Good Bye Mate

Today is my last day in Australia.  I flew from Cairns to Perth two days ago.  I am flying from Perth to Singapore tonight, where I will stay for about 10 days before going to Vietnam.  I have written quite a bit about Vietnam and Singapore in another blog http://menginvietnam.blogspot.com
If I come across something different I will share it with you in this blog.

This Australian trip has been an amazing experience.  We started out in a mid-size, laid-back city called Perth, then travel to 2 coastal towns, Albany and Esperance.  Then we went north to Norsemen, then east across the Nullabor Plain.  It is so big that we had to spend the night in the border town called Border Village between Western Australian and South Australia.  Then we stopped in the picturesque fishing town of Port Lincoln.  Next we drove to Adelaide, a beautiful colonial-style town with wide-open spaces and beautiful old buildings.  Then it's on to Melbourne, the city that hosted the 2000 Olympics.  A beautiful city by the Yarra River with its impressive buildings and sports facilities.  Finally, we reached Sydney after 11 days of driving 5000 km and all across from west to east Australia.  What an experience it was to finally see the Sydney Opera House and the Harbor Bridge.  I can spend another week in Sydney, riding the ferries and the trains around the city, visiting museums and seeing other lesser known tourist spots.  To top it all, I went to Cairns and swam in the Great Barrier Reef.
Sydney is where Australia started.  I have been reading this book about the beginning of Australia, called "The Fatal Shore" by Robert Hughes.  It's a lengthy book and it goes into a lot of details about Australia's convict history.  I knew a little about the convict history but did not know the ugly side of it.  I can't imagine someone getting 100 lashes flogging with a cat-of-nine-tails.  But, I wonder how Australians transcended from a violent and cruel past to one of the most open and friendly people in the world.  Australia is currently facing some tough challenges.  It's heavily dependent on mining for its growth.  Other than that, it has very little to ride on.  It only has about 23 million people with a land size that is about the same as the United States.  It needs people who can and want to work and has the expertise.  Yet, I think its selective immigration policy will hurt it rather than help it grow.  It also has a serious problem dealing with the aborigines issue, not unlike the challenges that Americans have dealing with the Native Americans.

Answers to Australia Quiz:

1.  What are sultanas?  They are raisins, so Raisin Brans are called Sultanas Brans here.
2.  What is a flat white?  It's a small cup of coffee with cream but no sugar.  A long black is a tall cup of black coffee.
3.  What is road creep?  When you drive on the highway and slowly increase your speed pass the speed limit.  One Australian I asked said it's a stupid sign.  It doesn't make sense at all.

One more thing.  You often see TV commercials in the US about Foster Beer:  "Foster is Australian for beer."  However, not once did I find Foster beer being sold at a pub or restaurant in Australia.

Finally, I want to end this travel with a picture of an Australian iconic building (Sydney Opera House) taken from another iconic structure (Sydney Harbor Bridge).  What a beautiful country!
Thanks for sharing my travels with me.

Sydney Opera House taken from Sydney Harbor Bridge

Cairns

I flew from Sydney to Cairns on Virgin Australia Airlines in about 3 hours. The fare costs about A$200 one-way. Cairns is in the northeastern part of Australia, in the state of Queensland. It's about a two-hour flight north of Brisbane, the capital of Queensland. Most people come to Cairns to experience the Great Barrier Reef, although there are a lot of other activities that you can do in the area.  I signed up for 2 tours when I was still in Sydney:  a cruise to the Great Barrier Reef and a trip to the rainforest.  I already talked about my trip to the Reef in the previous post.  It has to be the highlight of my Australian trip.  Early the next morning I was picked up by a van to go see the Daintree Rainforest, which is about an hour north of Cairns.  The van also picked up many other tourists from the other hotels in the Cairns area.  There were about 20 of us in the van.  Unfortunately, it was raining that day.  The forest is named after Richard Daintree, a geologist.
Our first stop was the Habitat Village, where you can see birds and animals of the rainforest and outbacks.  Since it was raining, part of it was closed and we didn't see some of the animals.  We also visited the famous Mossman Gorge, where we see a lot of water rushing down the gorge.  The most amazing thing is that the rainforest here is very thick, just like you would see in any rainforest in the tropics.  Later we cruise down the river looking for live crocodiles.  We saw one.
When I visited the markets in Melbourne and Sydney, I found many tropical fruits like bananas, papayas, pineapples, guavas, etc, that were grown in this area.  Along the road you also see a lot of sugarcane being grown.  This area has been growing sugarcanes since the late 1800s'.  In one of the information boards along the Esplanade in the city, they explained that many Chinese were in the area in the late 1800s' working in the sugarcane plantations.  Later, Japanese and South Islanders also came to work in the plantations.  This explains why Cairns has such a diverse population.
At the Rusty Farmer's Market in town, I saw mostly Asians running the produce stands.  I found out that they were from different parts of Asia:  Thais, Laotians, Vietnamese, Filipinos, Chinese, etc.  You can also get Filipino, Vietnamese, Japanese food from the food stands.  It's an amazing market.  The fruits and vegetables were very inexpensive, compared to the stores.  Not only that, they were very good.  I tried a Custard Apple for the first time and was surprised that it is so sweet.  It looks like a small soursop fruit but the soursop is more sour than sweet.  Soursops are common in Southeast Asia.  I also tasted the pears and persimmons.  The pears are bigger and sweeter than any that I have tasted in the US.  The persimmons, one of my favorite fruits, are also very sweet.  Red or green bell peppers are called capsicums here.

