Opera

Just had to put a quick blog up after the Opera! It was a blast - it was the annual Opera House Christmas show with some of the well-known opera singers (but not known to us), Opera Australia Christmas Choir and Orchestra. It was in the Concert Hall which is huge (seats about 2,500). The seating is amazing - every seat has a fantastic view of the stage. It is quite something to sit in the Sydney Opera House and hear beautifully produced Christmas carols (and yes, they did do Six White Boomers and it was hilarious!) The set was gorgeous - beautifully decorated Christmas trees and fabulous costumes - lots of red and green and sparkles. When we went on our tour of the Opera House, our guide told us about the huge organ in the Concert Hall - it took 7 years to build and 2 years to tune - kind of takes your breath away! We both really enjoyed our afternoon.
Since this is so short and sweet, I thought I’d put in some absolutely useless information as filler - but first, a message to “Anonymous” who put the following message on our blog: “Yes, the hat is DREADFUL!” I would like Anonymous to know that I plan to have the hat embalmed and I will leave it to her in my will (you know who you are!)
Useless information:
So far we have spent $54 on laundry (NOT including our expensive lesson learned in Edinburgh regarding the difference between dry cleaning and laundry!)
We have sent 2 parcels of “stuff” home already, totaling about 20lb. John actually agreed to part company with his emergency kit which weighed a ton!
We have lost a cell phone, a post card that I had written (but not posted) to my ex-in-laws and a bra (HOW do you lose one of those?!)
Merry Christmas!
John and Ginnie

Sydney 2

I still haven’t figured out how to get the pictures in order, so I’ll leave it to you to figure out which is which - shouldn’t be too hard! There should be one of the Chinese Garden of Friendship, a close-up of the Sydney Opera House tiles and a lovely sign that we couldn’t resist with Bondi Beach in the background!
Now the details - The Chinese Garden of Friendship was really lovely - quite large with a huge pool in the middle with about 4 different waterfalls. Paths took you through the gardens, up “mountains” to reach the pagodas which were beautifully carved inside. Of course all the trees and flowers were quite stunning, and there are carefully spaced spaces through which you get different perspectives on the views. We had some Chinese tea - Shaimei, which translates as “old man’s eyebrows” - how could we resist! The Garden is in Darling Harbour which is also where the IMAX movie theatre is, so we dropped in for a 3D movie “Under the Sea” which was good, but the memorable event was that I lost my wallet in the theatre! It must have dropped out of my pocket when we sat down and luckily I realized what had happened before we left the building. But we had to wait through the next movie (they run every hour) to get back in to look for it. You can imagine what was going through my head as EVERYTHING (except my passport) was in the wallet - credit cards, driver’s license, Seniors card(!) etc. etc. John and I are 3 really helpful assistants went in with flashlights and high hopes - of course the theatre is huge and they kept asking me where we had been sitting, and although I had a rough idea, I couldn’t identify the exact row. However, I found it ……
Big event the next day was a hair cut! Heather will understand when I say that it had been 2 months since I had my hair cut and it was feeling terrible! It’s always a bit of a gamble when you walk in off the street, but I found a lovely girl from Bulgaria who had only been in Sydney for 4 months (yes, she had been a hairdresser before she came!) I was amazed at her English which she had none of when she arrived - and you know how much talking a woman’s hairdresser normally does! So that was a great success. To celebrate my new-found (or lost) tresses, we did a tour of the Sydney Opera House - very interesting as we got to go into some of the theatres (there are 5 or 6 venues) and saw some interesting videos on how it came into being, as well as learning about the structure. The reason for putting up the picture of the tiles is that people think that the “sails” are white, but they are actually made up of some incredible number of ceramic tiles in two colours, cream and beige, (white would apparently have been too glaring in this strong sun) and they are specially treated so that they self-clean when it rains (which it hasn’t done in quite a while - big drought problems all over Australia and fires are burning outside Sydney as I write). After lunch, I took off to climb one of the 4 Bridge pylons. John elected not to come as his knee is a bit wonky, so I left him with a chocolate milk shake and up I went. It actually wasn’t too much of a climb (I didn’t do the actual bridge climb which takes you right to the top of the bridge and costs several hundred dollars), but there were very good views from the top of the pylon, and I thought I should finish up by walking across the bridge and back, just so I could say that I had done it!
Next day took us to Bondi Beach. We thought we needed a rest day and the weather forecast was good, so we hopped on a bus and went to where all the beautiful people go (apparently!) It is actually not a very big beach, and there wasn’t much wind so no real surfing to watch, but of course there were a bevy of lovely girls which John appreciated. We really did do nothing except read, swim, snooze and eat fish and chips - good day at the beach (and now we’ve been to Bondi!)
Today we went to the ANZAC memorial (Australia/New Zealand Army Corps) which is very moving. The building houses a small museum and the memorial hall has a vaulted roof covered in stars, each one representing a New South Wales soldier who lost his/her life in war. John is always interested in war memorials given his time in the military as a youth, and he was very impressed. We walked through Hyde Park (so many English names here!) to the Opera House and I bought tickets to the Christmas Show with the Opera Australia Orchestra and Choir tomorrow. We really wanted to go to something at the Opera House, and this should put us in the Christmas spirit, especially as the program promises “all your favourites including Silent Night, O Come All Ye Faithful, Hark and Herald Angels Sing and ……. Six White Boomers (I’m SERIOUS!) Should be an interesting experience! We’re off to Adelaide for Christmas on Saturday, so not sure when I’ll be able to blog again, so hope everyone has a wonderful Christmas and New Year, and we’ll think of you while we’re having the barbie on the beach!

