Melbourne and the Great Ocean Road

Hello again!

The sophisticated and artsy city of Melbourne didn’t grab us initially.  On our first night we headed into downtown and wandered around a bit.  This is what we normally do when we reach a new city and it usually works quite well for us, but not so much in this case.  Maybe it was because we were STARVING!  Well, once we found food it became tremendously better.  It is wonderful what a delicious steaming plate of Thai noodles can do for your mood.

Melbourne caters to the tourist so they have a free bus and tram system that take you all over the central areas of the city and they both served our purposes well.  We explored the Docklands neighborhood, which is an area of industrial wharves converted into condos, shopping, and funky restaurants and cafes.  We then explored the Southbank area, Royal Botnnical Gardens, and War Memorial and surrounding grounds.  Throughout Melbourne, street art and interesting sculptures are in view everywhere! 

Free central district tram

Soldiers memorial

Memorial grounds and view of downtown

What city doesn't need a few cows stuck in trees?

 

One of the many pedestrian bridges across the Yarra river

This is a very large wind powered mobile and quite fun to watch in action

After a well deserved rest from walking most of central Melbourne, we had drinks at a rooftop bar with a former Rockette friend and her Australian fiance who now reside in the city.  It was so nice to see some familiar faces from home!

Queen Victoria Market was one of our favorite spots in Melbourne.  You could probably guess that it has something involving food!  It is made up of rows and rows of stalls with people selling everything from fruits and veg (that’s what the locals call it), fish, cheese, butchered meats, cured meats of all kinds, boutique chocolates and candies, and local trinkets and souvenirs.  Here’s a rundown of what we enjoyed...bratwurst and sauerkraut from the German shop, smoked salmon and cheese roll up from a smoked fish shop, spinach and feta burek from the Turks, peanut chocolate brittle from a handmade candy stall, and delicious homemade doughnuts from a converted RV!  Not bad for an hours work!  We then continued on to St. Patrick’s Cathedral which was equally as impressive to New York’s.  Next we moseyed our way up to Fitzroy which reminded us a lot of Park Slope or Williamsburg in Brooklyn with its sidewalk cafes, restaurants, and boutique shops.  Our stomachs were calling out for the next meal so we made our way home and enjoyed a delicious brick oven pizza.

One of the many produce aisles

Cured meat vendor

Not quite Brown's doughnuts but darn tasty and a very cool truck

The following day consisted of a long morning at a neighborhood cafe making phone calls and sending emails back home, making further travel arrangements, and drinking very potent coffee.  Lunch was at a traveller recommended Vietnamese noodle shop for some very tasty Pho (rice noodle soup) and dinner was spent eating Malaysian cuisine.  As you can tell the Asian food culture is quite influential throughout Australia.

The Pho soup only gets better the closer we get to Vietnam

Finally, The Great Ocean Road!  Heeding the advice of others, we booked a tour so we could enjoy the scenery and avoid driving and boy was it fantastic!  We saw the 12 Apostles and London Bridge rock formations.  Also along the way were Bells Beach which is a location of some of the largest surfing waves in the world and a famous surfing competition, and a rainforest walk in the Otway mountains.  While stopping to look at a few Koala bears munching in trees, Wes made friends with some wild Cockatoos.  Pictures are the only way to describe how beautiful everything was and even they have a very hard time doing it justice. 

This is beside the road outside of Melbourne

While Melbourne got off to somewhat of a rocky start, I guess it kind of ended that way too, but much better ;)  We had an amazing experience in Australia and could certainly have stayed much longer.  That said, we are very excited to update you soon from our next stop on the North Island of New Zealand!

Birds and Bats and Jellyfish....OH MY!!

Hi all!  Sorry it's been so long!  This is a couple stops back but we wanted to catch you up from where we left off.  While we loved the fast pace of Sydney and hiking in the Blue Mountains we were in dire need of some R&R, which is exactly what we found in the quaint beach town of Port Douglas, located an hour north of Cairns in Far North Queensland.

Our primary motivation for visiting this part of Australia was to see the Great Barrier Reef.  Well we succeeded in this mission and then some.  While we have both been snorkeling in Aruba, Cancun, Hawaii, and Fiji this was by far the best!  (which it should be, I guess!!)  We saw some of the brightest and most colorful coral and thousands of beautiful fish, luckily no sharks!  We did, however, have to wear lycra wet suits. Not because of the water temperature (which is about 88 degrees) but because of the jellyfish.  It is high season for jellyfish and boy were we glad we had the suits on. (Even though they were not the most flattering things) Needless to say we had an amazing time snorkeling.  We took a catamaran about 1 1/2 hrs off the coast and visited three different reefs, each one better than the last.  If you are ever visiting these parts of Australia this is definitely a must do.  We can now check it off our bucket list!

The Calypso catamaran - our transport out to the reef.

Looking back at Port Douglas

Sexy, right??!  But man, that water is beautiful!

On our last day in the area we rented a car and drove north to Mossman Gorge, the Daintree Rainforest, and Cape Tribulation. We visited some stunning beaches that felt like we were at the edge of the world and ate some yummy local tropical fruit ice cream.

Thornton's Beach

Mouth of the Daintree River

Wes succeeded at driving on the left!  The small roads were good training for later city driving.

Our hotel in Port Douglas was really nice  and more like an apartment. We had a kitchen (with a dishwasher) and laundry!  It was nice to cook some meals together and get some clean clothes! It felt like home for a few days.