Central Hostel where I stayed

Rusty's Farmers' Market

Custard Apples

Inside of a custard apple....very sweet

Cairns Esplanade 

Scottsdale, AZ is a sister city

Ferry across the river, where we looked for crocodiles

Mossman Gorge in the Daintree Rainforest

Sydney - More Pictures

Chinatown

Sydney Central Hostel where I stayed

Central Business District

An Old House in the CBD

Luna Park on the north side of Sydney

One of the ferry terminals

Maritime Museum in Darling Harbor

What did you say, mate?


There are some words or sentences that Australians use that took me a while to figure out.  Let's see if you can guess what they are.  I will have the answers in a later post.

1.  What are sultanas?

2.  What is a flat white?

3.  What do you mean by "Stop Creeping" when driving on the highway?

The Great Barrier Reef

This needs no introduction.  The Great Barrier Reef is one of the Seven Wonders of the World, just like the Grand Canyon.  My trip to the Reef was unplanned.  As I mentioned in my previous post, we were supposed to drive back from Sydney to Perth.  We decided not to, which is a good thing.  It gave me more time to explore Sydney and make a trip to Cairns (pronounced Cannes).  Cairns is where most trips to the Reef start but there are other towns along the Queensland coast that offer trips to the Reef.  I will write more about Cairns in another post later but this trip is so special that I want to share it with you before I forget the details.
There are many companies that offer trips to the Great Barrier Reef.  Some are better known than others.  I was going to take the one that is operated by a company called Quicksilver but I found out that they start from the Port Douglas terminal, which is about an hour away.  I was told that Reef Magic is pretty good so I signed up with them while I was still in Sydney.  The reason is because I was arriving in the evening and I wanted to go on the first day I was in Cairns.  The price is $190, which includes a generous buffet lunch.  They also served coffee and tea on board.  You have to pay for the alcoholic drinks.

In the morning I took a 15-minute walk from the hostel to the Reef Fleet Terminal.  I checked in at the Reef Magic counter,  then boarded the boat.  At 9 am we took a 90-minute boat ride to the Outer Reefs, where Reef Magic has a big pontoon anchored there.  This is where they keep all their equipment and other boats.  Like in all tours, the $190 pays only for the basic activities.  For additional activities, you have to pay extra.  I signed up for the Adventure Snorkel Safari for $45.
You can still snorkel without signing up for the Snorkel Safari.  Reef Magic has an area to the side of the pontoon cordoned off so that everyone on the trip can snorkel.  The ocean was quite rough when we were out there.  But they have a lifeguard constantly on watch.  I haven't snorkeled for a long time so this gives me a chance to practice and get used to the equipment.  Even in this area, the reefs and fish were beautiful.  It's almost unreal to see all these fishes swimming right in front of you.  You can literally touch them.
One of the fish is "Wally",  a Humphead Maori Wrasse species.  Wally looks like he is almost domesticated.  He stays close and swims around the photographer, who tries to take pictures of everyone with him.  You can even touch Wally as you can see below.  He is not shy of people.