Sydney 1

So here we are in Sydney. We’re staying in a neighbourhood called Newtown, in a hostel quaintly called the Billabong Gardens. It has the loudest guests we’ve come across so far. It’s not up to the standard of the Youth Hostel we stayed in in Cairns, but it’s OK (we even have a fridge and TV in our room!) However the kitchen is little medieval and there is nowhere to sit and relax except in our room. Newtown is best described as “edgy” - both by the guidebooks and by me! It’s definitely an alternative place with some extremely colorful inhabitants. We had supper tonight next to a church which evidently welcomed all and sundry and amongst the interesting congregation who we saw go in were a black drag queen and a tall, gangly elderly man covered in tattoos (face and all) with ground-length dreadlocks. There are literally hundreds of restaurants in a 4-5 block area near our hostel (and I thought Saskatoon was well-stocked!) - many of them Thai. So far\ we’ve eaten Thai ( at the Thai-tanic), Nepalese and African food - all delicious! We have figured out the transport system and have bought a week pass that lets us go pretty much wherever we want by bus, train and/or ferry. Of course our first stop was at Circular Quay where both the Bridge and the Opera House are. We did a tour of the Harbour by boat to get our bearings. It’s the most amazing place - there are many, many arms of the Harbour (each with its own sailing club as far as we could see!) and the skyline is incredible. We also put our noses into the Botanic Gardens (will definitely go back) and were amused with the welcome signs: “Please walk on the grass. We also invite you to smell the roses, hug the trees, talk to the birds and picnic on the lawns.” We’ll go back to do a tour of the Opera House and climb one of the pylons of the bridge. There isn’t anything on at the Opera House that we would both enjoy, and I discovered that afternoon tea there with operatic entertainment was $200, so the tour will have to do!
Day 2 took us by ferry to the Maritime Museum (guess how many photos were taken!) There is an extremely good replica of Cook’s Endeavour which we went through (note Mrs. Hartley without a hat for the benefit of her daughter! The hat is DREADFUL, I agree, but it does keep the sun off) as well as a re-furbished barque called the James Craig which we also went through (a somewhat Twilight Zone-ish experience!) Our guide was an East Indian gentleman who was very enthusiastic about the ship, but had a fairly strong accent which we had to work hard to understand. When we got below decks, there were a number of very scantily-clad young women running around being pursued by men with cameras (including John!) They had apparently rented the ship from 9-11 that morning, but had failed to turn up until about noon, so had to put up with tourists running through their attempts to film underwear ads!
Day 3 - ferry to Manly which is a northern neighbourhood which you can get to by ferry. There are amazing views of the Sydney landmarks from the ferry and we had a nice relaxing day there. We walked up to the surf beach which was jam-packed with people, so we opted to sit on the gentle side of the headland where we could doze and read and eat ice cream and watch the sail boats racing in the harbour. We couldn’t resist asking a friendly lady to take our Christmas photo with the Christmas tree and the palm trees in the background (sorry to rub it in, guys!) It is very weird to think it’s Christmas when it’s so hot and everyone is talking about “summer” - can’t quite get our heads around it!

