New Zealand - Coromandel Penisula

Leaving our home base from Auckland, we headed East by car to the Coromandel Peninsula, taking the scenic winding and beautiful coastal road. Although the weather was cool, cooler than average, the sun made for some beautiful photos, we soaked in the incredibly green rolling hills and coastal views.. oohing and ahhing along the way. Green lip mussels are well known in New Zealand and the Peninsula is one of the best places to try some... in fact, we helped ourselves at the local supermarket in Whitianga, our home for the night. $2 (US) for 1 kilo (2.2 lbs).... fresh and huge mussels! We made full use of the community kitchen and whipped up a meal of sauteed mussels in a garlic wine butter sauce over brown rice and veggies on the side. Yum!

We started bright and early the next morning to drive south to the Hot Water Beach. This beach has 2 small thermal springs under the sand, so near low tide people come and dig shallow holes near the springs to make small baths to soak in, mixing the hot spring water with cold seawater. We borrowed a shovel from some early birds and after 2 attempts, found the ideal spot for a warm spa with a beatiful ocean front view - a great way to start the day! This was definitely one of the highlights of our North Island experience (highly recommended on our list).

After our home-made spa treatment, we rushed back to Whitianga for breakfast and continued our trek south to the Bay of Plenty. We had another beautiful day of driving along this coast, which is a popular weekend and vacation spot for kiwis due to the warm weather and close proximity to Auckland. We did a nice hike on the Peninsula at Cathedral cove... a gorgeous trek consisting of coastal sights and NZ ferntree rainforest with a beatiful beach and cover as our reward in the end.

Since we were making good time, we made it to Tauranga with just enough time to do our first NZ wine tasting at Mills Reef winery; our first exposure to NZ wine tasting and we liked what we tasted - we bought a bottle of malbec to be consumed along with perhaps a future gourmet dinner. From there, we continued onto Mt. Manganui where we spent the night at a B&B. We had been told the town is right next to an old volcano that is a nice short hiking area and provides great views, so we decided to stay there.

Mt. Manganui and Tauranga were busy little towns. We arrived around rush hour so there was a good bit of NZ traffic, but once we got into Mt Manganui there was few people around. We had just enough time that night to hike up the volcano and take in beautiful panoramic views of the Bay of Plenty just before sunset! Well worth the hike up.

From Mt. Manganui, we headed down to Rotorua for some Maori culture and thermal spas.

Intro to New Zealand and Auckland

Our arrival into New Zealand was a smooth transition from Australia. Arriving into Auckland airport, we found our rental car quite quickly. Hertz was even nice enough to provide a bunch of maps...this was the beginning of our road trip through New Zealand from top to bottom (North Island to South Island) over a three and half week period.

As we reminisce and begin writing our blog in retrospect, we can´t stop telling everybody how gorgeous New Zealand is - and yes, there are magical places that look just like the scenes from Lord of the Rings! We thoroughly enjoyed New Zealand - almost everywhere you go it´s beautiful - clean beautiful lakes, sheep grazing leisurely, rolling green hills in the North and magnificent snow capped mountains in the South; a canvas of artwork right before your eyes everywhere you go. Some of the most interesting and comforting facts we learned about NZ early on is that there are about at least 50 times more sheep than people and there are VERY few animals or critters that people need to worry about...it´s super safe and practically nothing can kill you - no snakes, bears, etc....makes for an easy outdoors experience.

Auckland

Our first stop on the way into the city from the airport...."one tree hill" look out just South of the city.....a great place to soak in Auckland from above - a beautiful vista with sheep roaming along side the path to the top....our first exposure to the many sheep we'll see in the next month. Auckland, a beautiful city surrounded by water and many interesting neighborhoods...in many ways it reminded us of a bit of San Francisco...even the cool breezy climate in early summer was all too familiar for us! We stopped for dinner at Circus Circus cafe-eatery (needless to say the decor was centered around a 'circus' theme) in Mount Eden, a colorful neighborhood/area 20 minutes drive south of the city....we later realized that neighborhoods such as Mt Eden outside of the touristy down town area give Auckland the character that we appreciate....cafes and mom and pop shops along busy main streets. We finally arrived in what we would say is the best boutique hotel we have stayed at...it couldn't have been a better home base as we start our trek through NZ, prepared to make our home in various local B&B's and hostels along the way. We learned from a UK couple along the way that our style of taveling, a step above backpacking, is known as 'flash packing'... staying in hostels yet enjoying the finer things that backpackers may not splurge on... nice gourmet meals or even cooking our own in the community kitchen along the way ;)

Thanks to X's Hilton hotel points, we stayed at the Hilton Auckland literally on the water/harbour of Auckland in the Princes Wharf (Northern part of down town)....it is less than 5 years old and truly a small boutique style hotel....modern decor with simple clean lines and water front views from our private balcony adjoining our room....puffy white down comforters and pillows....and truffles at your bed side.....I will stop now - clearly amenities that we appreciate and that have gone amiss while flashpacking the past month.

