Gallivanting Grandma

Sunday & Monday – November 11 & 12, 2018

Our Land Tour of Australia ended in Sydney on Sunday, Nov. 11th after a bus tour of the city and surrounding suburbs.  On the tour, we were driven to the other side of the Harbour Bridge to see a panoramic view of Sydney.  Group participants below:

We drove through the beautiful affluent suburbs of Sydney out to Bondi Beach on the Pacific Ocean.  This is the famous surfing beach in Australia.  Unfortunately, there was no wind and the waves were flat, but that didn’t stop the hopeful surfers who sat on their boards waiting for the perfect wave.

The specially trained “Surf Rescue Team” didn’t have much business either:

The Rocks was the area of the first European settlement in 1788. It has developed into a prime tourist attraction with cobbled streets, shops, boutiques, and architecturally interesting buildings from the 19th century.

There’s a fun market every Saturday and Sunday in the historic “Rocks” neighborhood near Circular Quay.  We explored the market which is located near the Harbour Bridge:

The Rocks looks across Sydney Cove to the famous Opera House.  Ferries constantly crisscross the harbor taking Sydneysiders to work and back home.  An “Opal” card is like our NYC Metro Card.  Passengers “fill it up” with money and use it on all the ferries, trains, trams, and light-rail in and around Sydney.  A typical fare is about six dollars for a half-hour ferry ride across the harbor.

This is a photo of the Australian white ibis.  They approach people who are eating outdoors and try to snatch their food.  The ibis acts like the pigeons and seagulls, but they are much bigger more formidable.

The Sydney Harbour Bridge is one of the main symbols of the city, connecting Dawes Point with the Kirribilli neighborhood. It replaced a ferry when it was opened in 1932.  The bridge is only less than 4,000 feet long and is open to pedestrians, bicyclists, and climbers across the top.

Jeff and I walked around Circular Quay to the other iconic symbol of Sydney: the Opera House.  It took 14 years to complete construction in 1973 and was very controversial.  Today, it is recognized all over the world and is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Under the soaring “sails” there are four performance spaces which host 2,500 performances and events per year.  We signed up for an early morning Guided Backstage Tour and were also able to get tickets for a Sunday Matinee of the Australian Chamber Orchestra playing Beethoven’s Violin Concerto and The Fifth Symphony.

We explored and took many photos.  Up close,  the “sails” look more like interconnected clam shells.  They’re actually several buildings under separate white tile roofs.

Our lunch in the Opera snack bar was served under a heavy mesh dome to protect it from soaring seagulls.  The birds watched us intently with their beady eyes during our lunch.

Below is a view looking back toward Circular Quay and the Central Business District (CBD) of Sydney from the Opera House.

Sydneysiders gather to eat, drink, and enjoy the weather along the harbor at all hours of the day and night.

Saturday – November 10, 2018

We set our alarm for 5:30AM so we could have time for breakfast and meet the tour group in the lobby by 7:30.  The Shangri-La Hotel in Cairns is a lovely comfortable place to stay and I wish I could have spent more time there. We all checked out and rode the coach up the mountain into the rainforest to the village of Kuranda.

We walked through the village to the Skysail Rainforest Cableway.  It was too early and all the shops in town were closed.  The Cableway is a 7.5 km scenic ride above the Barron Gorge National Park in the tropics of Queensland’s World Heritage Area north of Cairns.

The Cableway travels over the world’s oldest continually surviving rainforest on earth.  It was the longest cableway in the world when it was completed in 1995.

Six-person gondolas travel through the McAlister Range of mountains over the canopy of the rainforest trees.  It takes about 45 minutes to travel the entire distance one-way.  The developers established an agreement with the Djabugay Tribal Aboriginal Community for protection of Aboriginal cultural heritage.  The cableway was built by helicopters so the ancient rainforest would not be disturbed.

The coach bus met us at the end of the Cableway and drove us to Cairns Airport to go to Sydney.  The “Airport Tour of Australia” continues!!

We arrived at Sydney Airport at 4:00pm and were driven to the Four Seasons Hotel on Circular Quay in downtown Sydney.  We checked in and had the rest of the day and evening to ourselves.

The Sydney Opera House is across the Quay and looks beautiful at night:

Friday – November 9, 2018

It took us all day yesterday to fly from Darwin to Cairns, normally a two hour flight.  There was a screwup in the planning somewhere and we had to fly from Darwin to Brisbane (4 hour flight) then wait two hours for a flight to Cairns (2 hour flight).  We arrived in Cairns at ten o’clock at night and checked in at the Shangri-La Hotel.  It was a fabulous hotel: right on the water, tropical garden outside our sliding door, large modern beachy room.

Cairns is the Aussie city which is the gateway to the famous Great Barrier Reef.  It’s sub-tropical, warm and humid: known as the place where the rainforest meets the ocean.  Our group rallied out to the harbor to ride a large catamaran out to the reef.