Blue Mountains

We are now in the Blue Mountains west of Sydney and my goodness, they are blue and they are spectacular! We had a somewhat interesting time getting here; after leaving Zoe’s friends, we tried to buy a new cell phone which took a while and then we tried to navigate the Sydney toll payment system. Our campervan people had made it sound so simple - they gave us a list of places (gas stations, convenience stores) that we could go to and just buy what we needed. The reality was somewhat different. We went to a couple of gas stations and they looked at us as if we had 3 heads - no idea what we were talking about. And although we were now the proud owners of a new cell phone, it had to be charged up and activated before we could actually use it. Eventually we found our way to the vehicle registration office and the lady there told us we could just call the phone number that we saw as we entered the toll road and that would take care of things. Being suspicious souls, we double-checked that, once our cell phone was working, by calling a toll-free number (bad joke!) where I spoke to the most wonderful man who took my credit card number, vehicle registration # and told me that all would be well. So we’ll see …… The system certainly is not set up for tourists, a lot of whom don’t speak very good English. We were parked next to a young Dutch couple the night before we came to the mountains and we asked them what they had done about paying the tolls. The husband hadn’t really understood the piece of paper that he had been given, so he had just thrown it away! They were very grateful that we had talked to them about it, as if you go through without paying, there is a hefty fine which is sent to your rental car company who then ding you on top of the fine.
Anyway, we are here now and again, it is very hot and windy. We drove into Katoomba which is the tourist hub for the Blue Mountains. The thing that everyone wants to see is Echo Point which is an amazing lookout over fantastic rock outcrops (see photo). We also “did” the Three Sisters which is close by, but we couldn’t take anymore tourists (!) so we drove about 15 km out of Katoomba to a nice quiet camp site where we stayed for a couple of nights.
Day 2 in the mountains saw us driving further west to the Jenolan Caves (thanks Andrea!). The drive itself is quite an adventure - amazing views on the winding way up, up, up and then an extremely narrow, windy road (even by my English standards!) for about 8 km to the caves themselves. Luckily we didn’t meet anyone coming the other way, You actually drive through a cave to get to the parking lot at Jenolan! We did a very well produced self-guided tour of the Devil’s Coach House and Nettles Cave. You had a little telephone-thing that told you about the different things as you went, with extra commentary if you wanted it. There are hundreds of caves, but only a few are open to guided tours. We chose to do an easy one in the morning, the Imperial Cave, which took us down to a subterranean river. There were some beautiful formations, but nothing like the tour we did in the afternoon to the Orient Cave. The stalgmites and tites there were quite fantastic. You run out of superlatives to describe some of the enormous chambers just full of incredible shapes and colours. One photo is of “Lot’s wife” and the other is the famous elephant head-dress which is the logo for Jenolan caves.
On our way back from the caves, we stopped at the historic village of Hartley (how could we miss it?!) There was a little tourist place which had a “Closed” sign on the door. Opening hours were given as 10 - 12 and 1 - 4:20 (?!) My watch said 4:19! Anyway, the lady must have heard us as she opened the door, thrust a pamphlet in my hand and slammed the door again! Hartley used to be quite the up and coming place - there were 2 churches, a Court House, a hotel and a service station. People used to stay there on their way to the caves from Sydney (a journey that now takes about 1 ½ hours). We wandered around and John took lots of pictures of the old buildings. We also went to the graveyard, but not a Hartley was to be seen. All the names were very Irish, but we couldn’t find anything that told us why the village had been called Hartley in the first place. It was a nice little side-bar!
And now we have to give the campervan back. I’m not sure how we would have managed without Mabel (John has christened our GPS lady). She was endlessly patient with us when we changed our minds and only once did she put us in not quite the right place (the landfill when we had asked for the old airport!) I chose to disagree with her once when we were driving down the coast, heading for the beaches. It looked to me as though we could do a nice “detour” off the main highway through the town of Newcastle. Unfortunately, the map that I had wasn’t very accurate, and we found ourselves on a peninsula with nowhere else to go except out to sea. So we switched Mabel on and she took us her best route which just happened to coincide with the annual bikers toy run (for the uninitiated, every year at Christmas, local motorcycle clubs collect toys for kids and do a “run” on their bikes). There had to be several thousand bikes and suitably dressed (Santa hats, tinsel on the bikes) tatooed and mustachioed bikers and chicks! So we joined them for a while (of course John took pictures!)
We’ll spend the next week in Sydney and there is SO much to see and do! John is quite exhausted just listening to me go on about what we’re going to do befo

