Vacation 2013 - Tasmania, Australia - more animals, old trees, and sheep

We arrived at the port in Hobart, Tasmania after a day spent at sea (sea days will be addressed in their own post).  We were off on another day long shore excursion.  We started with another Animal Park/Sanctuary - Bonorong Wildlife Sanctuary, where we saw, petted, and fed some more:

Kangaroos

We also saw some kangaroos with Joeys in their pouches,

Notice the legs and tail dangling from the pouch

more koalas (we didn't get to pet them this time, though),

Koalas

more tasmanian devils (Bonorong had quite a few more than Ballarat),

Tasmanian Devils enjoying running in circles

more Wombats (when they are born, they are about the size of a jellybean),

A baby wombat (Ballarat also had a fairly young Wombat)

and a few other animals (including birds) as well.

After Bonorong we headed to Mt. Field National Park, where we were able to see some of the tallest trees in the world (Swamp Gums)

A fallen swamp gum tree, Hobart, Tasmania, Australia

Russell Falls,

Russell Falls, Mt. Field National Park, Tasmania, Australia

and some Wallabies in their natural habitat.

Wallabys and Mt. Field National Park, Tasmania, Australia

Interesting tidbit: A cross between a kangaroo and a wallaby is a Wallaroo.

We left Mt. Field National Park, traveled through areas affected by the recent fires,

Tasmania bush fire aftermath

and stopped off at a sheep station/farm to enjoy a barbecue, a sheep shearing demonstration,

Bah, bah white sheep have you any wool?

a sheep dog demonstration

After the demonstration the dogs took a swim in the pond

and a tour of the farm.

Our tour guide was good at talking up all of the many wonderful aspects of Tasmania, including how it has the purest water and air in the world, how it produces ~50% of the poppies used to manufacture narcotics, and more (as you can tell, I didn't remember most of it).

After Tasmania, we spend two more days crossing the Tasman sea before we spent a day cruising around Fiordlands National Park in New Zealand.  I'll write more about that and other vacation adventures in the coming days.

Oh yeah, one more thing.  Can anyone recognize the denomination of this church we passed on our bus ride?

??

Vacation 2013 - Ballarat, Victoria, Australia - There's gold in them there hills.

Our first cruise ship port was Melbourne, Australia.  We decided to go and strike it rich.  We had booked a shore excursion to go to Ballarat Wildlife Park and Sovereign Hill.  We boarded a bus soon after docking, and we were off!

Ballarat is a bit of a drive from Melbourne.  We arrived first at the Wildlife park where we saw, petted, and fed:

Kangaroos

Saw and petted:

Koalas

Emus

and

Wombats - Aren't they cute?

 We saw, but did not pet (due to their bone-crushing jaw strength)

Tasmanian Devils

We also did not pet:

The Crocodiles

My dad also saw snakes.  I chose not to go to the reptile house and see all of the poisonous snakes, however my dad did go.  I am not including those pictures at this time.

Sign Gem - This was also a picture taken at Ballarat Wildlife Park.  

We re-boarded the bus and were off to find gold at Sovereign Hill.

Sovereign Hill near Ballarat, Victoria, Australia

I panned for gold, but apparently it is not one of my talents, as I didn't find any.

Panning for Gold at Sovereign Hill near Ballarat, Victoria, Australia

We also took an opportunity to bowl,

Bowling at Sovereign Hill near Ballarat, Victoria, Australia

watch a gold brick being poured (the same brick has been reheated and poured over and over and over again for the demonstration - so the brick is very pure),

Gold brick pouring at Sovereign Hill

Tour a Gold Mine,

The Crib Room of the Gold Mine (where eating, not sleeping, occurred)

and visit some other old fashioned shops, brass works, etc.

We then headed back to the ship and wished Melbourne "Gidday" as our ship headed onto the high seas towards Tasmania.

Melbourne from the Diamond Princess - February 2013

Vacation 2013 - Day 2 - Manly, The Rocks, and the Library

We pretty much visited the Blue Mountains on Day 1 because he had been offered a ride to the train station and that is pretty much all we had planned to do for sure in the Sydney area before we had arrived.  On day 2 we decided we wanted to take a Ferry Ride and had read that the Manly Ferry was not a ride to be missed.  So we took it.