The overcast sky cleared after the 90 minute ride out to ‘the middle of nowhere’ in the Pacific Ocean. The catamaran tied up to a large well-equipped floating raft which belonged to the Sunlover company.

Interior of the raft:

Sunlover had everything for snorkeling, diving, glass-bottom boating, swimming, changing rooms, showers, lunch facilities, and enjoying a day out on the reef. There was even a masseuse:

The black suit on the man in the photo above was called a “stinger suit.”  It was necessary for anyone who entered the water because of the small jellyfish that lived around the reef. The jellyfish are little but give a nasty sting to swimmers.

Jeff and I didn’t go snorkeling but we enjoyed the glass-bottom boat.  A couple of my photos of the Great BarrierReef:

The catamaran tied to the raft:

Life guards on duty:

About three o’clock, the staff began to pack everything up and we all boarded the catamaran for a bumpy 90 minute ride back to Cairns.  Jeff and I had an enjoyable day on the raft and we mentally checked off the Great Barrier Reef on our “Bucket Lists.”

Dinner and entertainment was at the Tjapukai Cultural Park – An Aboriginal Tourist Attraction.  It was advertised on-line as one of the most authentic tourist attractions.  I hope the local Aboriginal community is benefiting.  The large hall displayed contemporary art.  This is a photo of my favorite work.  I like the handprints.

A young man gave a Didgeridoo performance and explanation of the sounds.  He also demonstrated how to play the unusual instrument. (Ignore the blue light)  Canapés were served within or juice.  One was emu, another was beetroot andcucumber.  They were a modern take on the Aboriginal diet.

Afterwards, everyone was invited outside to participate in a language, dance and music performance.  Two spectators were invited on the primitive stage to learn how to light a fire – with much effort.

At the end, everyone went into the dining room for a sumptuous dinner of a variety of vegetables, crocodile ribs, and kangaroo meat, as well as beef and chicken.  Everything was tasty.  The crocodile was covered in bar-b-que sauce and the kangaroo in another sauce so, frankly, it was difficult to taste the exotic meats.  Nonetheless, it was an enjoyable and very different evening.  I had a great time!  What a day!!!

Wednesday – November 7, 2018

We left Ayers Rock early yesterday morning, flew to Alice Springs, toured Alice during the day, and flew to Darwin last night.  Jeff and I have renamed this land tour.  We’re calling it the “airport tour of Australia.”  Darwin is the largest city in the Northern Territory and the most northern city in Australia.  The city lived up to its reputation for heat and humidity.  This morning it was 85 degrees with 79% humidity.  And it’s only spring!

Darwin is a relatively small modern city with a population of only about 140,000 people. Our group came to Darwin to see the Jumping Crocodiles.  These saltwater reptiles are the largest and most dangerous crocodiles in the world and they inhabit most of the waters in the Northern Territory.  Local advice is: “Swim only in chlorinated tiled pools.”

We drove through a town called Humpty Doo on the edge of the Kakadoo National Park to the Adelaide River.  This is a tidal river and crocodiles live and thrive in the brackish water.  Our group boarded the blue boat pictured above.  Our guides were two young women in their twenties.  Kristy drove the boat and Chelsea rode shotgun and fed the crocs.  Who knew that in the 21st century Crocodile Dundee was a young 20-something woman?!

The boat slowly cruised down the Adelaide River and stopped.  Chelsea hit the surface of the water with her long stick and looked toward shore.  We all followed her gaze to the floating eyes which were coming in our direction.  Chelsea introduced us to an old saltwater crocodile named “Stumpy.”

At first I thought he wasn’t so big, but then I noticed most of his nine-foot long body was under water.  Chelsea held the buffalo bones at the end of her stick above Stumpy’s head.  But, Stumpy swam along the side of the boat looking at us.

Eventually Stumpy jumped up out of the water, showing us his strong jaws and big teeth, and grabbed the bones.  He swallowed them in one gulp.

We said goodbye to Stumpy and moved down the river and Chelsea repeated her stick call.  We saw a smaller light colored crocodile emerge from the shore and swim toward our boat.  This was a young crocodile named “Pearl.”  Chelsea said Pearl was not an albino crocodile but merely had some skin condition which gave her lighter skin.  Unfortunately, this denied Pearl the benefits of camouflage.

Pearl was younger and more agile than Stumpy and jumped high out of the water.  The third and last saltwater crocodile we saw was “Casanova.”  Chelsea said he was about four meters long (12 feet) and about 15 years old.  He was strong and powerful and would be a menace to anything swimming in the river!  He made a loud scary growling grunt when he jumped out of the water to grab the buffalo bones.