Beaches

We’ve had a few days at the beach! After Brisbane, we drove to Sapphire Beach which was another one of our “little dots on the map”. It was very quiet but unfortunately the weather wasn’t great - quite cloudy and it actually poured with rain one day. The beach was near a small town called Coffs Harbour which was beautifully protected (lots of boats for John to look at!) and an almost-attached island (Muttonbird Island) which we walked over. It was incredibly windy - one of those bend your head into the wind and push winds - but worth the effort. The waves breaking on the rocks were quite spectacular, but very difficult to get a photo of! You wait and wait for the right wave to come along, and by the time it comes, you’ve looked off to the left and you’ve missed it again. Muttonbirds are apparently shearwaters which nest on the island in their thousands (but not at this time of year!)
After getting rather damp at Sapphire Beach, we drove further down the coast to Jimmy’s Beach (another “dot”). Jimmy’s Beach was very sheltered and shallow - great for kids but not much good for surfing. We managed to find a place that rented us boogie boards so we could go to the other side of the headland where there was much better surf and we had a couple of really nice days there. It was picture-perfect with miles of white sand, blue sea and sky and hardly any people. Anyone that we did meet was really friendly.
Our last beach day was with Zoe’s friends, Arnie and Brent who had just arrived from England when we landed on their doorstep at Umina Beach (about 100 km north of Sydney). I thought it was pretty brave of them to have us to stay as they’d only just got there, but we had a really nice 24 hours with them - more surfing and enjoying the gorgeous weather (which we showed Zoe on a Skype phone call - not sure how impressed she was sitting in cold and snowy Saskatoon!).
We’ve had a small frustration in that our cell phone has gone AWOL and we cannot find it, despite pulling the van apart about 5 times. It’s quite ridiculous how you keep looking in the same places - you know you’ve looked there before, but somehow you think it’s worth trying again. Of course we lost it in one of our “dot” places, so there was no chance to get another one in a hurry. We really need it to navigate through Sydney as there are lots of toll roads and you have to phone a different number for each toll road that you use so they can charge you. It seems a really complicated system, especially for rather nerve-racked tourists who don’t know where they’re going anyway, We are off to the Blue Mountains tomorrow (new cell phone in hand) so hope we can figure out how to make things work. We are nearly at the end of our campervan time - it’s been a really good experience and thank heavens we are used to living together in small places (boat and camper at home) as it is pretty cosy!