Cool Fact:  The Manly Ferry offers free wifi

Sydney from the Manly Ferry

We arrived in Manly, and there was a very small little beach with only a few people on in.  Could this be the famous Manly Beach of the two famous Sydney area Manly and Bondi (pronounced Bond-eye) beaches?  It turns out the answer to that question was no.  The real Manly Beach was a short walk away.  Along the way were several decently priced souvenir shops (as opposed to the rather expensive food)

Travel Tip 1:  When buying liquid refreshment on vacation, grocery stores and/or drug stores are usually the cheapest place to obtain these.  The first day we payed an arm and a leg for water as we were thirsty and the convenient nearby water was expensive.  At Manly, we found a grocery store and bought some liquid refreshment and chips and enjoyed them at the fake Manly Beach. 

The Real Manly Beach

We made it over to the real beach, took a few pictures and spent some time enjoying it (although we had not brought our swimming suits).  We then headed back to the wharf, and my dad got some massages at a booth near the wharf and grocery store we had utilized earlier, had lunch, and headed back on the ferry.

Harbor Bridge (sometimes called the Coat Hanger) From the Manly Ferry

When we arrived back in Sydney, we took an audio tour of The Rocks that my dad had downloaded on my iPad.  It was very informative and interesting.  The Rocks was the area of Sydney that was settled first.  One of my favorite parts was learning about the wood block streets.  Along the way, we stopped at the cruise terminal to see if we could drop off our bags early and learned that we could - hooray! 

replica of wood block roads

A short time later, we realized that we had forgotten to print our boarding passes and our luggage tags.  We didn't have a printer, and we hadn't really seen any internet cafes - but we had seen a library.  After our Rocks tour, we headed off to the library (which has free wifi, by the way - but no printing options from the wifi) where I obtained a library card and we added money to it for internet use and printing and printed out our boarding passes and luggage tags.

The Customs House, where one of Sydney's Libraries is located

Quantas Ad sand sculpture in front of the Customs House

More of the Quantas Ad sand Sculpture

Lesson Learned:  The cruise ship did have luggage tags available on site that could be filled in by hand so we did not have to print those.  It is probably a good thing we printed our boarding passes, though.

After that, we grabbed a bit to eat and headed back to where we were staying.  This time we decided to take the bus, because it looked like it dropped us off a little closer to where we were staying, and I was hoping to avoid the hill climb.  Unfortunately, the stop was still at the bottom of the hill, but we did having the opportunity of taking the not-so-famous Perry Steps, and it was closer to our accommodations. 

Vacation - Day 1 (not including travel) - The Blue Mountains, NSW, Australia

We arrived at the Sydney Airport on February 6th.  We Skyped home, got some cash from the cash machine (in case the cab didn't take credit cards) and then headed to the place we were staying (which we acquired through airbnb.com).  Our taxi driver was kind of like one of those frustrating taxi drivers on Amazing Race if you are trying to win the race.  He did not understand English well.  He did have a pen and a card, though, so I could write down the address and he could put it in his GPS.  Unfortunately his GPS did not have our exact street, but he was able to find the neighborhood.  I kept an eye out once we were in the right neighborhood and told him where to turn.  He dropped us off, we went to the door, and some Asian College students opened the door.  We were at the wrong place!

We double checked the address, learned that we were a few houses off, and went to the correct house...or was it.  Dad stayed back a little and I went and rang the door.  It took a few minutes for the person to respond, and the person that opened the door looked nothing like the guy whose place this supposedly was.  I wasn't really sure what to say after showing up at the wrong place a few minutes before, but the guy said, "Are you looking for Max (names changed)".  Relief swept over me - yes, we are.  Come in, he's in the shower right now but will be down in a few minutes.  We put our luggage in a corner and sat down (we could leave our luggage here, but not check in so early).  The roommate came back and asked if we had any questions and we said, "Yes. how is the best way to get to the train station from here?"  He responded that he was actually leaving in five minutes for it, and could give us a ride if we wanted.  We hurriedly looked through our bags for things (a brush, deodorant, some different clothes) but weren't amazingly successful.  He was back quickly saying, "okay.  Let's go."  He introduced us to the salesperson at the station who was very helpful.  We made it to the central station and then stopped for the bathrooms (and I changed my shirt - the shirt I had warn on the long train dirty, had not only been on for almost 2 days straight, but had also been spilled on).  Unfortuately I hadn't been successful at finding my brush or different pants in the time I had.