On the way back to the boat dock, Chelsea demonstrated the agility of the brown kites.  These are local Australian birds, larger than seagulls; perhaps about the size of hawks.  Chelsea whistled to attract the kites.  Then she threw pieces of meat into the air alongside the boat.  The birds swooped down, caught the meat in their talons, and transferred the meat to their beaks in the air while flying.  What a spectacular show they put on for us!!

Afterwards, we had a delicious fresh fish lunch at a restaurant called Wharf One.  I ate grilled barramundi which is the local farm-raised fish.  The chef gave a cooking lesson on how to cook barramundi.  He made it look easy!  After lunch we walked around the harbor to the building which houses both The Royal Flying Doctor Service Museum and The Museum of the Bombing of Darwin Harbour.

The RFDS is the aerial service which supplies doctors and medical needs to remote areas in the Outback of the Northern Territory.  It was founded in 1931 and is still active today providing emergency medical services to people in far remote areas of Australia.  The airplane below is one of the Flying Doctor’s planes from the 1950s which was set up like an ambulance.

The Bombing of Darwin Harbor was a revelation to me.  I have to admit that I never heard of it.  The city of Darwin was attacked by the Japanese in February 1942 to prevent the Allied Forces from using it as a base during World War II.  It was an surprise aerial attack on Australia and was a great shock to the country.  More bombs were dropped on Darwin than were dropped on Pearl Harbor and there were 236 casualties.  I don’t have any good pictures from the exhibit but my photo of a gathering offshore storm reminded me of the attack photos.

Jeff and I had a free evening and we found a Chinese restaurant near our hotel and ate “chow mein.”  Not the “chow mein” from our youthful days.  The next morning our group left for the Darwin Airport to fly to the Pacific Ocean city of Cairns.

Tuesday- November 6, 2018

One of the most popular activities at Sails in the Desert Resort is to wake up at dawn and watch the sun rise on Uluru aka Ayres Rock.  As the sunlight falls on the red sandstone of the monolith, Uluru changes colors.  Our group rallied out into the cool dark desert at 5:00AM to watch the sun awaken the vibrant colors of “the Rock.”

The bus drove us out to “the Sunrise Viewing Area” in the dark.  Along with other large groups of tourists, we watched and waited and waited.  Cricket chirps were joined by early bird calls.

We waited and watched the sky become lighter.  In my opinion, Uluru was more spectacular last night.  The light on the red sand monolith had been an amazing sight.  This morning, high clouds rolled in and put a haze around Uluru.  We all took pictures but by 6:30 we left the viewing area to have a buffet breakfast at the Sails in the Desert Hotel.

Immediately afterwards, we were driven to the Ayres Rock Resort Airport to fly to Darwin, with a six-hour stop-over in Alice Springs.  Fortunately for us, the tour company made arrangements so we could visit “Alice” and see some sights and not spend the day at the tiny Airport.  The map below highlights the location of Alice Springs.

Alice Springs is a remote town located north of Uluru, in the Northern Territory.  The small town of 28,000 people became famous in 1950 after a book called “A Town Like Alice” was published.  It was written by Nevil Shute and the novel was made into a movie and later it became a television mini-series.

I was pleased and excited to visit “Alice” because I remember the mini-series on television and especially the handsome actor Brian Brown.  The tour group’s first stop was The Alice Springs School of the Air which broadcasts educational lessons to 125 elementary children who live in very remote areas in the Northern Territory.  Radios were originally used to send lessons to children.  Today, educational information is transferred via the internet and video recordings.

Our next stop was the Alice Springs Reptile Center where we learned that Australia has the most dangerous animals, venomous snakes, and poisonous spiders in the world.  Many of these live in the desert surrounding Alice.  A sweet young woman introduced us to several docile snakes and lizards.  The dangerous ones were in tanks in another room.

Later, we had a pleasant lunch in a restaurant that looked like the set of an American “Wild West” movie.  I think it represented the wilderness of the Australian Outback which surrounds Alice Springs.  There are thousands of miles of bushland:

The day heated up to about 90 degrees in the sun with a high level of humidity, but our tour guide, Juliet, wanted us to see the Overland Telegraph Station.  The first telegraph messages from overseas were relayed through this station which connected Darwin to Adelaide in 1872.  It linked Australia to an undersea cable that came ashore in Port Darwin to Indonesia.  This made communication between Australia and the rest of the world possible.

Our final stop was to the top of ANZAC Hill to see the memorial dedicated to those who served in World War I.  It was a great location with 360 degree views of Alice Springs.  As an added bonus, someone spotted a snake under a bush.  The bus driver identified it as a western brown snake, one of the ten most venomous snakes in Australia (and the world?) which we had seen in a tank at the Reptile Center.

Fortunately, this was our last stop in Alice.  We all boarded the bus and were driven to the airport for our flight north to Darwin.  It had been an interesting day visiting “The Outback.”