On the Snorkeling Safari, a marine biologist took us further out to the reef for about 50 minutes.  There were 5 of us and Eric, the marine biologist, showed us and explained the different types of reefs and pointed out the different types of fish that we swam by.  This is probably the most amazing thing about this trip.  I felt like I was in a giant aquarium with all these colorful fishes swimming among the different corals.  This is definitely the highlight of my trip to Australia.  If you ever have a chance to come to Australia, you have to try this.  It's definitely worth it.

Reef Fleet Terminal

Checking in at the Reef Magic counter

Swimming with Wally

Snorkeling off Cairns

The Reef Magic boat that takes us out to the Reef

On board the pontoon

Platform for snorkeling

I went on the Adventure Snorkel Safari

An Aerial View of the Reef by helicopter

Another view of Wally

Beautiful corals everywhere

Sydney Markets

We drove about 5,000 km from Perth to Sydney. That is a little over 3,100 miles. Needless to say we were tired. So, we decided to end our car journey in Sydney and ship the car back to Perth. It costs A$1,600 to ship it one-way from Sydney to Perth. We figured that with hotel, gas, and food, that's about what we would have spent driving back to Perth. We've been very fortunate that we have not had any accidents. The roads in the Australian outback are not the best so the chances for accidents are high, especially running into wild animals. Ending in Sydney means it gives us a few days to do other things. We decided to split up and go our own ways. I decided to spend a few more days in Sydney and then take a trip to the Great Barrier Reef before flying back to Perth.
We've been staying at John's daughter's apartment but I did not want to overstay my welcome.  I moved into a 4-bed hostel room at the Sydney Central YHA.  This place is incredibly convenient to everything - it is located almost on George Street, the "main" street that runs from Sydney Harbor all the way down to the Central Railway Station.  It's across the street from Chinatown, where there's plenty of Asian restaurants, ranging from Thai, Malaysian, Chinese (from different regions), Japanese plus other restaurants and pubs.  I can take a tram to the Darling Harbor area and there is a free shuttle there goes through the Central Business District to Circular Quay, which is in the Sydney Harbor area.

It rained today so I decided to explore two popular markets - Paddy's Market and the Sydney Fish Market.  Paddy's Market is a huge building that has a farmers' market and retail stands that sell everything from clothes to souvenirs.  Upstairs is a food court and other retail shops.  The produce are fresh and relatively cheap.  If the food here is not good enough, just walk across the street.  The building is right smack in the Chinatown area.

Paddy's Market

Clothes are a common retail item

You can even get a massage

Bitter Melons are a favorite among Chinese

Market Atrium

Packets of ingredients for Chinese herbal soup

The Sydney Fish Market is a few miles from the hostel so I had to take a tram there.  Even though it was past 1 pm when I arrived, it was still packed with people.  There are a few stores that sells all kinds of fresh fish but there are many seafood restaurants here.  I almost couldn't find a seat at any of the tables until later in the afternoon.  But it was worth the wait.

Outside the Sydney Fish Market

All kinds of raw oysters are available

Octopus are popular here

Sydney by Night

I bought a tripod for this trip because when I was traveling in Europe last year, I could not take nice night pictures. With the tripod, even with low light I was able to take some decent night pictures. Below are some of them.

Sydney Opera House

Sydney Harbor Bridge

Circular Quay

Darling Harbor

Darling Harbor

Central Business District

Pyrmont Bridge

Sydney by Day

It was a beautiful day when we set out to explore the city of Sydney. The sun was out and the temperature was about 70F. Perfect day for walking around and taking pictures. Being surrounded by water makes the city even more beautiful. I bought a 7-day travel pass that allows me unlimited travel on the ferries, light-rail, monorail and buses. The first trip I took was to a place called Manly Beach. I was told that the ferry would pass by the Sydney Opera House and would offer an excellent picture opportunity. I couldn't have gotten closer to the front of the Opera House. I am taking advantage of the availability of a high-speed internet to upload some pictures that I took during the day. On my next post I will share the ones that I took at night.

Note:  you can have an enlarged view of the pictures by left-clicking on your mouse

Close-up View of the Sydney Opera House

Manly Beach with surfers trying to catch some waves

The Corso - Pedestrian Mall at Manly Beach

Monorail is one of the transportation options

Sydney Harbor Bridge

I had this for lunch.  I ate it on the ferry back to Sydney Harbor

Pyrmont Bridge, next to Darling Harbor and CBD in the background

Another View of the CBD from the Pyrmont Bridge

Convention Center and Restaurants in Darling Harbor

Bondi Beach

Royal Botanic Garden with CBD in the background