Wow, we are back in GWhiz recuperating from our recuperation in Hawaii. Our AirBnB in Maui was a wonderful change from small campervans and luxurious hotels. It is a small, well appointed condo. Chris, the resident owner, has built her own private loft space and we pretty much had the run of the rest of the condo for our use. Breakfast on the lanai overlooking the ocean was a daily happening.

Carol standing in the road to get a special picture!

A not so calm shoreline along the coast

Rainbow Gum Tree, not native, in Arboretum

Because I could

Hamoa  Beach – the most beautiful beach in the world! just a little hyperbole

Unique, both of us with waterfall on my head

On our last day in paradise we chose to take the shorter drive to the north from our location in Lahaina up to the cliffs and overlooks along the shoreline. We went as far as the blowhole before turning back:

Not an atypical warning sign!

It takes an active sea to create a blowhole!

That little puff in the upper right is the blowhole. We were tired and had endured enough rough rock scrambles for one trip!

The next day we flew from Maui to Honolulu and onward to Los Angeles where we stayed the night before picking up a rental car to get us back to GWhiz in Aguanga CA. We’ve done some doctoring and hope that Carol makes a full recovery from the pain in her left leg so we can make our trip to Africa, not to mention the much earlier Bar Mitzvah of Avi at the beginning of July.

We had a delightful dinner at Ohelo with Frank and his wife Zoe. The food was fine and the company even more so. So much so that we sat at the table long after paying the bill to the distress of those waiting for the table. The staff did not even bother us at all.

The next day we set out for Kona with dreams of coffee and other treats along the way. Of course we could not pass through the territory unimpeded.  First there was the Ka’u Coffee festival that called us off the road, I tasted several interesting coffees, none worth the asking price to me ($15/7 oz bag minimum). Being fully caffinated  we moved on down the road stopping at Black Sand Beach again to look for turtles.

Hilton Hawaiian Village is a wonderful old resort. It has so much that it takes real effort to leave. Well in advance we had planned two excursions.  The first was to Doris Duke’s home, Shangi La. If you don’t know,  Doris Duke came into her fortune at age 12. Her parents died and she was the soul heir to Duke Energy for one. She fell in love with Islamic art and Hawaii at about the same time.  The house, which she continued to update as late as 1992, is a wonderful collection of designs and items.  It is worth the trip if you will be in Honolulu.  The other stop was Pearl Harbor, the Arizona Memorial :

 

 

 More importantly we made it to

We are at Hilton Hawaiian Village – Rainbow Tower, having flown in from Sydney two days ago.

Hilton has elevated the frustrating of small boys to a high level.  Every small boy I have known (no small girls in our life) must push the floor button on the elevator.  These elevators have no buttons in the car! There is a panel on the lobby wall where one enters the destination floor and the appropriate elevator car is illuminted. You enter the car and then exit when your destination is reached with an announcement. Not only small boys find this frustrating. We are all used to entering an open elevator car and THEN pressing the desired floor. I just rode up with two small boys who found this completely unsatisfying.  They screamed through four floors wanting to push the nonexistent button, only to resume screaming when the grandfather, trying to change the subject, asked who would open the door to the room.

Ah, small boys, we survived or own two and their five, and now everyone else’s.  It’s a wonder they are permitted to live to manhood.

Alice Springs is a cool little town.  With decent hotels, dining,  art and a fine hospital. From here there is 1,500 kilometers North to Darwin and a like distance South to Adelaide. Those roads are not interstates with towns and services.  In some cases they may not be paved all the way.  Carry the fuel you need and spares to repair flats and anything else that might break.  For good measure carry a satellite phone as cell service quits at the edge of town. Our busses had satellite phones mounted by the driver.

That is the Gap between East and West McDonnell ranges

The Todd River with puddles from recent rain Yes it rained on us in Alice Springs and it was cool, mid 70’s. They promised us the river would flow if we had 4 or 5 days of heavy rain. The good news was we did not see it flow.  We drove to Uluru (Ayers Rock) In the rain. Sections of the road were flooded, but not to exceed our bus’s capability of 300 millimeters so we pressed on through 600 kilometers of ever changing nothing. Finally Mt Connell came into view,  it is also known as false Uluru or “fooluru” according to John, our driver guide. It looks like the Rock but there is still 60 km to go.  We arrived at Sails in the Desert, our hotel, to find our evenings plans had been washed out,  no dinner under the stars and the roads were impassable and the grounds a marsh. Instead we had a magnificent buffet dinner in the dining room.  5:45 wakeup to see Sunrise light the rock was not a wash out, but the clouds lingered and this is what we saw:

Not the image we were looking for 🙁

To get Wednesday straight.  We started with a bus tour of the CBD (Central Business District for the acronym adverse) that wound up at Circular Quay where we boarded a very large cruise boat to complete the city tour from the water,  with a lovely (overwhelming) buffet lunch.  We passed under Sydney Harbor Bridge a couple of times and I got my binoculars out to ogle the climbers on the top of the bridge.

