Trip to Oz Part IV/ The End

We bought a disposable camera and journeyed south to Kangaroo Island. Here are two white Pulsar rental cars, can you guess which one is ours?





Remarkable Rocks made for fun photo opportunities.



We flew back to Sydney for our last weekend overseas and spent it with Merry, Ann and Ross at their home in Wagstaffe. This picture is with Merry at the local pub in Wagstaffe.


A ferry crossing to Palm Beach.


Rob, Merry, Ann, and Ross at the Barrenjoey Lighthouse in Palm Beach.

Trip to Oz Part III (some fuzzy shots)

These shots are at Cleland Conservation Park just outside of Adelaide in southern Australia. These pictures are a bit fuzzy because they were taken with the digital camera while we still had hope that it would just fix itself. Rob seen here with Alice, the koala.


An echidna, which may look like a porcupine, is more closley related to the platypus.


"Keep wildlife wild," does not apply here. These roos and wallabys are all fed by the tourists. When you buy your ticket to enter the park, they sell food pellets to feed them.


This would have been a beautiful shot in focus, several lorikeets are seen here at feeding time.

Trip to Oz Part II

Noddy Terns are rampant on Heron Island.


Another beautiful sunset, this one was taken on our last night at Heron. We took the sunset cruise.


The most amazing things happened at night. The Mutton birds come home from a full day of fishing and fill the island with their haunting cries and the Greens and Loggerheads come ashore to lay clutches of eggs. It's not a good idea to take flash photography of the turtles at night, so we did not get any pictures of them coming ashore, but whenever we went for an evening stroll on the beach, we would spot around a dozen or so either swimming or shuffling onto shore. This is a picture of a couple of turtle tracks.


We left Heron Island and took a train north to Airlie Beach. We arrived at 4:30am, way before even McDonald's thought of opening. So, we spent some time taking in all the info on the dangers of the stingers we may encounter.


Airlie Beach is a relaxed beach town with an element of fraternity/party house feel. We stayed a couple of nights before our sailboat, The Whitsunday Magic, was ready for our 3 day/night tour around the Whitsunday Islands. This is on our balcony where cockatoos like to come and hang out.


Ahhh, pure relaxation on The Magic. She's built for comfort, not speed.


Here we are maxing and relaxing, another few days of having everything catered for us. The meals were gourmet and delicious. We also met very interesting people from Paris, Munich and Dallas.


We went on a few snorkelling trips off of The Whitsunday Magic where the coral was unbelievably colorful and gorgeous. This is the last picture with the digital camera in focus:(

Trip to Oz (The West Island)

We arrived in Sydney and stayed a few nights with Rob's aunt and uncle, Ann and Ross. The weather was sunny and perfect on the day after our arrival for a tour of the city.


On our third day, Ann and Ross graciously bought us tickets to see a matinee of The Pirates of Penzance at the Opera House. We really enjoyed it and then spent the rest of the afternoon walking around Sydney.


We left the wonderful hospitality of Ann and Ross for an island adventure on the great barrier reef. Ross sold us on the idea of going to Heron Island by the way he described the beautiful coral, marine life and bird life.


A little historical note about this island, it used to be a turtle canning factory in the 1920's, when a great many Green and Loggerhead Turtles were slaughtered for soup. Thankfully, it was not a commercially popular or lucrative venture and it went out of business in 2 years. After the canning business went bankrupt, it was sold and turned into a resort. This was a slightly better turn for the turtles, in that they were no longer being actively hunted and killed, but the resort staff would wait for them to come ashore at night when they would lay their eggs and then flip them on their backs where they would lay until morning so that guests, like the woman pictured here, could sit on them and "ride" them in contests. That went on for 40 years before anyone thought it might not be a good idea for the turtles.


Ross was right about the abundance of marine life. This is one of a few starfish we saw on our guided reef tour. No, we did not step on the coral.


This is the equipment you need for the reef tour (well at least I did): sun hat, copious amounts of sun block, walking stick for stability, reef shoes and a sea scope. Rob opted out for the walking stick once he found out it was not for poking at the coral or sea cucumbers.


Rob spotted this little yellow Moray eel, who became defensive after a few minutes and he started to come out of his hiding place with his mouth open.


The snorkelling was incredible and the island is surrounded by the reef, so we never had to go far. We would just put on our suits, hop in the water and we would be surrounded by black tipped reef sharks, shark rays, eagle rays, lemon sharks, parrot fish, I could go on and on.

Mt. Cook

The Mt. Cook area on a fine day.


Sir Edmund Hillary ever looking towards Mt. Cook.


One of the many hikes in the area.


Mt. Cook


Lake Matheson reflects Mt. Cook.

Stewart Island

At the southern tip of the South Island, Bluff is 35km to Stewart Island.


Oban, the main city of Stewart Island, is named after a port city in the Scottish Highlands.


A hilltop view looking down on Oban.


We stayed at the Kaka Cottage, appropriately named for the frequent feathered guests we would get on our porch.


On our way to Mason Bay Hut and hoping to spot the elusive, nocturnal kiwi.


At the midnight hour, on the trail to the toilet, we saw this little guy. We had four kiwi spottings during our two night stay.


One of 86 remaining Kakapo, a heavy boned, lumbering, flightless, ground parrot. Not sure why they're going extinct, could have something to do with their infrequent, inefficient mating rituals.

Milford Sound

The start of our overnight cruise on the Milford Mariner.


The Milford Sound is known for its rainfall as it gets an average of 7 meters of rain annually. The varying degrees of precipitation during our outing allowed for an abundance of waterfalls.


A kayak trip off the boat after we reached a calm harbor for the night.


If you click the picture for a larger view, you'll see a few of the little Fiordland Crested Penguins we spotted.


Rob convinced the Captain that he could take over from here. Check out the joystick on the right counter, that's what steers this ship, no more large steering helms.


As the rain strengthened in intensity, so did the waterfalls.

The Hollyford Track Part IV

Now we get to the sign that says the trail we just did was for fit and experienced trampers only.


Along the trail to Lake Alabaster Hut, we couldn't take our eyes off the gorgeous mountain views as the weather cleared.


Arrival to Lake Alabaster Hut, this is the view in front of the hut. Lake Alabaster was so still and as reflective as a mirror. Rob and I were so tempted by its lure, we went in for a very brief swim as the water was near ice cold.


We were supposed to hike out on this day (day 4 of the tramp) and go back to the car park but when we came upon Hidden Falls Hut and saw the surrounding mountains, we had a change of heart. We had enough food left over for another day, and as it turned out, we had the hut all to ourselves once again.


Hidden Falls


This map in the Hidden Falls Hut shows the 53km trail that took us only 15 minutes to fly in but 5 days to hike out.