Bendigo Ballarat and Melbourne

Ok so there are no pics of Melbourne here. i looked through the camera and realised we didn't take any. It was not a great city, very stressful driving. Basically, you had to make a left turn from the right lane all the time and I was lost. And they close the streets around our hotel to make it all a big sidewalk, nice to walk around but not nice driving in. We had a nice time after we got checked in and saw a good musical about drag queens, It was really good! But sorry, no pictures.

These are Bendigo. It was a nice pretty small city. Lots of older buildings and a great wool mill and pottery place!
In Ballarat we went to Sovereign Village, it is like Greenfield village except it is set up as an old gold mining town. This is all the little kids looking for gold!

The Great Ocean Road

Part of Mom and my road trip was the Great Ocean Road. I goes pretty much from Melbourne to Adelaide right along, you guessed it, the ocean. It is a really pretty drive and I bet it would be fun to drive it if you had the right car, mine made it not so fun. There are tons of twists and turns and hills, I think I went 30km per hour the whole trip.

We thought these were funny. They used to be used to tie boats too and they were everywhere.
One of the main sights is London Bridge. This used to be connected to the mainland and you could walk across it. Until about ten years ago when it collapsed in the middle and left a few people stranded on the other side.
This is called the 12 apostles. I think there used to be 12 of them, but we couldn't see that many. Plus It was super cold and ugly out so we didn't stick around long to try!
We drove through the rain forest and got to see many koalas in the trees. They would stare right at you and watch your every move, it was pretty cool.

Christmas Parade

This past weekend was the big Christmas Parade, or Pageant as they say here. It was kinda weird wearing a sun dress to watch a Christmas Parade, but I guess that is normal here. It was a lot bigger then I thought it would be, I guess there were about half a million people there, I thought it would just be a little parade!

Animal Park

We took a trip to the Gorge Animal Sanctuary. VERY nice place. This is mom feeding the kangaroos. Aren't the white ones unusual? I have never seen a peacock like this before. He was up on the roof of a picnic shelter just spinning in a circle.

And we got to hold Koalas!!!! We both held Molly. It was such a cool experience. She just sat there and ate her eucalyptus.

Coober Pedy

My mom has been here for the past 3 weeks for a very nice visit. We have had tons of fun together and went on several trips. Towards the end of her trip we decided to visit Coober Pedy, Opal Capital of the World. We decided t0 take an overnight bus trip there. I would not recommend it. Anywho. Coober Pedy was basically a small town in the middle of the outback. The only shops were about a dozen jewelry stores selling opal jewelry. We ended up getting some real pretty mosaic pendants. We got into town at 5:40 am. Yep, that was due to the fun bus ride. Of course nothing was open, But we were lucky to find a bakery that opened up for us and we had a nice morning and had some very good apple cake. Then of course we explored the shops to find the best jewelry. Then we took a tour that took us all over town and in to the outback and the opal fields. It was really good. Our tour guy was an opal miner and he had lived in the town for over 40 years, so he had tons of good stories. His real name was some unusual Greek name, but everyone in town called him Jimmy the Runner. (He runs marathons). Anywho, enough talk, here are some pics of Coober Pedy and the Outback.

Me and Mom in the Outback. This area all used to be an inland sea.

This is a mining field. All those hills are from the shafts they dig to find opals.

Did I forget to mention they live UNDER GROUND here?????

Look closely at this graveyard.... Do you see the keg as a tomb stone???? The stone says something like Stay and have a drink on me.

Not a very big town, huh?

Sunset

The clouds looked realyl pretty the other night after the sun went down. This si the view from my apartment!

More Granite Island

I liked how they carved things out of the granite on the island.
This is the trolley you can take to the island.

Full shot of Granite Island

Victor Harbor

I took friday off of work and drove down to Victor Harbor. Supposedly, this is where you can see the whales. I did not see them, but it was a pretty drive down and a nice place to spend the day. This is Granite island. You walk across this bridge to get to it. Or you can take a horse drawn trolley.


This is the species of penguin that lives in Australia and they were out on the island.

A natural pile of rocks on Granite Island

My Little Garden

It is getting to be Spring here so I went and bought some plants for my patio. Some of them are Australian originals. Hopefully they take off!

Sydney Part 3

The Sydney Casino. You can't see it so well, but there are water falls all over the forn of the place. That red bus was my savior the first day of my trip. It took me to al the sights and kept me dry.
The famous Bondi Beach. It was so windy that day, you can tell by the siz of the waves! While walking down the street the darn wind almost blew me over.

This church was started in the 1800's and the two spires were just compelted in 2000. Talk about a long construction process! It looks like they are still working on it!
I was so happy it cleared up enough on Sunday for at least one of the outdoor markets to open. They close this whole road and put up the large canopies every weekend. This market is in an area called the Rocks. It is one of the oldest areas of Sydney. One thing I thought was funny about this area, since it is right by the docks, they used to have a problem with rats coming off the ships and bringing the plague. So they built this huge wall to stop the rats from getting into the city!
This is an old convert on a rock cliff that is now a ritzy girls private school. I thought it was a really pretty building

Sydney Part 2

More Sydney Pics. First this is the Queen Victoria Building. It used to be a produce market and it is now the big mall in the city.

This is the center dome in the Queen Victoria Building (or the QVB).
There are 2 clocks like this one in the QVB. Every hour they play music and act out scenes.

The tallest building in Sydney is the Sydney tower. I didn't go all the way up this time, heights not being one of my favorite things, but you can even walk on the outside of the very top of the building.
The Sydney clock tower

Sydney - Prints Charming

Now don't get me wrong, the Opera house and all the sights were great. But my favorite thing about my weekend in Sydney was visiting the shop of a local fabric company, Prints Charming. I got to meet the designer and talked with her for awhile and got to see all their fabric they had silk screen in the shop! They are going to have classes to teach you silk screening and I might have to return to Sydney for that! Of course I left with plenty of goodies from the shop. They were so nice they even let me dig through their scrap bins to find some really good stuff!

Sydney!

Over the Queen's Birthday Weekend I went to Sydney. And of course, with my luck, it rained the whole time I was there. We are talking torential, flooding rains. Kinda ruined my plans of walking all over the place. So I took the bus instead. I still got to see a lot of the sights and it was still a good weekend. And go figure, I woke up this morning to leave for my 9 am flight to blue skies. The Opera house was really amazing, but beleive it or not, the coolest part was the bathroom! I didn't feel right taking pictures inside there, but it was so neat! The wall of stalls was curved like a bunch of waves and the sink was this long piece of flat metal and the water fell to the back and went into the wall. i am doing a bad job of explaining, but if you are ever in Sydney, be sure to use the bathrooms at the Opera House!

My First Footy Game

Sunday I went to my first game of Aussie Rules Football. So totally different from American Football, but quite fun to watch. The ball never stops moving and the players beat each other up and wear no protective gear. It was a fun afternoon. Aami Stadium is the footy ground in Adelaide. The team I saw play was the Port Adelaide Power vs the Hawthorn Hawks. The Hawks won which was sad for the home team. But I picked my team to support (They do not say they route for a team here, you don't want to know why) and it is not one of the 2 Adelaide teams. Of course I had to find the team that had the best team colors ever, black and gold! Of course they are the worst team in the league right now, but I am used to cheering for the not so great team!

On a different subject... People have been telling me that in the marina I live on, there are often dolphins that wander in and jump around. I did not beleive anyone onthis but then this morning I saw them! It was so awesome to look out my living room and see dolphins! I tried to get a picture but they were too fast. Hopefully next time I will catch them!