Perth–Western Australia

Greetings from Perth on the Indian Ocean.  We had an uneventful flight from Melbourne yesterday.  Flight time was 4 hours, a distance of over 1,600 miles.  I guess that is like flying most of the way across the United States.

We were greeted at the Perth Airport by the organizers of our Perth Magpie excursion.  Terri as very gracious in getting us oriented and steered to Hertz and the car park.  I had to refresh my driving on the other side of the road AND from the other side of the car, but found it came back quickly.  It was a relatively short drive from the Perth airport to our home for the next few days, The All Suites hotel.  We are in the center of the city, ideally located with convenient shopping and restaurants.

At the hotel, we met up with Monty’s sister Sylvia and brother-in-law Roy.  Roy and Monty took a short walk to the local phone store where we set up an Australian phone for use while we are here.  By the time we got back, it was time for dinner with the Magpie ladies and husbands/traveling companions.

After a good night’s sleep, we met for breakfast just down the street from the hotel.  Some of the group took a long stroll/hike this morning, but Katie and I were lazy and slept in.

From there it was off to the local IGA for a few supplies and snacks. 

The IGA is in the shopping district, but it is part of a walking district.  I don’t know where one would park a car.  It is close to another walking mall area with lots of stores.  I noted lots of sidewalk restaurants, cafés, etc.  It reminds me more of European style streets rather than typical American streets.

We are on the 8th floor of The All Suites.  We have a view of the Swan River and waterfront area from our room balcony.

This afternoon, the group is off for sightseeing around Perth.  I think we are going to really enjoy this part of Australia.

Into the wild

Today was a totally different kind of day.  We took a tour out of town to Phillip Island.  Phillip Island is Southeast of Melbourne at the mouth of Western Port Bay.  It is known for the Koala Conservatory, The Penguin Parade, and wineries.

We were picked up at our hotel by Go West Tours and guided for our day by our capable guide Nicky.

After about an hour and a half drive to Phillip Island, our first stop was at a Bush Tucker farm.  Bush Tucker refers to any food native to Australia which is used for sustenance by the indigenous people.  It generally refers to both plant and animal, however, more modern use refers to edible native Australian plants.  We walked through the plants being raised at the farm, which included such plants as the bush tomato

the broad leaved peppermint gum

and the native spinach or Warrigal greens.

We then had lunch where the food was made with some of the plants either as flavoring or as an ingredient.  It was quite tasty.

Our next stop was at the Koala Conservatory.  What a photo opportunity there.  They fenced off an area already inhabited by Koala’s using low fences.

The Koala in their native habitat viewing was really great.

There were also Wallabies (small Kangaroos)

 

and we even caught sight of a pair of Kookaburras.

these are often heard but rarely seen in the wild.

From there we made our way to what is known as the Penguin Parade.  The penguins in this case are the Little Penguin also called the Little Blue Penguin.  Every evening shortly after sunset, these 33 cm tall, 1 kg penguins make their way from a day of fishing in the ocean back onto land and to their burrows.  Their burrows are generally holes dug into the side of a hill, but in an effort to maintain the population, man-made burrows are also provided (the penguins take to them readily).

Because camera flash bothers the penguins, photography during the daily migration is not allowed, but what a sight to see a few thousand of this little penguins make their way from the sea, across the shore and make their way to their individual burrows.  The following pictures were purchased at the site and are included here give you and idea of what we saw this evening.

We got back to our hotel late in the evening after a wonderful day.

To add to the wildlife theme of todays entry here are a couple of pictures taken yesterday of birds we saw.

Black Swans  and Coots

Common Myna

and Cormorants

Tomorrow we leave Melbourne and travel to Perth, on the west coast (and Indian Ocean).  Check back for our next report.

Melbourne–City Tour

What a difference a good night’s sleep makes.  We were in bed by 7:00 PM on the 18th and woke up about 10 hours later.  We had to be up early because we had a pickup at the hotel of 7:15 for our city tour and river cruse.  After a nice breakfast at the hotel we boarded our coach for the introduction to the city.

Melbourne is the second largest city in Australia, with a population of just over 4 million.  (Sydney is the largest with a population of over 4.5 million).  There are similarities between the two cities but they each have their own personalities.  For those that have not been following our blog in the past, we have been to Sydney during previous trips. 