We stayed one night in our heaven of sorts and after a mornnig swim in the most unique and elegant pool that I have seen (3 lane lap pool on the 4th floor of the hotel with the illusion of water cascading into the sea) , we were off to explore New Zealand.

Final thoughts on Australia

When we reminisce about Australia, we think about the wonderful people, the variations in landscape and climate, the urban culture of Sydney and Melbourne and how much fun we had exploring the country! Australia was much bigger than we thought-we had to skip Western Australia and the N. Aust. Area around Darwin due to our limited time. And while we saw the beaches in Q'land and Sydney, we felt we didn't spend enough time to fully enjoy them- in particular, no surfing was done on our visit! Just one more reason to come back and visit...

People

We found Aussies to be quite friendly, hospitable and direct (in that sense, more like East Coasters than Californians). We had a blast learning Aussie speak, such as "that's alright" instead of "you're welcome" and "swimming costume" rather than "swimsuit".

Food

Aussie BBQ is a bit different as they cook on a flat metal surface instead of a grill surface like in US or Argentina. You'll find lots of fish-n-chips and hamburgers, which are a bit different from home-their patties seem to be slightly tastier, I have to admit! Julie found it a bit disconcerting that chips (french fries) were the main carb for nearly all meals, while Xavier fully took advantage of this custom. They have savory and sweet biscuits nailed down-X was introduced to the sweet chocolatey delight of Tim Tams and coffee! One thing we found curious was that while the kangaroo is considered a national icon (animal?) of Oz, they have no qualms about eating 'roo as well!

Hiking

One thing that made day hikes interesting was that we were never quite sure if we would be attacked by an animal or wounded by a plant. It seems that many Ozzie animals can kill or hurt you. For example, our beach walk in Q'land's Daintree Park was brief since we were warned that a croc was spotted there a few weeks earlier! And there seems to be many scratchy or itchy plants to be avoided! However, we found walking through the botanical gardens in Sydney and Melbourne to be an experience not to be missed - the beautiful landscaping, variety of plants, and extensive grounds made for many romantic afternoon walks.

Sydney and the Blue Mountains

After the heat of Ayers Rock, it was nice to experience the air conditioned luxury of the Sydney Marriott! Once again we had a room overlooking Hyde Park in central Sydney.
We had almost a week here, and we saw quite a lot. We walked thru the botanical gardens twice, saw Darling Harbour, Rocks, East Sydney, Darlinghurst and Paddington and of course, had our regular dose of gelato to finish off our days (gelato and ice cream shops are everywhere!)
We took a tour of the Sydney Opera House, which has beautiful architecture inside & out, and saw the ballet performance Revolutions in the Opera House itself. The Australian Ballet peformed 3 short classical pieces originally performed by the Russian Ballet. We really liked the short but fast-paced middle piece and the costuming and plot of the third piece Scheherezade - modern day version of an old Russian classic - costumes and dancing were superb and of course the venue was memorable!
One of our most memorable experiences included a ferry to Manly, where we rented bikes to go up to North End park for amazing views of Sydney harbor entrance all the way back to the city. Once back into Sydney, we experienced a nice sunset and amazing night views of the city sky line including the Opera House. We ended our beautiful day dining at Fish Face (yummy gourmet sea food place in Darlinghurst) with a nice glass of Australian wine.

Our time in Sydney was made extra special when we had the opportunity to meet Becky and Brian, 2 very wonderful friends of Sally (our Bay area friend giving serving as our key connection linking us to these lovely people!) Becky and Brian treated us with a yummy home cooked meal and took us to Bondi and Bronte beach (gorgeous!) and the Blue Mountains - it was a blasst! Thanks Becky and Brian...can't wait to see you in SF ;). We also loved meeting their 2 adventurous sons - we had much in common. They both were soon to be married and a pleasure to talk to; hoping we'll see them in SF, perhaps on a future visit as well.