Beware of "Stingers" of the Great Barrier Reef

Beware of the Stingers of the Great Barrier Reef in Whitsunday
As you may determine if you read the following account of our experience, I am still very upset. An old girlfriend used to call such things an AFLE which is short for “Another F-----g Learning Experience“ and it was. However after consideration I feel I should warn others as much as I can. The Internet is great for this so here it comes and I will use it as much as possible! Please feel free to send this off to as many people as you wish!
My wife and I have been planning an extended holiday in Australia and New Zealand for 2 years.
A little background.
I have been diving extensively now for over 40 years and sailing for about 34 years. We have our own cruising sailboat with all the amenities, hot and cold running water complete galley head, refrigeration etc. We have been taking diving holidays for many years. Not to mention all but some of these include places like Belize, Honduras, Florida, Jamaica, Philippines, Cuba, Bahamas, Cook Islands and about 3 or 4 times in my favorite Bonaire where they really know about protecting their reef! I raced for about 10 years in Nova Scotia with the Nova Scotia Schooner Association of which I have been a member for many years. I have also crewed on a tall ship. For many years we used to compete in Underwater Hockey and Spear fishing tournaments. Although I used to work 100 feet or more free diving I usually limit this to 50 or 60 feet now.
The purpose of the above preamble is to identify that I have had some experience with diving, sailing and being taken on diving trips.
Our plan for this trip was to take the time (about 5 months) to properly see Australia and New Zealand and escape a Canadian winter. Our estimates for the cost of the whole trip was to be around $40,000 to $60,000, a once in a lifetime trip. One of the real highlights would be a dive on the Great Barrier Reef. The place chosen was Whitsunday. We were traveling by campervan and were staying at the Flame Tree Caravan Park just outside of Whitsunday. A really great place, well run and most accommodating.
We proceeded to book out tour through the people at the Flame Tree for Nov 20th and 21st. We knew we were not in peak season so it should not be too much trouble to get a tour booked. After a few calls we paid our deposit and got a booking on the Apollo III. I noticed that the brochure said mask and snorkel no mention of fins. We called down to the booking agent and were told that they had fins. People were shown with fins on the brochure. Because there was all of the information available (brochures etc) and we were booking through an agent, we assumed we were dealing with a reputable firm.
When we went down to the booking agent to pay the remainder of the fee, we were told you had to rent the fins from a local dive shop because they didn’t have room for all the fins which might be required for 12 divers they would have on the boat. This made some sense so okay we go. We also had to rent a “Stinger suit” because of the problems with the jellyfish (stingers to the locals). Off to the local Dive Shop to rent fins and an underwater camera. The only underwater digital camera rental is from a local “bloke”. He’s not available. Okay so we purchase a “throw away” for $22.
When the lady came with her stinger suits we had to rent for $10 she told us “don’t worry there will be fins on the boat”. After when I went to make sure we had our fins the deck hand said that the trip is a “Eco” trip and no fins allowed so as not to damage the reef! Ever try to get underwater to take a picture with a 1/8 inch neoprene body suit and no weights or fins? Somehow all of this didn’t make any sense at all to me. Your feet were left unprotected from stringers and there was a current in some of the places we were diving in and you needed the power provided by fins. I guess we should have totally backed out at the start. We didn’t.
I know that the tour people have no control over weather etc. the visibility was 12 feet and sometimes less but the sea life was most poor surely there have to be better locations.
There were to be 3 “snorkeling” locations. The first was about as bad as I have ever seen for sea life. The second was worse and I didn’t even bother going over the side for the 3rd. Anyone who knows me would not believe I would miss an opportunity to dive. The area we were diving in was badly silted over so a lot of the coral was in bad shape. There was next to nothing to see or in my mind “to protect”
