Australia

4th March 2010 Steve Irwin. Love him or hate him, he is undisputably one of Australia’s icons with his cries of ‘Crikey’ and ‘you little beauty’ when talking about a highly dangerous snake or crocodile, which is probably about to take his arm off. Even on leaving the UK, a trip to Australia Zoo was high on our list. Australia Zoo became famous in the 1990 when the Crocodile Hunter and his wife Terri took over management of the zoo. Formally known as the Beerwah Reptile Park and owned by Steve’s parents, the park grew from four acres to seventy acres with over 1000 animals. Steve Irwin died on 4 September 2006 after being fatally pierced in the chest by a stingray barb while filming in Australia’s Great Barrier Reef. This year the zoo is celebrating it’s fortieth anniversay and continues to build Steve’s dream. There is very much a focus on conservation and education in the hope of ensuring all animals, but especially crocodiles and Australia’s native creatures such as Koalas survive for generations to come. ...

26th & 27th February 2010 Friday was spent just relaxing, watching TV, doing our washing in a proper front loading washing machine (which seem to be rather rare here) and checking out the shopping mall (very nice!). It was so nice to be in a home chilling rather than a hostel that we took full advantage and were very spoilt with superb barramundi for tea and quite a bit of wine. ...

1st & 2nd March 2010 Monday morning’s weather report said that Queensland has had the wettest summer on record, hmmm, perhaps it’s something to do with Welsh visitors bringing their rain :D. Tina very kindly dropped us into Brisbane to collect a hire car to go out to the coast where we’ll be staying with Aunty Mary for a few days before flying out to Singapore. Back out at the Gold Coast, Ed couldn’t wait to re-aquaint himself with the pool, even though it was starting to overflow with all the rain, which was still falling. I jumped in, but it was much too cold for anything but the quickest of dips! ...

3rd March 2010 We had a visit from Nathan and Sofia this morning, so chance to catch up with what’s been happening in the Morris household. A family outing to the Ferry Road Markets for lunch where we enjoyed the freshest fish and chips we’ve had for a long time with the fish cooked to order from the market’s fish counter. Yum Yum. Back at home and all the adults were feeling decidely sleepy with full tummies, but Sofia had other ideas and a fascinating game of hide and seek ensued. She hasn’t quite got the idea yet and kept on calling out to Nathan telling him where she was hiding. Very cute. ...

24th February 2010 We had always planned to do at least part of the train journey between Cairns and Brisbane and had booked this thinking we were on the famous Sunlander train. However, when we arrived at the station today it turns out we are on something called the Tilt Train. None of the lovely lounges and bars that feature on the Sunlander which was something I was particularly looking forward to. ...

28th February 2010 More rugby this morning, it’s been so good to actually see some Six Nations and with Wales being beaten by France, I was at least happy to see that Ireland beat England too. Then we went out for a ride to the Scenic Rim area. This is a picturesque area of South East Queensland which encompasses some small country towns. It is also a region where there are a few wineries to be explored. ...

20th & 21st February 2010 With yesterday’s very early flight, most of the day was spent just relaxing, catching up on emails and blogs and sleep. We didn’t venture too far from the hostel due to the varying quantities of rain falling from the sky during the day, ranging from light to torrential. Cairns is very much a base for exploring the Great Barrier Reef and areas of far north Queensland such as Cape Tribulation and Port Douglas, and the inland rainforests of the Atherton Tablelands. Tourism is its main industry and it is very much a city about doing, rather than seeing with few monuments, natural or otherwise. ...

23rd February 2010 We awoke this morning to more rain, but were determined to take the bus to the Botanical Gardens regardless, after all, as the guy in the hostel said to us, when better to witness a rainforest, than during the rain. The gardens consist of a collection of tropical plants of both native and exotic origins. Among the attractions are a fernery and orchard house along with palms, bamboo, tropical fruits and flowering trees shrubs and vines. These presented a fantastic display, lush green, dripping with water and quite different from the other botanic gardens we have visited on this trip. We were surrounded by plants which quite often we have seen in greenhouses in other gardens, or houseplants back home. ...

22nd February 2010 The Great Barrier Reef is arguably one of Australia’s most famous tourist attractions with hundreds of boats visiting it every day of the year. The reef stretches from Bundaberg some 2300kms to New Guinea following the outer edge of Australia’s continental plate. The reef runs closer to land as it moves north and is barely 50km from Cairns. Far from being a continuous, unified structure, the nature of the reef varies along its length; the majority is made up by an intricate maze of individual, disconnected patch reefs which sometimes act as anchors for the formation of low sand islands known as cays. ...

19th February 2010 Every year on 19th February the city of Darwin pauses to mark one of the most significant moments in Australia’s history, the Bombing of Darwin by Japanese Imperial Forces on 19th February 1942. It was on this day that the first of at least 64 air raids on Darwin and the Top End commenced. Sadly, many perished during these attacks. This morning we attended the commemoration service which started at 9.58am with the sounding of the air-raid sirens as they did 68 years ago. This was followed by a re-enactment by Defence Force Personnel along with a fly past of FA 18 Hornets. Anyone who didn’t know what was going on would have had quite a fright what with the sirens, then the gun fire, then the planes flying over! ...