We only wish our time was longer in Sydney...can't wait to share photos!

Ayers Rock aka Uluru and the Olgas

Early Monday morning we woke up early to fly to the Red Center. Jack drove us, and Faye woke up early to see is off-what troopers!
The Red Center is aptly named, the soil is quite an earth-red, and creates an incredible contrast with the plants in the area.
It was so hot that the park closed the Ayers Rock climb and the Valley of the Winds walk by 11 AM! We were later told it hit 50 Celsius in some parts of the park; that's 120 Fahrenheit! It felt worse than what we felt at Burning Man, Nevada desert as we walked around parts of Ayers Rock, known to Aborigines as Uluru.
For dinner, Julie had made reservations for Sounds of Silence, an outdoor dinner show experience. Here we saw the sun set on Uluru, altho a bit far away and not as impressive as we hoped for. We had a delicious dinner buffet including kangaroo, crocodile, and barramundi fish while we listened to a didgeridoo player and were educated on the constellations of the Southern Hemisphere.
The next day we woke up before dawn to see the sunrise near the Olgas, aka Kata Tjuta. Now this was impressive! The sun came up thru just a few clouds, and after that it was amazing to see the colors change on the Olgas! Then we raced over to these rocks to hike the Valley of the Winds before it got too hot. Good thing, cuz it already felt got and I was feeling a little "dehydrated" and a headache from last night's dinner... The park closes the walk at 11 am due to the fact it gets to 36 C by then (about 96 F). If you have a chance to do this walk, do it! It is beautiful to walk amidst these red rock giants.
After our hike we raced back to our hotel to clean up, pack, and head off to the airport for Sydney!

Melbourne and surrounds

We arrived at the Arts Center in Melbourne's Southbank neighborhood at noon on the 17th.
Jack met us and we put our bags in his car. That day we ate pho for lunch and walked around the CBD (central biz district) before meeting Jack at the end of the day to go home.
During our stay here we stayed with Faye, Jack, and Kupa who live in the SE suburb of Melgrave. At dinner we finally had a home-cooked meal; thanks Faye! Julie and I were lucky enough to stay with them, through the generosity of Jenn's friend Sally, who is longtime friends with Faye.
Friday we had a nice sleep-in morning, much needed after many early mornings on our Wayward Bus trip. We took the train into the CBD and spent our day wandering about. We hit the Victoria Market and picked up various items for an impromptu picnic lunch of Turkish bread sandwiches we filled with local salami, ham, cheddar, and pesto! Yum! Other highlights were taking the City Center Circle tram to the Rialto Observation Tower for a bird's eye view of the city (found the PwC and Mercer buildings); took the local tram to the Royal Botanical Gardens (which I think are far more beautiful than Sydney); had dinner at Tiamo 2 restaurant on Lygon Street; and managed to get into the Spiegeltent to see the Le Clique show-which was really amazing!
Saturday we headed to the Healesville Animal Sanctuary. On our way we stopped at a lookout in the Dandenong mountains, where we could see clear across the greater Melbourne area. On our way to the animal reserve we lunched in Healesville, where Julie had her 1st ginger beer (non-alcoholic) and I had my first Oz hamburger, which was tasty-their burgers all seem more homemade and therefore a little tastier than US burgers, believe it or not!
The animal reserve was neat-we got to see the animals up close, our faves were koalas, echidnas and the platypus! This night Jack treated us his delicious Oz bbq!
On Sunday morning, Jack outdid himself with a hearty Oz breakfast with eggs and bacon! Later we went to the St Kilda neighborhood to take in the local crafts market and that evening we took a short boat ride from the pier to see the cute little fairy penguins which Julie was keen on doing. We fortunately found this tour instead of getting up early and spending the whole day down in touristy Philip Island!
After that whirlwind tour of Melbourne, we left early Monday for Ayers Rock. We are grateful to Sally for hooking is up with her friends Faye and Jack!