I don’t think the Captain or crew had any sort of idea how to host a group who wanted to see anything. On the way out we passed a very large turtle that was about 4 feet off the port side which the Captain watched as we motored by at full speed. The same applied to a pod of Dolphins about 60 feet off the port side. This is the kind of thing people come to see. Show it to them, talk it up!
Much of our time was spent “motor-sailing” although the windex indicated we could easily sail and there was good wind!
There was next to nothing said about any of the locations we “snorkeled” at except the area the Captain wanted us to stay in. The Captain did get into the water at the second location minus his “Stinger suit” which makes you wonder why you are wearing one.. I’m not too sure what diving experience he has. The coral near shore was badly silted and with only 12 feet or less visibility you couldn’t see much of the other coral. In my opinion the areas chosen were very poor and there is little to “protect’. Other boats did drop “snorkelers” in some of the locations so we weren’t the only ones in poor conditions.
So much for the “Snorkeling”
Now the Sailing.
At first glance the boat is an old 50 foot “Maxi racer” who has seen better days.
She has Grinder jib winches, running backstays, many aux winches for reefing etc. one missing from it’s pedestal, a portion of the port side sail track missing, she could use some TLC. There was also a Hydraulic vang, baby stay, backstay and apparently drive. The hydraulic pressure gauge was jumping around in tune with some whining which looked to me like it was due to low oil or a pressure relief valve operating. Just a guess on my part. Most of the racing rigging is not fitted, including the 1st and 2nd reef lines on the main. She had a fairly new set of sails (main and 100% jib).
Once on the boat we had to remove our shoes, I’m sure to prevent marking the deck or something. I would question the safety of this. Ask for proper shoes. The deck did get slippery from suntan lotion and there were many things to hurt feet on.
Greetings from the Captain.
At this point I was very, very annoyed about the fins being yes we have no we don’t type of thing and was ready to leave. As I mentioned above we didn’t. This was to be our only look at the “Great” Barrier Reef.
From my point of view it was an extreme GONG show and I said it several times. My wife was also becoming very upset at my annoyance and asking me not to “rain on the parade of those who were on their first experience”. “Don’t ruin it for them”! We had already paid. Okay I will try to keep my mouth shut for the rest of the trip and absolutely stay out of the way.
The message from the Captain was something like this. Welcome my name is etc and your crew is etc. Are there any smokers aboard. None, great. Watch out for the boom, one hand should always hold onto something so you don’t fall overboard. If we have a fire go to the bow of the boat away from all the fuel etc. If someone falls overboard yell “man overboard”.
The message DID NOT AT ANY TIME MENTION LIFE JACKETS, WHERE THEY WERE LOCATED, HOW TO PUT THEM ON, OR FIRE EXTINGUISHERS, IF ANY WERE ON BOARD, WHERE THEY WERE LOCATED OR HOW THEY WERE OPERATED. I asked several people if they knew if any lifejackets were on board and they didn’t know.
-There was no mention of proper man overboard procedures.
-There was no mention of what was to be done in the event of the need to abandon ship with an inflatable which could only handle 7 people. 14 were on board.
-There were a few other things but I think you get the idea of what we went through.
It was the Captain’s first day on the boat. He didn’t seem to know much about the boat at all. Although he talked like he had a very great deal of experience. I’m not sure what credentials he had if any. I didn’t ask. It would have only heightened my anger! I’m not sure any credentials are needed. I don’t know what controls the Whitsunday area has on Charters. It looks like none to me. You sort of assume this thing is looked after.
For between $700 and $800 dollars for 1 night and 2 days we got stung.
ALL TOLD WE GOT STUNG REAL GOOD!!
BE WARY OF STINGERS AT WHITSUNDAY.
Because this sort of thing is very hard to check for in advance. Everything looked or perhaps sounded okay to begin with, I would say definitely stay away from Whitsunday for good sailing or snorkeling!!
We were looking for a great diving experience on the Great Barrier Reef.
It wasn’t. For my money I’ll stick with the Caribbean!!

