Finishing Australia

We finished up a great stay in Sydney and spent our last days walking as much as possible through this beautiful city. Lots of beautiful buildings, like St. Mary's Cathedral, above, left us in awe of this city which before now we'd known very little about.
Certainly the quality of food didn't hurt, either. Our favorite pub, Lord Nelson's, featured one of Australia's signature dishes, meat pie, and was adorned with smashed peas, mashed potatoes and a delicious gravy. This savory treat had us coming back time and time again, and was equally enhanced by the six different beers that were brewed on site. Ahhh, beer and meat pie; life doesn't get much better!
We spent the final leg of our Australia trip in Cairns, home to the Great Barrier Reef. The Reef is a UNESCO World Heritage site, is the world's biggest single structure composed of living organisms, and most importantly, was the site of Zach's first scuba dive ever.
Here is Tiffany with the Reef in the water behind her. Just days after our trip, we read about a couple that had been lost at sea for 19 hours after getting left behind on a scuba dive. Thank god I didn't read that before we went, or else I'd never have gone! The scuba diving experience was amazing, I have to say. It is such a strange sensation to be breathing 20-30 feet underwater with ocean life all around you. I only freaked out once, when I started thinking, "Wait a minute, I'm not supposed to be down here. I can't breathe underwater, what if my oxygen tank breaks?!" After a brief moment of terror and incontinence, I calmed down. Luckily, the beauty and breadth of underwater life at the Reef is such that I was quickly distracted from my fears. It was amazing to see the variety and combination of colors, which almost seemed impossible in their bright vivid streaks and gleaming florescence. The Great Barrier Reef was one, big underwater disco costume party, apparently.

We passed our last few days in Cairns relaxing at the beach, and enjoying nature at its finest. Our daily walks were definitely enhanced by the opportunity to witness some of Australia's unique wildlife! As we reluctantly leave our new favorite country, we are getting ready to re-enter China, the chaotic, exciting country we've called home for the past 3 years. With the unfortunate situations in Chengdu and Tibet, we're shifting our trip to Yunnan, the most southeastern province of China and home to Shangri-la. We're winging this part of the trip, so it will be interesting to see what kind of adventures (and in Tiffany's case, exotic animals) we can find! Stay tuned...

Our Favorite Convict Colony

In an unlikely turn of historical events, Australia, originally a giant Alcatraz for Great Britain and filled with boatloads of unsavory criminals, took their abandoned lemons and turned them into great beer and meat pies.



We discovered in Sydney a wonderful city, full of great food, laid-back locals, and waterfront views wherever we walked.

First up on our list was climbing the Sydney Harbour Bridge, which has been Tiffany's biggest concern of the trip. But after seeing pictures of a 100-year old woman's successful climb, she figured she'd overcome her fear of heights and give it a shot. As you can see, she made it! At the top, we were over 1,000 feet over the harbor. While Tiffany was happy to have made it, I still couldn't convince her to let me lift her up for the photo.


Sydney's other famous architectural highlight is the Opera House. All the arcs forming the structure can be combined to form one sphere. Or, as our bridge climb guide described it, "It's like a rugby scrum of nuns." Either way, it is stunning, and we enjoyed our behind the scenes tour of the site, which described how a 3-year, $7 million budgeted project was eventually completed in 15 years, at a cost of over $100 million (with the overrun paid for through a special "Opera House Lottery". And who said nothing good ever comes of gambling?!). The Opera House is home to not just opera performances, but also dance, symphony orchestra, theater, and even sumo wrestling and the finals of Australian Idol. We enjoyed a performance that evening of the Jerome Robbins ballet, which was like ballet for ADD sufferers, with 4 acts separated by 3 intermissions in a quick 2 hours. It was perfect for us!


Sydney also found international accord when they held the 2000 Olympics, widely known (especially within Australia) as "the best Olympics ever".


Truthfully, it is a beautifully landscaped site, with wide boulevards to stroll and striking stadiums dotting the Olympic park.





Interestingly, Australia has more Olympic athletes per capita than any other country (at around 20 million population for the entire country, they are about the size of Shanghai). And we were soon believers. Every where we walked, and at any time of day, we witnessed people running, swimming, playing volleyball, rugby, even boxing in the park. At lunchtime, workers would stream out of their office buildings in running shoes for a quick jog. And even though it wasn't that warm (maybe 60 degrees in the evening), we saw people swimming in the ocean. Without wetsuits. As our cabdriver replied when we mentioned that rugby looked like a crazy sport, "Well, you have to be crazy to be Australian."


We walked along the famous Bondi Beach and learned that Australian's idea of a swimming pool is to let the freezing Pacific Ocean water fill your pool and have at it. Never mind that the ocean waves keep crashing over the pool wall onto your head as you flip turn. At least the sharks can't get in. Hopefully.































And, as usual, Tiffany couldn't stay away from the bounty of animals to be found. From kangaroos to koalas, she got her hands on all of them.

Happy Mothers' Day! (And Goodbye New Zealand!)

Our final leg of the New Zealand trip was a stop in Queenstown, the thrill-capital of the country, then a drive up to the famous Franz Joseph glaciers, and one final drive into Christschurch.


On the road into Queenstown were a number of "bench under a tree" signs notifying drivers of a nice spot to stop. These were everywhere in New Zealand, but they were certainly appropriate in Queenstown, one of the most beautiful towns we have ever seen.
It reminded me a little of Lake Tahoe (in northern California, for you uninitiated), but maybe 50 years ago, or whenever it was last a sleepy little ski town.
We were "forced" to pull over and avoid crashing our car while trying to stop staring at the incredible view. And no, that is not some fake backdrop behind Tiff.




In fact, Tiffany was so enamored she wanted to dive right into the incredible blue of the water.


