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WhereAreJanetandRick Australia |
Adelaide to Melbourne
Adelaide
We stated our tour of Australia in South Australia; Adelaide to be precise. Here we got our dose of “city’ by shopping, dining out, visiting the excellent City Market, museums, galleries, monuments and botanical gardens. This is the Lotus Garden at the Botanic Gardens of Adelaide.
This is Janet enjoying a bit of shade as she rests along these glorious roots! No figs to eat unfortunately!
The Barossa Valley
Beautiful row upon beautiful row of grape vines. As we occasionally (haha) enjoy Aussie wine at home we thought we should see (okay, and taste too!) where it comes from. This was our first stop where we visited 4 cellar doors and found out that the best isn’t even sent to Canada!
After wine tasting we went on a hike in the same Valley. We were running late and didn’t make it out until close to dusk. This was fortunate though as there were no other people and we had our very first encounter with the infamous ‘roo!
On our drive out we wondered…. does it mean it will rain when the goats are all lying down?
Evidently not! We had clouds but no precip as we continued our drive from Adelaide to Melbourne on the Great Ocean Road (GRO).
The Great Ocean Road
London Bridge was one of the many beautiful views along this road. This children's song became reality when a rock formation known as London Bridge suddenly collapsed. For many years tourists walked out along this natural bridge to the big rock at the end. The bridge spontaneously collapsed in January 1997 leaving two people stranded on the rock who had to wait several hours for a helicopter to arrive. There is a myth that these two people were actually married to others but were cheating on their respective partners and then got caught getting their faces on national television but we do not know if this holds truth or not.
This natural phenomenon is home to many exotic and unique animals too. (More later)
This Arch is also millions of years old & one day will also erode. What shape will it reveal? One can only guess!
From shore one can only see seven of the Twelve Apostles. We thought they were beautiful enough (okay the flight was too expensive!). We were told they were once called the 12 piglets but the name got changed - um…wonder why? We were also told, while in South Africa, that they were named after the Twelve Apostles in South Africa!
This is another one of the wonderful surprises we found on our late day walks. It is like the porcupine and unique to Australia.
The reds on these beauties were stunning…wait until our slide show to view better!
Here was the highlight of them all. We stayed in a camp at the end of a peninsula on the GOR. They boasted Koala lived on the great acreage and we really hoped we’d see them.
This little guy was just posing for us in a tree as we went for a day hike. I think he enjoyed watching us as much as we enjoyed watching him (her?)!
Near the town of Lorne, Rick spotted some blackberries! That meant dessert for our eveing meal - with ice cream, of course.
Equally beautiful but Rick didn’t pick any of these!
Our next encounter with ‘roos really made us laugh! We were on the GRO, still in Lorne, where we went to a lookout on the top of a hill. I guess the long grass at this neglected house for sale attracted these bouncy creatures!
Along the GRO many locals fish. This was really a good thing as it meant that we also had wonderful fresh catches for our dining pleasure!
Melbourne
These were thoroughly enjoyed before we left Australia!
In Melbourne we were fortunate to be hosted by our friends that we toured with in Africa (more later). They made sure that we had a true Aussie experience including the park barbie(BBQ), footy (sort of like rugby sort but kicking the ball), and great home-cooked dinner.
Here’s Janet with Megan, Leyden, Marnie & Alison; a BIG thanks to them all & of course Rosalie & Ben (not in picture).
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