Brisbane

Up until now, I’ve been writing the blog and then choosing some pictures to go with it. I’m going to attempt to put the pictures in FIRST (and I’ve discovered, in reverse order) so that I can tell you what they are - but this may not work! I’m hoping that picture #1 will be of the beautiful Japanese garden we went to on our first day here (more on that later). Picture #2 should be of Brisbane taken from one of the ferries we went on and #3 is, I hope, of the amazing flower arbour on the south bank in Brisbane. The flowers are being trained to grow along trellises and even though it’s fairly new and has a long way to grow, it really is spectacular. You can walk for quite a long way under it and it’s a welcome relief from the sun (did I mention that it’s hot here!) - although I see from the SaskTel website that we’re probably missing the warmest winter for a long while in Saskatoon!


We arrived in Brisbane a couple of days ago - our first attempt at big city driving in the camper van! The further south we come, the better (and bigger) the roads are, so we are now dealing with 4 lanes each way and everyone else knowing exactly where they want to go - a little intimidating! We have been riding the bus down into Brisbane and everyone is very helpful - bus drivers, people on the bus and in the street. I have learned to say “I’m a tourist and I’m lost” and people immediately want to help! We had supper the first night at the Bowls Club just across the road from the campground (someone please tell Freda!!) Everyone was so friendly and welcoming, but like a lot of the clubs at home, the average age was about 70 and all the people had obviously put a huge amount of their time and effort into the club over the years, but no young people are joining - sad to see. We jumped on a tourist bus the next day as John’s friend Don (thanks Don!) had suggested that it’s the best way to get a feel for a big city - and he’s right. The bus takes you past all the “sights” with a commentary so you know what you want to go back to. We decided to spend some time at Mount Coot-tha which has a spectacular view of the city, an amazing botanical garden and a planetarium which we “did” in that order. The botanical gardens were enormous and it was very hot, so we chose to go to the Japanese garden and the bonsai garden - both absolutely beautiful. The Japanese garden was donated (I think I have this right) for Expo in 1988 by Japan and it is an island of peace with a lovely water feature and places you can sit and just relax. There are the most amazing plants and flowers here (Zoe - John has taken a lovely picture of a bird-of-paradise flower for you!) and there are almost NO BUGS! which for us is very welcome. Obviously there are lots of spiders and other creepy crawlies, but you can sleep at night with the window open and not get eaten alive by mosquitoes. We then went to a movie at the planetarium with commentary by Tom Hanks - “Journey Through the Universe”. Pretty basic information but the images were incredible and afterwards, an astronomer took us through the night sky as it would be without light pollution, and pointed out where all the constellations were etc. - very interesting. Our tourist bus ticket also allowed us the ride the ferries, so we jumped on a ferry with no great idea about where we would end up and saw a different side of Brisbane. On the map, it looks as though it’s on the ocean but it’s actually inland on a river and the city runs all kinds of ferries and catamarans which are very handy. The south bank is where all the museums and art galleries etc. are plus lots of little cafes and market stalls on the weekend - everything you could want from having your fortune told (we didn’t) to buying leather belts (we did).

I had hoped to get John to the Test Match Cricket the following day, but Australia did a very efficient job of ousting the West Indies in very short order, so there was no cricket to be had! We did a bit of wandering down town - very nice and quiet as it was Sunday so not many people around,. Today we are hoping to go to a little local zoo where we are told there is a friendly platypus - haven’t seen one yet so that’s our plan. Then we’ll be off down the coast, hoping to avoid the “schoolies” by choosing quiet beaches to stay at. We have the camper van for another 10 days, so we’re also planning to go out to the Blue Mountains west of Sydney before we have to return it. Serendipitously (sp?!) I have just seen on the map that the hostel we are staying at in Sydney is quite close to where we have to return the van, so I hope driving in Sydney will be kept to a minimum!