We pulled into town, checked into our hotel, and immediately left to take a hike up to a viewpoint. This is what we arrived at, about 45 minutes walk from the center of town. Again, checking the camera for our photos, we were struck by the almost surreal beauty of the town's mountain and lake backdrop.

As it is fall down here in the southern hemisphere, we enjoyed a spectacular spectrum of trees changing their color guard. At first we laughed at how many benches the town had positioned all over the place, but we shortly realized they were quite necessary, as we frequently had to sit down and stop to enjoy the sublime nature all around us.





From Queenstown we drove about 5 hours north into glacier land. Thick slabs of ice sat on top of mountain ranges. The wet snow falls so heavily (almost 100 feet per year!) that it quickly compacts down into ice, which forms the glaciers.



We took a few walks around town and along different trails to appreciate the many features of the glaciers and their surroundings.











Even filling up for gas afforded this gorgeous, sunset view.









Of course, heavy snowfall melts at the bottom and results in some gushing waterfalls. If you look closely, you can pick me out at the bottom of these three.





Once we had properly prepared ourselves, we took a helicopter ride around the glaciers and landed on the Franz Joseph glacier to try and get a sense of its enormity and beauty up close.






































Ok, this has nothing to do with glaciers, but we spotted this rental van, and what can I say? It spoke to my heart. Or rather, my...















We calculated that over our 20 days in Kiwi country, we'd driven about 1,800 miles, and shouted with outstretched, pointing arm to each other, "Ohmygod, look at that!" approximately 3,600 times. It's quite easy to pick out the tourists in New Zealand, they're the ones walking around with their heads on a swivel, in a futile attempt to take in all of the natural beauty that exists on these two small islands, constantly shouting and pointing to look here and there.



Although we logged around 30 hours of driving all told, it honestly flew by. Every day we were treated to new landscapes. Mountains, animals, fields, and irrationally bright hues of green grass and blue skies all conspired to such arresting beauty that we stopped discerning between journey and destination. Long periods without conversation were required while our overloaded brains desperately logged image after image, and our mouths' only contribution was "Ooohh... ahhhh..."





Surprisingly, we were held up by a cattle crossing. Apparently, cows seem to follow us in whichever country we're in!

























Our pictures do not nearly bring justice to the countryside, but here are a few of the photos just taken on the last leg from Franz Joseph to Christschurch.

Good On You Mate!

The New Zealand road trip continued around the east coast of the North Island into Napier, which is located in one of the best wine growing regions of the country, and brags the best collection of Art Deco buildings. The entire town was destroyed by a huge earthquake in the 1930's. As Deco was the popular trend at the time, the majority of the town was rebuilt at the same time in that style. Napier is nestled in Hawkes Bay, an area filled with wineries. In true New Zealand form, even the vineyards have been taken over by sheep.
While in Napier, we also spent the night at the Napier prison, which supposedly had been transformed into a hostel. Our impression was that it still felt like jail. It probably didn't help that we were the only travelers that evening. The rest of the inmates, oops I mean guests, were local native New Zealanders from a nearby island staying for six months during the grape picking season. The manager of the prison made a number of warnings to us to not use the public showers and explained that while almost all the guests were married men, there were a number of women who we would see socializing with them. This included a man with hatchet scars on his face and body, apparently administered by his wife after she found out he was picking up more than just grapes. We weren't sure why she felt the need to explain this particular local custom of infidelity, but we were sufficiently nervous when the sun went down.
Lots of sporadic rain throughout our trip has allowed us to see sights like this from the road. This was shot while driving through the front windshield.


After a night in Wellington, we ventured to the South Island and headed straight for a small town called Oamaru (for some reason rhymes with 'kangaroo'). Oamaru is famous for their little blue penguin colony.
These penguins weigh about 2 pounds, and only emerge from the ocean at dusk. They climb up this steep hill, then wait in groups called rafts before darting across to their nests. They're known to be crabby little suckers, and bore a striking resemblance to those sneaky mafioso penguins in 'Madagascar'.


One roadside tourist stop to break up the driving featured these alien-looking smooth boulders jutting out of the cliff walls and laying in the sand along the beach. This is supposed to look like I'm Atlas, shouldering the world, but it looks more like I'm just relaxing, and leaning up against it.



In Dunedin, a large Scottish-settled town along the southeast coast, Tiff and I toured the Cadbury chocolate factory, complete with many free chocolate samples, and a gift shop where we picked up another 10 pounds of chocolate or so. Frighteningly, we don't have all that much left by now. I blame Tiff for eating it all, she claims I ate it all, and we both feel a little better.
New Zealand also brews some fantastic beers, none of which we'd ever tried before. Also in Dunedin is the Speight's brewery, which ends in a nice little pub for free sampling of six of their fine beers. Don't ever leave me behind the bar with the beer taps running. It's not a good idea. Luckily Tiff was too busy picking me up off the floor and carrying me home to take any compromising photos. Free chocolate and free beer; now that was a fantastic day!



In the town of Te Anau, outside of Milford Sound, we stayed at one of my favorite motels so far, for obvious reasons. I practiced my "Matrix" moves for the next sequel and am ready for the casting call.
The beauty of Milford Sound was a joy to experience and we took many deep breaths of clean crisp air, to get all remnants of India dust out of our lungs. The vast grandeur of Milford Sound is such that even these falls, which are three times the height of Niagara, are dwarfed by the size of the surrounding mountains.
Large bottle nose dolphins swam alongside our boat and even performed a few jumps and tricks for our entertainment.
Some braver passengers went on deck to feel the brunt of a 50-story high waterfall crashing down with icy waters on their heads. Tiff and I remained safely inside the boat, and tried to figure out what was wrong with these people.
Tiff's favorite: a cute little seal posed for us on a rock.