The coach tour took us to different areas of the city and gave us an overview.  Melbourne is big on sport.  They have many large stadiums for the different sports they follow.  The biggest is “footy” or Australian Football League.  This sport is different from Rugby with a different set of rules.  That said, they also have Rugby teams (and stadium), Soccer teams (and stadium) as well as venues for the Australia Tennis open and other sports.  Unfortunately you won’t see any pictures here because we drove by all of them and they all seemed to be huge, and on the opposite side of the bus.

We did enjoy the variety of architecture around the city.  Typical of most large cities it is a mixture of modern and old buildings.  St Paul’s Cathedral can be seen from many areas of the city with its great spires.

As compared to the big skyscrapers

Melbourne has a lot of green space throughout the city.  We stopped at Fitzroy Gardens, a beautiful park where they have a conservatory and  Captain  Cook’s home.  Captain Cook was the English sea captain that explored and mapped the east coast of Australia in the 1770’s.  The house, built in 1755 in Great Ayton, England was moved to Melbourne in 1934 as a memorial to Capt Cook. 

We got to meet the great “Capt Cook”

 

and tour the house.

The city has lots of public art of all ages and forms.

We saw these topiaries in the Royal Botanical Gardens

Another contrast in buildings is the very modern buildings in Federation  Square.

complete with its giraffe poking its head into the building

With the central train station built during an earlier era

Around noon we transferred from the motor coach to a boat where we cruised the Yarra River that runs through the city.  These are three “Magpies” and a strap hanger (husband).

I enjoyed seeing the bridges crossing the river.

In the evening we dined in Melbourne China Town.

 

Good company and a nice way to end our first full day in Melbourne.

Tomorrow, bush tucker and the Penguin Parade.

37 Hours Later

This has been one very long day, but we made it to Melbourne.  A little blurry eyed of course, but glad to have our feet back on the ground after too many hours in the air.

It took us 4 flights.  We flew from Omaha to Denver, and then to Los Angeles.  Other than having to contend with mostly full flights they were both good flights.  We arrived in Los Angeles with plenty of time to make our connection.  Because we like Southwest Airlines, the only problem was having to pickup our luggage at the Southwest terminal and roll it over to the Air New Zealand terminal.  That is actually not too bad since the Southwest and Air New Zealand terminals are next to each other.  I’m sure we were a sight though rolling our luggage down the sidewalk.

Had enough time to check in, have a leisurely late lunch and the sit around the departure lounge waiting to get on board the aircraft.

 

We boarded our Boeing 777-300 aircraft and found our “space” seats.  As I mentioned in the last blog entry, we booked the Premium Economy class for the Air New Zealand flights.  We are really glad we did.  The seats are very comfortable and have lots of room to stretch out.  You can change position and have easy access to the aisle without bothering the other people in the row.  We had middle seats for the long flight from Los Angeles to Auckland.  These seats are angled away from each other.  They include a “bean bag” foot rest and enough space to really stretch out.  There is a nice sized tray that is fully adjustable.  I think Air New Zealand is the only airline that has these types of seats.

They served a dinner shortly after takeoff (10:30 PM).  The meal included an appetizer and three course meal with salad, entrée, and desert.  The entrée was a choice of lamb, cod, or chicken.

After the meal, it is cabin lights out.  Of course it is harder to sleep sitting up (even reclined) and not as restful as  lying flat (that is available in first class, the really expensive seats!).  But with the “space” seats it is much better than the regular coach seats.

We arrived in Auckland, where we had a two hour layover before our flight to Melbourne.  The New Zealand international terminal is a very pleasant place to wait. 

Lots of comfortable places to sit and stretch.

Here is the airplane we flew from Auckland to Melbourne.  It was fun to see the Hobbit painting on the outside.

The flight from Auckland to Melbourne was with the same style seats except we were on the side instead of the middle row.  The seats are basically the same except instead of angling away from each other, they both angle toward the side of the airplane.  There is enough room between the rows of seats that the person on the aisle doesn’t have to get up if the person next to the window needs to get out of their seat.