Great Ocean Road to Melbourne

On Monday 12 Nov we got onto a bus run by Wayward Bus to see the sights from Adelaide to Melbourne. Our driver was Lawrie, who was not only a skillful driver but also full of information about many of the places, sights, and flora & fauna we saw along the way.
Our trip lasted 3.5 days, and a week later I(X) can't remember all the little coastal towns we saw. I'll try to hit the highlights-some things have to be left for all of you to see!
Day 1.
We drove into Adelaide Hills into Hahndorf, a touristy German town. We were there quite early so only a bakery or two was open. We stopped at sand dunes in Cooranga(?) National Park. We had our first views of the ocean since leaving Adelaide! We also stopped at a small restaurant run by aborigines and had a brief tour of local flora & fauna and history by one of them, Gordy. Julie got to hold a lizard and learned the local insect repellent plant! This evening we spent in Robe, a town famous for its crawfish, or lobster as we know it in USA. We had some for dinner-delicious and fresh! Our hotel was Guichen Motel, which was cozy and charming and also had the restaurant we ate dinner.
Day 2.
We visited the town of Mt. Gambier, which is on the slopes of an extinct volcano. There is a lake in the volcano which is the town's water source and apparntly changes color from a black-blue in winter to aqua in the summer. This night was spent in Port Fairy, which had a nice bay to walk along. This day we saw a lot of small port towns-all started by whaling or gold rush. We also had a lot of rain today!
Day 3
Today we drove through another extinct volcano, which once was farmland but has been converted into a wildlife sanctuary for kangaroos, koalas, and emus. We finally got onto the "real" Great Ocean Road with great views, just as dramatically beautiful as CA highway 1 but of course different. We saw several sights including Loch Ard, London Bridge, and the 12 Apostles. This night was spent in Apollo Bay.
Day 4
A half day drive into Melbourne. We drove through a lot of weekend beach towns, and as we approached Melbourne we had some nice views. We met up with Jack Hamilton, a friend of a friend who was kind enough to open up their home to us while we were in Melbourne.

Barossa Valley, South Australia

After Heron Island, we continued our "high life" adventure by flying to Adelaide and renting a car to drive to Barossa Valley for the weekend. Barossa is Oz's oldest wine region so we thought we might be doing a "Napa Valley" weekend.

I had fun driving up in a little Toyota Yaris (smaller than a mini - in fact, we don't have anything nearly as small in the states - imagine that!), with manual transmission and in the left lane! Fortunately we had 2 weeks in Oz to get used to being on the other side of the road. Driving up to Barossa, we took the A20 to B19 which was a nice country road into Barossa through Gawler and then Tanunda, where our B&B was located - Lawley Farm! Leslie met us and showed us our own cottage, which was as charming as we could have imagined it; amidst vineyards and with a lovely garden and friendly farm animal (ducklings :)) steps away. She recommended we just stick to Krondorf Road as there were so many famous wineries on our street.

Well, what a nice change of pace we had in Barossa! Barossa is still low-key and informal, even compared to Sonoma wineries. Our Saturday wineries included lunch at Barossa Vines and tastings at small boutique wineries - Charles Melton (wines were poured by Virginia, the friendly wife of Charles, the wine maker; it was a load of fun as we experienced the tasting while chatting with some Aussies), Rockford, St. Hallets, and Villa Tinto .

Villa Tinto turned out to be a wonderful surprise. Alberto is the owner, who originally hails from Mendoza Argentina (an instant connection for me (X)! He started the winery, making wines which IMHO are very similar to the food-friendly wines of Argentina, Spain and Italy; not so much for tasting & enjoying on their own, but with food, as it should be! I started speaking in spanish with Alberto, and then 2 Spaniards showed up, who were also directed to Villa Tinto by another winery. One thing led to another, and Alberto gave us some tastes out of his barrels and his lovely wife Diane even invited us to a delicious dinner of asado (Argentine BBQ right in his own backyard), spanish tortilla cooked by the Spaniards, and of course more Villa Tinto wine! We had a great time seeing the video of some TV coverage of the winery, spoke loads of Spanish and some German (!) and making some new friends in Australia.

Sunday I(X) woke up with a little hangover, but we still enjoyed our farm-fresh egg breakfast delivered to our room :). We visited Torbreck, Murray Street, Two Hands, and then back to Villa Tinto to buy our wines and ship everything to Sydney! We unfortunately found out Henschke was closed early; we had hoped to taste there on our drive back to Adelaide.

We stopped in North Adelaide to eat at Cibo, which had a delicious gnocchi. We stayed in the old part of Adelaide to be close to Wayward Bus Tours for our trip to the Great Ocean Road the next day.

Heron Island, Queensland, Australia

We're in paradise! - Alas our "honey moon" or at least what most people envision a honey moon: beautiful beaches, great snorkeling (and diving) and absolutely gorgeous weather. Some of our highlights while spending 3 nights on Heron Island have been an amazing and educational night time turtle tour, fabulous snorkeling, and just some plane old relaxation and yoga on the beach. Our cabin of sorts was right on the beach which made for easy access!

