Into The Outback

Early the next morning we left our large bags with the front desk and checked out of the hotel. We packed only a small bag each since the itinerary stated that space was limited. Stuffed into each little bag were a pillow and towel as recommended by the tour operator, Connections Safaris. The vehicle arrived and as we climbed on board we were surprised to find a pillow and a towel was provided on every seat, so half our bags contained stuff we didn’t need after all. As the tour progressed, we found out the tour operator often omitted nice to know information.

The tour vehicle was essentially an Isuzu 4-wheel drive truck with a passenger unit mounted on the chassis, rather than a box or a flat bed. The back window was popped out and a tube connected the cab to the passenger space so the driver wasn’t totally isolated from the folks in the back.


After making the rounds about town to pick up the rest of the gang, we turned onto the 87 (Stuart Highway) and headed south for the 460 km trip to Uluru. Midmorning we stopped at the Outback Camel Farm and the opportunity to buy breakfast and ride camels.

The farm is a basic tourist-trap type of operation, but we figured we should ride a camel at least once in our lives. (OK, twice for me.)



We were done with breakfast and camel riding about the time several other tour groups pulled in. All of the many tour operators in the Red Centre follow the same basic route in a variety of vehicles. We were fortunate to be well ahead of the pack and so most stops along the way were not crowded. We quickly jumped back in the truck and continued south.

Alice Springs

When traveling in various transfer vehicles we try to sit behind the driver so we can pester them with questions. They always seem very willing to pass along information. The driver on the airport shuttle into Alice Springs had an extremely heavy Strine accent. There was a lot of repeating involved, but we did manage to communicate.

The time was around noon and Annette asked him if he knew of any afternoon tours of the town. He said that his company did tours as well as shuttle bus services. He pulled out his cell phone, dialed his boss, passed the phone to Annette said, “Here, they’ll set you up.” And so we booked an afternoon tour while traveling to the hotel.

We arrived at our accommodations, the Alice Springs Resort. The terrain and the heat seemed much like a summer day in our home town in Eastern Washington; low hills, rocky landscape, scraggly bushes and temperatures near 40C. This was the view from our room.


The hotel advertises “deluxe rooms on the banks of the Todd River”. What they don’t tell you is that the Todd River only flows about once every three years. When the river does flow, the entire town shuts down and goes to see it. A person is not considered a true local until they have seen the Todd River flow at least three times. The townsfolk do make the best of it. They have annual boats races where the participants run down the dry river bed while carrying a boat.


Despite the dry river, the town does have water from underground sources. One of the local guides told us there is an aquifer that runs from the rainforests of Papua New Guinea, under the sea, and all the way into central Australia.

The afternoon tour bus picked us up at the hotel. The first stop was the top of ANZAC hill which provided an excellent view of the town. ANZAC stands for Australia New Zealand Army Corp. There is a monument to honor the men and women that fought in the great wars.


Alice Springs as viewed from ANZAC Hill.


The next major stop was the old telegraph station and the reason the town of Alice Springs was established. Crews build the original telegraph line starting from Darwin in the north and Adelaide in the south and finally meeting at Alice Springs. The original line was build with wooden poles that were not termite resistant. Eventually, the line was essentially rebuild a second time using more durable poles.


A rather picturesque view of the old telegraph station.


Here we spotted our first kangaroo in the wild.


The tour also included the Royal Flying Doctor Service, the School of the Air and general sites around the town.

Since we were heading into the outback around five thirty the next morning, we made an early night of it and had dinner at the hotel restaurant. They served an absolutely delicious rare kangaroo steak with an outstanding sauce. Kangaroos are rather lean, and taste somewhat like a cross between lamb and venison. It was fun to eat at a real Outback steakhouse!

Flight to Central Australia

After a few days of cool and wet weather in Sydney, we were looking forward to some warmth. We packed up and headed for the airport on a Saturday morning. With the rushing to pack and hurrying to the airport, we jokingly referred to each of our travel days as “Amazing Race Day”. Those that have seen the show will know what we mean.

Upon entering the domestic terminal, we walked up to one of the Qantas kiosks. When Annette scanned her passport, both of our boarding passes were printed. We gave our bags to the checked luggage folks and that was it. Being used to American airport security I thought it rather strange that no one actually looked at my passport. As a test we did the same thing on all domestic flights. As it turned out I flew from Sydney to Alice Springs to Cairns to Brisbane without showing my passport to anyone.

Flying over the Australian outback, it can be seen why it’s referred to as the Red Centre. The earth is very red and we could see kilometers of swirly lines, presumably from the dust storms of a few weeks before.


We arrived in the town of Alice Springs in Central Australia around noon. Like most small airports, this one does not have jet-ways. We had a nice stroll across the tarmac, down a long path through the bushes and into the terminal. The dry warmth of 40C was a welcome change.


Cute picture of my favorite girl.