We haven’t seen much of the city as yet.  That will be tomorrow.  We did learn that the city is the second largest in Australia (Sydney being the largest), with a population of around 4 million.  We have spent time in both Sydney and Brisbane on our previous visits to Australia.  There is a difference in the three cities from an architectural perspective.  We are looking forward to exploring the city more tomorrow and Tuesday.

Overall it was a good travel.  I find it amazing that in 37 hours it is possible to travel 9800 miles, half way around the world.  Yes, it is tiring, but wasn’t that many years ago that travel like this would take many days, weeks or even months and at much greater personal peril.  Until next time……………cheers.

We are off again

We are on the road again starting tomorrow morning.  About mid morning we will hop in the car, drive to the airport and catch a “jet airplane”.  So, where are we going?  We are headed back to Australia.  In a couple of days we will look like this picture again, after spending many many hours on 3 airplanes.  This will be our third trip there since the year 2000.  For those that followed us previously will note that we were there just last September and October (2013).  Yes, we like Australia, but we have things and events that keep drawing us back.

We were seriously thinking of going back while we were there last year, and being retired and still able to enjoy traveling we got serious about it early this year.  This biggest issue we had to overcome was Monty’s bi-lateral knee replacement that took place in January.  His recovery has been successful.  Katie had some issues to work on also, but thank to the miracle of modern medicine, she is also ready to go.

What is taking us back?  Katie is a member of an internet quilt group (The Magpies) that has people from all over the world.  The group periodically meets up at various places.  The last one we attended was in California in the fall of 2012 (San Jose quilt show).  This year the group is meeting in Perth Australia (Perth Quilt show).  Then the other draw for us to Australia is that Monty’s sister and her husband live there.  There are our two excuses for traveling “down-under” again.

Previous trips have taken us to mostly East Coast locations.  We have been to Brisbane, Sydney, Tasmania, Canberra, and about a week in the outback at Uluru (Ayers Rock).  This trip we will be on the West Coast at Perth (Western Australia) with travel into the areas around that city.  We are also going to spend a couple of days in Melbourne (Victoria) on our way to Perth.

We will fly to Los Angeles tomorrow and catch an Air New Zealand flight tomorrow night.  The flight takes us direct to Auckland , New Zealand (12 hour flight).  There we have about a 2 hour layover, a chance to stretch our legs, and then continue our travels into Melbourne (about another 4 hours). 

For this trip we are traveling in premium economy which gives us a little more room.  The seats look something like this:

 

The map gives you an idea of our flight route once we get to Auckland,  It is surprising that it is almost a straight shot from Auckland to Melbourne and then to Perth.

While in Melbourne we plan on getting a bus tour of the city and a cruise of the Yarra River on Monday and then on Tuesday we get a guided tour of Phillip Island with a bush tucker lunch, Koala Conservation Center, Nobbies and Seal Rocks and a Penguin Parade.  That will be a fun two days and hopefully give us a chance to change our body clocks.

Then it is a flight from Melbourne to Perth where we will spend the rest of our time.  There we will meet up with the rest of the Magpies (we will tour Melbourne with some of them), and will meet up with Monty’s sister and her husband (Sylvia and Roy).

The first few days will be spent in Perth visiting the quilt show, and visiting various places in Perth, including Caversham, Fremantle, and Kings park.  There is also an excellent rail museum and aircraft museum in Perth.

Toward the end of May, Katie, Roy,Sylvia and myself will be traveling by car around the area south of Perth. 

We expect to tour around Margaret River, walk along a path at the top of giant trees, and visit a place called Wave Rock (Google it).  This five day drive will give us a good feel for the countryside and sites in the area.  We also hope to get a chance to go north of Perth to the Pinnacles. 

So, over the next three weeks, keep an on on this Travel Log.  I probably won’t update it every day.  It depends somewhat on the availability of internet connections and well as how tired we are at the end of the day.  But you can expect pictures and narrative on each blog.  For those that wish, you can comment and ask questions as we go along.  I think you may have to get a google log on to do that, but we welcome the comments and the contact.

Tomorrow being a travel day, and since we skip a day crossing the international date line, our first update will probably be on the 18th (Australia time).  Until then………….cheers.