Kebabs on the barbie.

Across the street from where we are staying are these creatures...

Yes they are bats and there were hundreds of them. They are known as the flying foxes in these parts and apparently they like the one tree outside our hotel the best because they never leave.  Luckily they didn't bother us.  The hotel owner tried to run them off by banging pots and pans every morning.

We also have a love/ hate relationship with these fellows...

While they are very pretty they travel in flocks and are quite possibly the noisiest birds we've ever heard.  Next time we complain about the seagulls in Ocean City we will think of these and shut our mouths, haha!

 

Ok we get the jellyfish but CROCODILES??!

On the beach near our apartment was a lifeguard area with a net that defined the swim area.  The net is there to keep out things that you wouldn't want to swim with...  The day after Wes went swimming we read about the latest craze in Australian jellies called the Irukandji (check out the wiki link).  Apparently they are significantly smaller than the net is designed for and could have been in the water all along!

Beautiful little church (St. Mary's By The Sea) that had a window behind the alter that looked out into the ocean.  If that doesn't make you want to attend church I don't know what will.  We filed it away for top places to renew our vows!

This is what we call Port Douglas roadkill....yes that's a LARGE crab!

We had smooth travels to Melbourne and have enjoyed getting to know the city a bit. We will update you more about Melbourne and beyond in a couple days!

Katoomba & Wentworth Falls

Hello all!  As promised, here are a few pictures of the quaint mountain town of Katoomba and of our hike to Wentworth Falls.

The Flying Fox hostel was very welcoming and comfortable and a great first time hostel experience for us. As recommended by the hostel owners, who served as local tour advisors, we chose to leave the more tourist populated scenic spots in Katoomba and head off by train to the sleepy town of Wentworth for the day. The first portion of the hike followed a path taken by Charles Darwin in 1836 and led us to the edge of the 186m (613ft) high Wentworth Falls. Until this point, the goin' was smooth (aka FLAT). After viewing the top of the falls, we descended down thousands of stairs, or at least it felt that way.  (Many thanks to the overachieving environmentalists that cut these stairs for us in the 1920's, without which the descent would not have been possible and we would have returned to Katoomba for a beer.)

Cut stairs in the side of the canyon wall

But alas, we went down and down and down some more. After viewing the falls from the bottom, instead of returning, we went down some more via ladders bolted to a cliff face.

This was all with the intention of following a much recommended loop trail back to our starting point. To our surprise, the trail went cold. Honestly, not a hint of a trail any further. To half of this pair that has spent many days in the woods, this was very frustrating.  Since wandering any further into the Australian outback would begin to make a great plot for Unsolved Mysteries, we made the decision to return the way we came, up hundreds of feet of ladders and steep rocky stairs. After six hours of the Australian wilderness, we returned to Katoomba for our bags, devoured some delicious Thai for dinner, and returned to Sydney for a few hours of sleep before our early flight north to Cairns.  Needless to say this will be a day for the books. 

Just thought we would include this picture.  These Yellow Crested Cockatoos were all over on our hike.

More to come from Port Douglas and the Great Barrier Reef.

***We want to give a HUGE CONGRATULATIONS to our good friends Matt & Meghan for the birth of their precious baby girl, Caroline.  We love you guys and can't wait to meet Caroline!***

G'day mates!

While we were sad to say good bye to this...

...Sydney feels just like home.  As we walk around the city we keep saying to each other "we could live here."  We love the vibe of the pedestrian friendly streets, the multicultural population, the fantastic weather, and the proximity to the beach and mountains.  We have walked our butts off the last couple days and have seen some great sights.

We walked the Sydney Harbor Bridge and it was absolutely stunning. (check it out here)  Some photos of another group doing it are below.  We weren't allowed to bring cameras because of the risk of dropping them 200 feet on cars and people below, so no pics of us on the bridge unfortunately.

Bridge Walk group approaching the arch summit.  After, we crossed a catwalk almost 400' over the water.

We walked a famous trail from Bondi Beach to Coogee Beach.  It was an absolutely breathtaking walk to see the cliffs meet the ocean.  On a mildly morbid note, we passed Waverley Cemetery which has the best ocean views of any cemetery in the world and decided maybe we'd purchase a plot or two.  (for use many, many years down the road!)  When we finally finished the walk we went for a swim at Coogee Beach.  The water was much colder than we expected but Wes was brave enough to overcome the cold and ride some waves with the locals.

A few nights ago we walked down to Circular Quay to see the Sydney Harbour Bridge and the Sydney Opera House all lit up at night.  This really is a must see for everyone that visits Sydney!  Some of our other favorite highlights were the Sydney Fish Market for lunch (we devoured a pile of shrimp fresh off the boat) and The Rocks neighborhood street market on Saturday where we met a vendor that had encyclopedic knowledge of licorice...strange but tasty!

We feel we have found our stride in Sydney but the one thing we can not get used to is walking. Habitually we pass people on the right while walking but since they pass people on the left down under we have had several dancing moments with others on the sidewalks.  We have definitely been "those people" more than once.  We are REALLY hoping this gets better since we are planning on renting a car in New Zealand ;)

We are currently in the town of Katoomba located in the Blue Mountains, about two hours west of Sydney by train.  This could easily be the Australian equivalent of Boone, NC in the Appalachians.  We are looking forward to exploring more in the morning and seeing some awesome waterfalls.  Until next time, from the beaches of Port Douglas and The Great Barrier Reef!