Hunter Valley Wineries

Our " go for broke trip" to Australia ironically ended up in Broke Australia. Yes, there is a story behind this. Stay tuned for that.

We are happily back in the world of free wifi, real coffee and beds big enough for both of us to fit in.

Board our train for Chicago tonight.

laughing kookaburra

We had a bunch of fun figuring out this maze. Took this picture for the wall at Zukey Lake where they post people from around the world wearing Zukey stuff. Yesterday we spotted a Kookaburra. And if that gets you started on the laugh Kookaburra song, a gum tree is a eucalyptus tree. Kookaburras are considered useful birds as they devour small rodents, snakes and harmful insects. Also saw a lizard about a foot long. The front office called it a blue tongue lizard, "Where there are blue tongue there won't be snakes."

Mt Buffalo

Hi all, Had a fabulous day yesterday. Spent the afternoon exploring Mt Buffalo National Park. Walked to the summit (The Horn) of Mt Buffalo, 1725 meters up (over 5500 ft) Mt Buffalo is part of the Australian Alps, over 1.6 million hectares of mountains and parks preserved as a national heritage reserve. The views were amazing, I think I took 200 pictures. Waterfalls, gorges (where you can jump off of the Mt. and parasail to the bottom.

Then maybe 1/2 mile from our resort there is an open field where we saw a bunch of kangaroos. If its a gaggle of geese and a pride of lions, what is a group of kangaroo. Anyway I was so excited I almost peed my pants, took lots of pictures and some video. Still can't believe it! Today, not quite so exciting, but spotted Wombat poop :-)

We visited the Australian War Memorial today. As you can see from this sign it is in the suburb of "Reid" named after Sir Joseph Reid, Australia's 4th Prime Minister. (also where our hotel is two blocks away) The brochure boasts this as "One of the World's Great Museums". It lived up to that and then some.

Here was saw a film about the fledgling Australian Flying Corp during World War One, produced by Peter Jackson (remember us visiting Weta Studios in Wellington NZ, the same guy who produced Lord of the Rings). The place was amazing. Keneth and Mark, got lots of airplane pictures.

catching up

Token picture from our zoo visit, wait til you see the video of this big lazy lion!
We're back in Aussie-land after driving 4 hours up and over 2 mountain ranges to Aukland airport. 3 hour flight back to Sydney and then driving 4 more hours to get to Canberra, the Australian capital. Resting today, tomorrow we head for Bright in the state of Victoria. This is out in the middle of nowhere (6 hours from Melbourne) so don't know what service will be like.

Thanks to Donna for the Kiwi update. They get their name from the sound they make "kee-wee".

Article in todays newspaper about a gentleman who saved a Platypus. Thought they were extinct, but this little guy looked real enough to me.

After visiting Haruru Falls I took the 5km path back through the Kiwi Preserves. Speaking of Kiwi...did you know that Kiwi are the only birds to have nostrils at the tips of their beaks. Yep it's true.

Tree ferns are a striking feature conjuring up impressions of the time when dinosaurs walked the earth. The frond of the silver fern is proudly worn by New Zealand sports teams as an emblem of their country.

Took the little ferry from Pahai (where we are staying in the Bay of Islands) to Russell. Known before as Kororareka, this was a station for shipping and gained the reputation as "hell hole of the Pacific" due to a lack of law and order. This PG site will not allow me to go into further details...

This is a Morton Bay fig tree planted in 1870 also the year Manganese was found and mining began in Russell.

American Writer and Sportsman Zane Grey made this area a popular fishing and tourism site.

NZ History

1300 (approx.) East Polynesian people arrive
1642 Abel Tasman first european to see NZ
1769 James Cook arrives in NZ and claims it for Great Britain
1835 Declaration of Independence signed by 34 Maori chiefs
1840 Treaty of Waitangi signed
1865 Wellington replaces Auckland as NZ capital
1893 NZ becomes the first country to give women the vote (see Kate Sheppard)
1987 Maori declared official language alongside english
2010 Paul T. Reid abolishes the practice of drinking instant coffee