Looking lovely after 2 days of travel and no time to change!

We headed to the Blue Mountains which are an hour or two from Sydney, bought a ticket for the hop-on, hop-off trolley, and also took several trails at the different stops.  It is a beautiful area.  We saw the 3 sisters,

The Three Sisters, Blue Mountains, Australia (near Leura and Katoomba)

 some cascades and falls,

Leura Cascades, Blue Mountains, NSW, Australia

and the mountains themselves.

Blue Mountains, NSW, Australia

We ate at Subway for lunch, and at a place that serves breakfast all day at supper.  We also had some shakes there.  I had a strawberry shake, and my dad had a chocolate shake.  They were more like a strawberry milk and a chocolate milk. 

When our train arrived back at the station, we trudged up a hill back to our accommodations.  We still had not met Max, due to some of his friends being in town, and the roommate showed us the room.  I was beginning to wonder if Max really existed :).  There were several other people there that night. It was a bit weird, in my opinion, but when we finally did meet Max, he was very nice, and even drove us to the train station a couple of times on our last day there.

Lessons Learned:

1.  The cabs do take credit cards
2.  Most of the train seats are pretty cool - they can switch directions (see illustration below)

Right-facing seat

Transition

 

The same seat facing left (isn't that cool?)

Robert Burns Take 3, and other things

I went to the Robert Burns annual dinner again this year.  I think it was my favorite year so far.  There were pipe bands from both Miles City and Billings (too be honest, I feel the numbers by the Billings band went a bit long) and dance performances from primarily girls in kilts, but there was one boy who participated in the dancing this year.  Some reasons this year was my favorite:

 

(Image From: PoetryFoundation.org(

The ten-year dances were outstanding.  One of the ten-year girls did the dance with her father and he kept up with her step-for-step - AMAZING.  I didn't think this could be beat, but the other girl's dance was just as good.

The first-year dancers - particularly one of the girls.  She had the biggest smile on her face, but she did not dance the steps very well.  She was pretty much just hopping up and down with a big grin on her face, while all of the girls around her were dancing the dance just a little differently from her. It was wonderful to seeing her have so much fun.

I felt there was more involvement by the pipe bands this year.

The one thing I didn't like:  The amount of time they gave us for dinner - it was too long!  I feel like they usually start the second half of the program once everyone has gotten their food.  This year I think they tried to wait until every single person had finished eating their food.

The Other Things

1.  I am completing some minor renovations on my house.  One of the downstairs bedrooms did not have a door, only a doorway.  The problem with putting in a door was a duct that was in the way.  So, I had two short walls put up at right angles to each other.  It creates a small hallway, and allows for a door to be put in the wall that the duct does not run through.  The walls are up but the door and finishing work is yet to come.  I am also going to put in a kitchen/kitchenette downstairs, but I am undecided about some of the details right now.

2.  I'm going to Australia!  Alas, not to live.  But - I will be able to check it out to see if I would really enjoy living there at some point in my life.  The cities I am visiting are Sydney, Melbourne, and Hobart.  So, from Austria last year - where there are no kangaroos, to Australia this year - where there are kangaroos and platypuses and wallabies and, unfortunately, poisonous snakes and pythons.

3.  I am also going to New Zealand!  I am technically going on a cruise that hits both countries, although there are more stops in New Zealand.  Don't worry, I'll have my dad take pictures, and then have him give me a copy.  I'm not the best at taking my own pictures (as you will see the pictures from my vacation last year were taken by my brother).  And, just to make my brother, Earl, jealous, we'll probably do some LOTR tours.

4.  If anyone has any recommendations of things to do or see, I will take them, but I am leaving in a week so there is not much time.  The biggest disappointment is that it looks like we will not be able to go on the Taieri Gorge Railway in Dunedin as it is all booked up.   Other Disappointments were that the Paua Bay Farm trip was booked, and that we wouldn't be able to go on the Eastern Bays Scenic mail run out of Akaroa as we would be there on a Sunday.  On the other hand, Melbourne had too many good sounding options to choose from, and as a friend from New Zealand told me, no matter what we do or see in New Zealand, we will probably enjoy it.