Don't Worry Be Happy

Melbourne is apparently number one (then Vienna and Vancouver) and it's no surprise. Not only has it got a lot of interesting architecture, green areas, free trams, great weather, a giant Christmas theremin AND the largest LEGO Christmas Tree in the southern hemisphere. This is our final stop in Australia and we're enjoying every last minute of it. The day after we arrived we had an all day tour of the Yarra Valley which produces a lot of Chardonnay, pinot noir and sparkling wines. The first winery we visited was Chandon, known for their French champagnes. The day included a few more wineries (lost count), a cheese tasting and a beer/cider and tasting. Nadine organized the tour and she and her mom helped give a toast to the morning: On Wednesday we ventured over the Yarra river (which divides Melbourne) to the main shopping area - first stop Hopetoun Tea Room - very famous for their cakes (one slice of chocolate/fig tart)!  Then a Circle Tour on the free tr...

As I started researching our trip it became apparent that a visit to Cairns was not only on the 'approved' list (people who had been here nodded approvingly when I mentioned it) but that the trip must include some version of a reef adventure. The Great Barrier Reef is 2300 km long and is the "world's biggest single structure made by living organisms" (Wikipedia). Our trip took us about 40 km offshore to Michaelmas Cay and Hastings Reef which is on the outer reef. The pictures below speak for themselves - there was also an immense variety of corals of different shapes, sizes, colours and textures which are difficult to photograph. This one was almost transparent: I was often surrounded by schools of large fish. A bit unnerving at first. They didn't seem bothered by me.   A random brilliant blue fish:  Rather ordinary Green Sea turtle  HUGE (1 m across) giant clam hiding among the coral:  No idea who this guy is but he's kind of funny...

As well as being the 'gateway to the Great Barrier Reef', Cairns, in northern Australia, is a beautiful tropical paradise. There are some beautiful beaches in the area but there's only one small problem - deadly stinging irukandji   jellyfish which means that NO ONE goes anywhere near the water at this time of year! This particular type of jellyfish is very small (1 cubic cm) but very venomous and Cairns reported its first victim of the season a few days ago. Luckily she survived and was released from the hospital. So, beautiful but abandoned beaches. It's quite hot here (30+) but not as humid as Bali.  Fortunately we have a pool at our apartment and downtown Cairns has a beautiful large lagoon (pool). One other nice feature of Cairns is the Esplanade, a 2 km strip park all the way down the water's edge. It's a very clean, well maintained park, with a large children's play area, various exercising areas and many, many beautiful trees (lots of banyans...

I shouldn't have given it away in the title but yes, our wine tour today ended with kangaroos. We booked a 1/2 day tour (twofatblokes.com.au) that started at 10 am - a bit early for wine tasting unless you're us! We were picked up about 9:30 from our little house in the Hunter Valley and headed off to the first of three wineries. It was all a lot greener than I would have anticipated around here. The Hunter Valley produces 4% of the wine in Australia so it's relatively small. Although there are plenty of vineyards, there are also a lot of open grazing spaces. The main wines are Shiraz, Chardonnay and Semillon. I very quickly lost count of the number of wines we tested although I know at our 2nd stop we had a pairing of 9 different wines and mostly local cheeses. The wines were great but the cheeses were to die for. Can we get cheeses like this in Canada? While conversing with the driver, I mentioned that we STILL hadn't seen kangaroos so he promised he...

We had such a fabulous apartment in Sydney we were all a bit disappointed when we had to pack up and leave for Palm Beach. I did manage to gather the group for a photo on the deck before we left. While in Sydney, Ross and I did the requisite hop-on hop-off bus, then Mike and Liana joined us a few days later for the hop-on hop-off ferry around the harbour. This gave us an excellent overview of the entire area, from Bondi Beach to Manley. Also did a tour of the opera house which took 14 years to build and went massively over budget ($7 million to $102 million). The tour focussed a lot on the architecture of the building which, as you know, is unique. Construction started in 1959 before they had any idea of how they would put it all together. Obligatory tourist photo: Palm Beach is kind of the holiday or weekend get-away area for Sydney-ites (is there another word for them?). It is situated on a narrow peninsula just an hour or so from the city and dotted with beautiful beaches ...