From Sydney to Adelaide

Hello Everyone!


As locals say here, "how are you going?"

Here are some photos that I wasn't able to post with my last blog.


Here I am infront of the Sydney Opera House in the photo below.

We got to explore the Opera House during a tour and the washrooms there were done up so much that the toilet paper was lighted up and the sings were completely automated (soap and everything) and the water flowed down behind the sink, as you notice in the picture there is no drain.

Here I am in front of the Bridge the day after I climbed it.------>

Below is Manly beach where we laid in the sand for a couple hours, and I played beach volleyball but it all ended with quite a bit of rain.

Now on to new things. From Sydney we caught the Greyhound bus to the Capital of Australia. Canberra was a small town with mostly government buildings, the Mint, and some interesting art galleries. To the right is the steps up to the Mint observatory where you could read about how money is made, how it has changed over time and I could observe the money being made as well.

After going to Canberra we took a 9 hour Greyhound bus ride to Melbourne. I know I have already talked about some of this but I am just going over it again with pictures. Since I already talked about our arrival and the first terrible hostel. Well after that we went to a great hostel and then to our beloved YHA. Now that we were based in a good place we explored Melbourne.

<------We went to a exhibition that featured Children's book illustrations from local authors. This was absolutely wonderful, both Devon and I enjoyed it and got to read a couple of the books too. We also booked our flights to Perth, Alice Springs and Cairns, as well as our tour from Melbourne to Adelaide and our tour of Central Australia. We are thankful that this is all organized now and we can just go along with the ride for the next little while.

In Melbourne we got to go to the Pancake Parlour where we got two for one double stack pancakes with ice cream on top for under ten dollars...twice! This was very yummy and was in a mall where they built around an original building that used to be a factory of some sort, it was a very interestingly designed mall.

Our Valentines was great. We ate our dinner at a Italian restaurant in the little Italian district. We had an amazing pizza and a half decent salad and a hilariously silly waiter. After we went to a gelato place across the street and finish the day with an amazing cold dessert.
After we spent a few days in North Melbourne we went to St Kilda a different area of Melbourne. Here we went to a night market that was wonderful and had even more ice cream! We enjoyed this area and just relaxed for a few days. I think we needed a few days off from the go go go of our travels.

After this we left of a Groovy Grape tour of the Great Ocean Road.

This road followed the ocean and is home to some of the most famous surfer beaches and companies including Rip Curl and others. Along the Road we got to see Koalas and got to feed wild birds.

This was so much fun I was full of energy and very happy. Devon kept her distance from the birds but enjoyed the Koalas and everything.

Here is our bus that we travelled in. Our bus driver was named Lorenzo and we had four others that came from Austria (Christof and Nik), Italy (Rosella), and from the US (Dawn). Picture is below.


(Picture of the group)

Here is a picture of the 'twelve' apostles. There are only six now as three fell down in the last few years. The used to be called the Sow and Piglets where an island out off the coast was the sow and the stacks were the piglets but people who were trying to make it big with tourists thought that the Twelve Apostles sounded better. The day that we visited them it was extremely windy, thus my fantastic hair.

Below is the London Bridge though it is not a bridge as much any more because it fell down too. After four stops on the this route a got a little tired of seeing the same area in the same windy conditions so there aren't too many photos of it all. These photos basically cover it.

(picture of me at one of the beaches)

You can see from our attire that we were dressed for the weather.... not what you would expect from Australia but it is not always over 30 degrees.

The next day we went to the Grampians and Halls Gap, where there was a surplus of Kangaroos. It was so neat to see how they moved and interacted. There were many in this area of OZ and would let you be about five feet away. It was strange to see them like deer on the side of the road. Below is a picture of a joey and his mom, they aren't hugging, the joey is having at it with his mom.

The next day we headed for Adelaide. On the way we climbed to the top of a peak in the Grampians to see over the whole area. Here I am at the top where the wind nearly knocked of the top!

On one of the deserted dirt roads that we traveled we ran into a pack of emus, well almost ran into a pack of emus.

Finally the last strange animal we saw along the way was the white Kangaroo. These animals are a genetic abnormality. They don't live long and are able to contract diseases easier. These animals are so rare because of their issues that they are raised in captivity more often than not. It seems strange to raise an animal that is prone to die, but that's just my opinion...














So that is the end of our travels to Adelaide. We arrived here yesterday and have explored the city a bit and will do more in the next few days. After that we fly to Perth were we will stay with family friends and I will see my cousin. We are excited to go there and see the outback city and lay on the beach. We will then be off to Central Australia after that. This post has been mostly informational and hopefully not to long. I have to say home sickness has occurred at times. I am enjoying myself so much here but it is also making me realize how very special my life is back home and I am excited to return to it in July. I am excited for Perth and Central OZ because it will be different than our city after city south Australia. After that it will be the white beaches of Eastern Australia!!! So until next time friends and family!!!

:)