himalayas....

After more driving through dusty dirt roads, we arrived at Wilson's Promontory National Park. This is the southernmost point of the Continent of Australia; and also the southernmost point either of us has ever been to at 39.13 degrees S. We walked along Squeaky Beach on our short hike.
Beyond these cold waves of the Southern Ocean lies the island of Tasmania and then Antarctica.

One of the benfits of taking a tour is that we got a chance to see wildlife in places where we would not have known to look on our own. Over the first six days of our trip we had not seen a single live kangaroo, and I was starting to think perhaps they had gone extinct and the Aussie government was covering it up to save tourism. Not so, Bones took us off road to an abandoned WWII airstrip where he knew there would be kangaroos. Sure enough we saw a couple dozen eating grass and bouncing around. The joeys and females bound away when you approach them, but the big males are not afraid and will let you get pretty close.

Snowy Mountains, Australia

Today we traveled from Jindabyne through forest and back country dirt roads. We spent much of the day in the Snowy Mountains inside Kosciusko National Park. Here we went for a short (3 mile) hike up to one of the only glacial lakes in Australia. It was foggy and chilly, with rain and wind at these higher elevations of about 5000ft. We were very close to Mt. Kosciusko, the highest peak in Australia at only 7,310ft. I was kinda bummed that we couldnt fit in a hike up Kosciusko, so I could bag one of the Seven Summits. All in all, the Snowy Mountains are not too impressive to anyone who has lived in the Rocky Mountains in Colorado.

Here I flagrantly flout the law; and challenge Australia's finest to fine me $300. ( I think standing means parking in Oz-speak)

Canberra, Australia

Today we began our first of two three-day tours across southeastern Australia. This bus would be our home for about 6 hours a day. We shared it with several Brits, one dazed and confused German girl, and our intrepid Adventure Tours Australia tour guide and chauffeur, Bones.

Our first stop was in Canberra at the excellent National Museum of Australia. Then on to Parliament.

I was a fan of Australian government even before the trip began. Immediately upon entering office last year, Kevin Rudd ratified the Kyoto Accords and proclaimed a national "Sorry" day on behalf of the government apologizing to Australia's indigenous people for all of the cruelty inflicted upon them by the state over the last 220 years.
But our visit to the Parliament House would be even better than we could have anticipated. We just happened to be there on the one afternoon a month when the parliament has "Question Time". This mainly consists of the opposition party grilling the Prime Minister and his cabinet with questions insinuating incompetency and corruption. We had the thrill of watching the Liberal Party (conservatives) pepper the cabinet of the Australian Labor Party (liberals) and K Rudd himself with allegations of impropriety with a Chinese business. As the cabinet and Rudd would deftly respond to each spurious question, the opposition "shadow ministers" would guffaw, catcall, and generally talk amongst each other to show complete disrespect for the speaker.

It was fantastic theatre. K Rudd is a consummate speaker. Unrattled, he would turn each nasty remark back at the inquisitor with a sharp response. I tried to imagine our current President responding to probing questions from Congress with no teleprompter to guide him.

I think the Aussie system of government is far healthier that ours. The party in power controls Parliament and the executive office. They can get things done. The opposition is free to ridicule and demand answers once a month. If the people don't like the results or the answers they hear, within three years, they can throw them out and let the opposition have a go. I'm telling you if we had the Aussie system, C-SPAN would have ratings almost as high as MTV-2.

Another reason I am a fan of Australian government is Peter Garrett. If you don't know who Peter Garrett is; he's just your average six foot six, bald, rock superstar, turned environmental and social activist, turned one of the most powerful politicians in Australia. Garrett was the lead singer for supergroup Midnight Oil from 1973 to 2002. I listened to "Diesel and Dust" and "Blue Sky Mining" often in high school in the late eighties. Their music was the first "protest music" I had ever heard. I learned about Australia by listening to Midnight Oil rail against environmental degradation, militarization, and the lack of support for the aboriginal population. Lindso and I were fortunate enough to see one of their very last concerts at Kinetics in Boulder in 2002.

Now Peter Garrett is the Minister for the Environment, Heritage, and the Arts. So we saw him live for the second time, though in a much different venue. I was hoping he would get a question, alas he did not, but we did see his long legs splayed out in the front row a few seats down from K Rudd. Well done, Peter!

Sydney, Australia

After a 10 hour flight on Jetstar, and a circuitous van shuttle from the airport; we arrived in Sydney late Sunday evening. Our hotel, the Lord Nelson Brewery, was conveniently located in The Rocks, a short walk from the iconic image of Sydney, the Sydney Opera House. We climbed onto the Sydney Harbour Bridge for the above photo at sunset. The harbour is a picturesque hub of activity. Ferries are coming in and out of Circular Quay, businessmen and tourists alike are getting on and off of ferries and trains, street performers are playing didgeridoos for spare change. We walked all around The Rocks and hit several historic pubs.

On day two we went for a run right up to the Opera House and through the Botanical Gardens. We then retraced our steps on a long walk with the camera. Lindso had a seat in Mrs. Macquarie's Chair. This stone bench was carved out by convicts in 1816 so the the wife of Governor General Lachlan Macquarie could sit here under the trees and watch for ships sailing into the harbour from England.

Later that evening we had the first of many encounters with the exceptionally friendly and open Australian people. It was Saint Paddy's day, and much like in America, everyone is a little bit Irish on St Paddy's day. The pubs were packed with young drunk Aussie's dressed in green. We sat at a quieter pub, and soon were engaged in conversation with Jerry and Terry, two Aussies from the next table over. We shouted each other a few rounds, and they invited us to dinner with them at the next pub. By the end of the night we had pub-hopped to at least five different places with them and had a great time. In all of our travels, Australia is only the second place I've been (Ireland is another) where total strangers will strike up a conversation with a tourist and invite them along for a night on the town. We're beginning to like this country.Day three found us riding the ferry to Manly Beach. The view of the harbour from the water should not be missed. Manly is a fantastic Maui-quality beach, just a 60 minute ferry ride from the city center. It's long promenade has all the surf clothing shops and restaurants, and the at the end of the street lies a huge white sand beach with surfable waves. Only Miami and Los Angeles in the US, have beaches this nice this close to the city.
Later on we took the train out to famous Bondi Beach. Almost as nice as Manly, Bondi is only 20 minutes by train from the center. This would certainly be the place to live in Sydney. I've never seen a more fitness oriented beach in my life. We saw people surfing, jogging, competing in a swim race, rowing, doing calisthenics at a Venice-Beach type area, rollerblading, and biking.