The turtle tour was lead by Jeanine, the head researcher from Queensland University. Jeanine was chock full of information and has spent the last 10 years studying turtle reproduction and their life cycle at Heron Island. We were fortunate enough to be on Heron Island while it was the season for female turtles to come ashore and lay their eggs. In a nut shell the process entails turtles coming on shore at night. They then meticulously choose a site, dig a deep (2 ') hole in sand and lay their eggs (approximately the size of a ping pong ball) and then fill the hole back in with sand. The whole process takes about 2 hours and is a very exhaustive exercise. We got to see the whole process up close and personal and it was amazing; just like Discovery Channel but live!

When female turtles become mature enough to reproduce, they travel hundreds of miles in the sea to come back to where they were first hatched from their egg to start the whole process all over again. A female turtle may lay eggs up to 5 times in one season (over a 3 month period) and each turtle may lay roughly 100+ eggs. Only one in 1,000 eggs that are laid actually result in a turtle making it to full maturity. Young turtles are eaten or just don't make it back to sea when they are first born. Okay...enough about turtles - I think our nerdy side has taken over...we love this stuff - it's fascinating!

We snorkeled most of the time we were on Heron Island...a break from diving, as dictated by a Doctor's visit while in Cairns. We found out that Xavier had ruptured his ear drum while on our 4 night live aboard dive trip to the Outer Great Barrier Reef. Fortunately, there was no infection but the verdict was no more diving until the ear completely heals (can take 6-12 months) . No worries...it's a good thing we got 9 dives in prior to seeing the Doctor ;). BTW, we couldn't believe how much it cost to see a doctor (generalist visit): $60 AUD (less than $50 US $)! What a bargain. And the antibiotics (taken as a prophylactic) was only $16!

Although the diving is quite good off of Heron Island, we saw a fair amount of marine life just snorkeling off shore - a plethora of rays including ones that would fly out of the water (no joke!), beautiful iridescent bright blue fish amidst the drab colored coral (yes, we were spoiled on our Outer reef trip), yellow puffer fish, plenty of reef sharks, some parrot fish and a host of zebra fish. All in all, we had a blast!

Cairns, Queensland, Australia

Hot and humid! Cairns- a touristy urban center where many people start their dive adventure. We were no exception. Cairns is full of hotels, info centers, travel agents, and internet cafes. We left our bags at Taka Dive, our live-aboard operator, and walked around town to get our hostel and rainforest trips set up before boarding our boat...

Our 4-day dive trip was excellent! We did 9 dives and the great barrier reef was a feast to our eyes - amazing technicolor coral amidst an equally colorful array of fish and marine creatures of all sizes and shapes including sharks and turtles. Our favorite spot was Steve's Bommie.
We met a lot of fun and interesting people from around the world~ Ina from Switzerland, David and Luisa from Barcelona, Susana from Dubai! Surprisingly many were also on long-term travel like us. We now have a few more friends and places we have been invited to visit in the near future :) Also worth noting is that Taka Dive's meals were quite good-far better than we expected!-our chef was amazing, whipping up yummy meals for 30 divers with hearty appetites all by herself.

After diving we headed up to Daintree National rainforest park. Along the way we did a daintree river cruise looking for crocodiles (saw 2!) and had a guided nature walk on the marrdja boardwalk; we had a very knowledgeable guide who taught us all about mangroves and the raintree habitat and how aboriginees used many of the plants.

We stayed a night at the Cape Tribulation Beach House, nice little hotel. The beach was beautiful and relatively untouched. It was neat to see rainforest meet the beach. We walked a little, but not too far as we were told a crocodile was spotted nearby not long ago! At dinner, we had our first taste of kangaroo, which tastes a lot like lean, slightly gamey beef - yum! We also did a night tour where we saw all sorts of night critters-frogs, lizards, and snakes (yikes! Not my (Juls) favorite)).

After our night in the rainforest, we headed back to Cairns. We stopped in Mossman Gorge, which is a natural swimming hole (croc free!), and Port Douglas, a small port town turned into a Sausalito-like resort town. There we discovered Peter lick's photography; he's a famous Aussie capturing shots of scenic Australia and and our own canyons including the Grand Canyon- a little reminder of home :).

Our only unfortunate incident was that upon returning to Cairns, we went to the doctor and found out x had ruptured his eardrum-so no more diving for x :)