17th February 2010 The capital of the Northern Territory, Darwin feels like quite a modern, prosperous city. This is probably due in part to the fact that most of the city has been destroyed on a few occasions, firstly by cyclones in 1897 and 1937, then by Japanese air raids during World War II and the last time on Christmas Day in 1974 when it was devastated by Cyclone Tracey. All the armed services have bases in the vicinity of Darwin and personnel for these services make up a good percentage of the population. ...

18th February 2010 One of our aims on visiting Darwin was to try and get out to Kakadu National Park. We knew we would be limited in what we could do and see out there because we are here during the wet season and vast swathes of the park are under water, but we managed to find a reasonably priced day tour by coach which did the Yellow Water cruise, something we were quite keen on. ...

5th February 2010 Our last job in our little yellow peril was to drop Andy at the station early on Friday morning. After 3 days and over 1000kms it seems strange for it to be just the two of us again, but I’m sure we’ll catch up with Andy again at some point, even if its when we’re all back in the UK. After returning the car in central Adelaide, we took a free walking tour around the CBD. This started at the tourist centre on the main shopping street, Rundle Mall. Our guide, Bernie turned out to be a Gog (or a person from North Wales for the non-welsh people). He’d been in Oz for about 50 years though so only the odd hint of an accent remained. ...

6th February 2010 Like most of Australia’s cities, Adelaide has a Botanic Garden. Opened in 1857, the lovely gardens boast ponds, fountains, wisteria arbours, statues and heritage buildngs just like a clasic English-style garden, but with plenty of native trees too. This is where our Saturday began, with one of the free walking tours of the gardens. Our guide started by walking through the Australian bush section of the gardens pointing out interesting plants used by the Aborigines for various medicinal and food purposes. The Australian forest in these gardens is actually an example of sub-tropical bush from further north than Adelaide, which has very dry bushland which doesn’t require a lot of water. This forest actually needs to be watered because it comes from areas of Australia where they have a higher annual rainfall. ...

7th & 8th February 2010 The last time I visited Australia ten years ago, I elected to do an outback tour from Adelaide to Alice Springs via Coober Pedy instead of taking the Ghan. While I don’t regret this decision for a moment, I’ve always still wanted to take one of Australia’s most famous journeys. In the end, it has worked out for the best because ten years ago, I would only have been able to get as far as Alice as the last section of the Ghan from Alice to Darwin has only been completed in 2004. So finally, we’re taking this epic journey on the longest north to south railway line in the world. ...

1st February 2010 When we bought our tickets for the IMAX, we got some reduced price tickets for the Melbourne Museum at the same time so this morning we decided to check it out. The museum is housed in a modern building, full of natural light across a wide open plaza from the Royal Exhibition Building. The first thing you see as you enter the museum is the skeleton of a junior blue pigmy whale, the largest living mammal on the planet, right next to this is a pair of 12 metre long pythons. We continued towards the Wild exhibition through the dinosaur walk, charting the lives of the various dinosaurs right up to the Australian megafauna, thought to be the distant relatives of todays crocodiles. ...

31st January 2010 This morning we went to explore St Kilda and its craft market. St Kilda is Melbourne’s seaside resort with its strip of beach and pier stretching out to sea. We started off by walking along Acland Street, St Kilda’s main drag where the cafes and cake shops were packed with people enjoying a Sunday morning coffee and cake. Then we headed to the beach where we wandered along the broadwalk before going up to the Esplanade to check out the market stalls dotted along it plying their arts and crafts. ...

30th January 2010 Melbourne is the capital of the state of Victoria, and also Australia’s second largest city. It is widely known as Australia’s cultural capital due to its dedication to the arts, commerce, education, entertainment, sport and tourism. Since Melbourne is very much a city with a vibrant cafe-culture which prides itself on its ’livability’ we decided to spend the morning walking around, getting our bearings and getting a feel for the place. ...

26th January 2010 Today it’s Australia Day, the day to celebrate all things Australian and a public holiday, and the folks here in Tasmania are certainly flying the flag. Many of the homes we pass on our way out to the coast have their Ozzie flags out and loads of the cars too. After yesterday’s mammouth trek, a quiet day today with the car taking the strain. We head out to Burnie on the north coast. Burnie is Tasmania’s third largest city and a very industrial area with a large container port. Our first stop was Fernglade, a platypus reserve on a peaceful, forested stretch of the Emu river. A beautiful setting where we saw many birds but unfortunately no platypus, which is hardly surprising as they are most easily spotted at dawn and dusk and we were there late morning. ...

27th January 2010 From our window in the cottage we have a fabulous view of Mount Roland and since we arrived the plan has always been to do the summit walk which is about a 5 hour return hike. Unfortunately, the weather conspired against us today, which was the day we had planned to do the walk. When we woke up the summit was shrouded in cloud and although the cloud thinned during the morning we decided to do a shorter walk to the summit of Mount Claude instead. ...