7 days till we leave for australia!

alantani · July 27, 2012, 02:24:04 AM

i never did get to ride the monorail, but the wife and kids did and it looked like fun!

they headed out to do some shopping without me!

darling harbor is quite a place.

criniti's is where we had lunch the first day. i learned later that it was not necessary to tip. too bad, it was a $150 lunch!

alantani · July 27, 2012, 02:32:16 AM

on our last day in sydney, we took the "hop on, hop off" city bus tour. it's a double decker bus that works fine unless it rains!

we headed to "the rocks" district through downtown.

here's the sydney harbor bridge again.

lots of sandstone architecture.

and shopping!

we stopped into a couple of shops and museums, then headed back.

we did a quick tour of the opera house. here is the inside.

here is a close up of the tiles that make up the roof.

alantani · July 27, 2012, 02:45:35 AM

when we left, it was raining like crazy!

once in the air, things dried out fast. the country is HUGE!!!!

this is all salt. at one time, millions of years ago, this was all an inland sea.

this is ayer's rock, now known by it's aboriginal name of uluru.

more desert!

and the arrival at the town of yulara.

these busses took us everywhere!

we had a very nice dinner out in the desert.

we could spot a huge fire off in the distance.

the reception area offered a very nice view.

Alto Mare · July 27, 2012, 02:57:43 AM

Very nice shots Alan, I'm enjoying everyone of your pictures. You mentioned that you've seen lots of sandstone architecture, maybe they did try granite...like us italians and probably found out that it was just too hard to work with $:-\$

.
Look like a beautiful country. Thanks for sharing.
Sal

alantani · July 27, 2012, 03:01:52 AM

we caught a sunrise at ayer's rock. i was only slightly hung over.

it was cold as hell!

and done!

Alto Mare · July 27, 2012, 03:04:50 AM

Alan, did you get to fish a little?

Dominick · July 27, 2012, 04:01:20 AM

Quote from: Alto Mare on July 27, 2012, 03:04:50 AM
Alan, did you get to fish a little?

Also did you get to play a didgeridoo? Dominick

broadway · July 27, 2012, 04:38:13 AM

Alan,
Those are some sweet aerial shots, and glad to see you're getting better weather.
Let me know how much I owe for my end of this trip

Thanks for making us a part of it,
Dom
PS- I have shared your photos with my family and friends, and their loving 'em, too!

Nessie Hunter · July 27, 2012, 06:08:27 PM

Well done Alan & Fam.. Amazing...

Dr. Jekyll - AKA MeL B · July 27, 2012, 07:12:39 PM

WOW! i'm having one of the best tours of my life without spending a dime...thanks for sharing!

alantani · July 29, 2012, 10:46:56 AM

glad you guys are getting a bargain, because we certainly are not. stuff is really expensive here. i got a burn phone at the beginning of the trip but spend $100 in internet charges at the hotel before getting my own prepaid wifi hotspot. i burned up all of that loading the last round of photos and was then unable to recharge the hotspot because of credit card problems with telstra, the australian internet provider. it seems that services here are at least 10 years behind the US. well, i got a couple of extra gigs after being on the phone with telstra for an hour. now i'm worried about running out of minutes on my phone! anyway, we finished up with ayer's rock, alice springs, a free day in cairns, a day in karunda and a day of snorkeling today at the great barrier reef. tomorrow we fly to brisbane to stay with peter boyd until friday. then we fly home. if i can get this internet problem sorted out, i will post more photos.

broadway · July 30, 2012, 03:46:51 AM

Whoa... that's steep

I guess we should chip in cause we're on this tour, too

... Hey, it's only money, and we can't take it with (when we kick the bucket) us so work hard/ play hard, enjoy, pal
Dom

alantani · July 31, 2012, 01:35:29 AM

there are two big rocks that are close to each other. one is ayer's rock that you already saw. the other is a group called the olga's.

we took a hike in between two of the larger rocks.

the day was pretty short. we were driving to alice springs that afternoon. we had one dinner break at a small truckstop out in the middle of nowhere.

there is ALOT of desert out there!

we checked into our hotel at alice springs late at night, then had to check out 8 hours later.

we were on a city tour starting at 8:30 am and our first stop was the old telegraph station.

our second stop was the school of the air. here they used to run classes over shortwave radio to kids in the outback. like so many things out here, people were isolated and life was very hard.

this is a view from the australia/new zealand war memorial. it gives you a panorama of the city.

our third stop in alice springs was an area that had 3 museums. the first was an airplane museum.

these two fellas didn't make it out of the desert alive.

we found this caterpillar between the museums.

the natural history museum is small but very nice.

a different hotel ever night is no way to travel. off to cairns and a few night of staying put!

alantani · July 31, 2012, 01:56:02 AM

the cairns colonial is an older resort, but still very nice.

our first day in cairns was a free day. the girls hit the botanical gardens and the downtown area for shopping. i went to jack erskine's funeral. it was only a short walk from the hotel, which was quite a surprise.

they had a videographer there, so i hope that the family will not object to these few photos. the services were very dignified and the memorials offered by family and friends were very moving. while the family was at a private memorial, friends gathered at a local pub to exchange stories. he was a great man and will be sorely missed.

the pub was called "the cock and bull" and you can see why mr. erskine came here so often. i was told that it was one of his favorite pubs.

alantani · July 31, 2012, 02:43:46 AM

saturday was our day for the aboriginal cultural center, then the skyrail tram, then karunda and finally the old train. meet our bus driver. funny guy. he actaully spoke japanese with a batman accent!

the aboriginal cultural center was much larger than the one we saw outside of sydney.

the skyrail went a very long way up the mountain range and over the rain forrest and had a couple of stops before arriving at the town of karunda.

on one stop, we had a nice view of the falls.

the town of karunda is basically an old hippie village. it's a great little town!

our train departed at 3:30. you could tell something was up, because at 3pm all the shops started closing up. they must do that because they know that the tourists are all leavng.

we had a nice view from the train!

saturday evening we headed into town for dinner and a little shopping.

this guy had a nice display of opals.