After our tour of the Sydney Opera House we bused back to the hotel for a two hour break.  We caught a cab back to the Opera House for the 6:30 performance by the Sydney Symphony of the aforementioned Leningrad Symphony by Shostikovich. They opened with a world premier of a Cello concerto follwed by a performance of  a cello piece by Tchaikovski. The cellist then played an encore including vocalizations, hammering on and other methods of achieving sound not normally associated with concert performance on the cello. It was marvelous and the standing ovation was well earned.  Following intermission the Orchestra doubled in size for the Leningrad.  90 minutes later I felt I had survived the siege on Leningrad.  The performance was wonderful,  I do not remember ever hearing a live performance,  RPO must have performed it in a moment of feeling rich. We walked back to the hotel stopping for a snack on the Quay.
 We were preparing for the morning climb of the Bridge. The are plenty of superlatives, all available on bridgeclimb.com. There will be pictures, later. I had to buy them on a thumb drive.  We were not permitted to have anything with us that could fall or be dropped.  We were provided hats with clips to lanyards to the provided jump suits.  There were lanyards for glasses, even a handkerchief with clip was proved and a fleece in a bag clipped to the safety belt in such a manner it could be extracted and worn without unclipping it. We were to spend almost 2 hours directly above the flow of traffic,  a long way above. For all the nervousness the climb was essentially a long walk along a narrow catwalk,  we were harnessed and locked into our safety line already.  Then we climbed a series of ladders,  passing through the traffic deck between lanes 5 and 6 in a caged safety Island. Eventually we gained the top arch and began a long climb to the midpoint.  None of the climbing was particularly strenuous and there were many pauses as our guide related the history of the construction and we waited for the group ahead to move on. We were working with a 10 minute separation.  At the mid point we crossed the top center beam to the west side of the bridge to begin our descent. Total time from check in to tossing the used jump suit down the laundry chute was just over three hours. We would recommend that any able person who can climb two stories without straining should do this for the once in lifetime experience.

We walked back to our hotel and took a break to recover from the physical and nervous energy we had spent.  Friday we got up early and flew,  and flew,  to Alice Springs.  Near the middle of no place in the Outback. I’ll write about that in another post.

Today we tour the famous Opera House.  Tonight we attend a performance of the Leningrad Philharmonic playing Shostikovich and Tchaikovski. Since we didn’t have our schedule or theirs until yesterday we had to take what seats that were available.  Last row. There were seats in the first row but apparently the stage is quite high.

More tomorrow.

We have moved on. We are now in Lake Macquarie, NSW (New South Wales) after a 6 hour drive, with interruptions. We stopped at Rosie’s for coffee and tea:

Our tour is on day 32, we have been traveling for 34 days. Every day is some new experience.  Today seems rather mundane.  We drove 180 miles or so and stopped along the way a few times to view the scenery,  buy fuel, eat lunch. We finally got to our destination,  Southwest Rocks.  First we stopped at some key sites,  the Trial Bay Gaol (old English spelling of jail). It has an interesting history that is worth googling, if you care.

In our preparation for this visit we were warned that there are many wild kangaroos in the area and they can be aggressive. Sure enough there are many and we have been careful to not approach them.  Just a few minutes ago I needed to take out the trash,  as happens often after dinner. Although I could see the trash bins through the windshield I elected to take a flashlight for a change.  Good thing! As I walked I noted moving shapes and the flashlight illuminated half a dozen or more kangaroos in my path.  I circled around, completed my chore unmolested and returned to the Campervan.

Like deer in parts of the US, kangaroos are considered pests here. I can understand why. We may need to adopt “roo bars” for our vehicles if deer become even more prevalent. Driving through kangaroo country with no more than kangaroo whistles as protection seems rather frightening now. Also need to be aware of the occasional koala and the possum on the roads.

It is Friday night and we turn in our campervans on Tuesday.  Although we will not be sad to see them go so we can sleep in a comfortable hotel bed, it marks the end of a major portion of the trip which we began planning over a year ago.

Yes indeed we are in Miami Beach on the Gold Coast South of Brisbane. Time has indeed been flying.  Between problems getting connected and lack of time to write I haven’t posted since New Zealand. Aukland is a big city and it has ports on two oceans.  I could probably write a book about our time on North Island, but it has been done.  We flew from Aukland to Cairns,  Australia. This city, pronounced Cans, as in kick the can,  is a major tourist spot with all kinds of access to the Great Barrier Reef.  We had a day on a moderate sized catamaran. I hoped to dive once again on this most famous dive location, but the dive doc did not care for the beta blocker I take so I satisfied myself with a lengthy snorkel over some shallow portions of the reef around Michaelmas Quay.  I also took a ride in the semi submersable boat they included in our trip. It is really a hull with large windows below the waterline to provide an excellent view of the reef and its shallow water residents. I was disappointed,  but still got to see a pimple of the reef from in the water.

We ate at a restaurant called Ochre which washighly recomended for its indigenous ment. It was so good we ate there two nights in a row.  The first night, Carol had a veggie platter that we could not finish after I had kangaroo tail steak.