Our transportation guy was waiting for us in the terminal. Baggage claim went fast and soon we we were on the road to into town.

Last Day in Sydney

Our last day in Sydney was just a goof around day as we had seen all of the major sights. We decided to take a stroll and check out the bridge from street level. We walked out to the middle of the bridge, took in the view, and chatted with one of the policemen that patrol the bridge to keep an eye on jumpers and other mischief makers.


We walked back to climb the South Pylon and take in the view. As we got close, we saw a large group of thirty or forty screaming children in their Angus Young attire approaching for a field trip. We quickly hurried and managed to get well ahead of them. Fortunately, kids are slow and didn’t reach the top (200 steps) of the pylon until we were about done with our tour.




North Sydney as seen from the South Pylon:


Sydney Harbour Ferries:


In the afternoon we cruised to Darling Harbour and went to the Sydney Aquarium.




After the aquarium we walked around and found a place that had Moreton Bay Bugs; one of the “must try” food options in Australia. Unfortunately, this wasn’t the best introduction as this was a French-style restaurant complete with French waitresses and French attitude. The bugs were somewhat dry and over-cooked. Fortunately, we had much better experiences with bugs later in the trip.

In the evening we ended up at a Lowenbräu restaurant for dinner. Normally a German place would not be our first choice in Australia, but there was a street fair going on at The Rocks and so seating at any restaurant was hard to come by. To make things worse, I was feeling a bit under the weather and had popped a couple of pills that should not be mixed with alcohol. So, no beer for me at a German restaurant (double whammy).

Seating was picnic table style and by chance a German couple who had just arrived in Sydney was sitting next to us. They lamented, “We fly all the way from Germany to Sydney and end up eating at a Lowenbräu’s. It’s just not right.”

Cruise to Manly Island

After the bridge climb we stopped for lunch at the Australian Hotel which had been recommended by Mick, our climbing guide. The hotel bar features over a hundred Australian beers which are actually NOT brewed by the XXXX brewery (more on that in a later blog). We sampled a few beers and ordered a couple of pizzas; one kangaroo and one saltwater crocodile.

In the afternoon we took a ferry ride to Manly Island. The ferries are much cheaper than a chartered cruise and the sights are still the same. This is the view of the ferry terminal as we were leaving.


Nice head on view of the opera house as seen from the water.


The weather turned rather dark and stormy as we headed toward more open water. Still, a nice shot of the bridge and opera house together.


The weather started getting rough, the tiny ship was tossed…


After we arrived we took a short stroll to the other side of the island. There were many tourist souvenir shops, so I was hoping to find a t-shirt that simply said “Manly”. Unfortunately none were to be found anywhere. Seems to me the locals would be playing up the Manly name in humorous ways as a marketing approach, but they don’t. In the picture below we see an ideal guide for all things manly.


Swimming at the beaches on this island may not be a good idea. Note one of many drainage pipes emptying onto the beach.


As no surprise to anyone, we managed to stumble upon a brewery on the island called the 4 Pines. The beer was average and rather pricey even for the Sydney area. However, they did have an informative diagram of the brewing process which includes the origin of that Aussie favorite, Vegemite. (We often had it for breakfast during the trip and brought home a jar as well.)


We cruised back to the mainland and attended the second show at the Opera House that evening.

Sydney Harbour Bridge Climb

Every New Year’s Eve around 6 o’clock in the morning, we watch the fireworks display from the Sydney Harbor Bridge on television. After the Opera House, the bridge is the most iconic structure in the city. It too was quite exciting to see live and in person.


While researching Sydney on-line prior to the trip, I found out that folks can actually climb the bridge. How cool is that! I booked an early morning climb a couple of months before our actual trip.

After checking in at the Bridge Climb front desk, everyone in the tour group was taken to a briefing room. The first order of business was a breathalyzer test which everyone is required to take. No one wants drunks falling off the bridge as it tends to make a big mess. Everyone passed, so we all read the rules and then signed our lives away (The lawyers are heavily involved in this enterprise).

Everyone receives a jump suit and all loose items must be left in a locker. They also said the suits can get hot, so it is a good idea not to wear pants underneath. (There’s a visual for you all.) After getting suited up we met up with our guide; a rough and tough looking Aussie named Mick. Actually a really good guy and no, his last name was not Dundee. (But that would have been cool.)

After more instructions, we moved to another room to get fitted with all the necessary equipment; hats, gloves, radios, handkerchiefs, raingear, and the waist belt with the steel tether that attaches to the bridge. Every item is connected to the jump suit by a lanyard. This is to protect the cars, trains and people below from falling objects, which in turn protects the bridge climb folks from lawsuits.

Finally we do a quick practice climb on a set of ladders like the ones on the bridge to make sure we know what to do and how to follow instructions.

We connected our tethers to a steel rail which runs the entire route of the climb and will be literally attached to the bridge until we return. We headed down a small tunnel and then found ourselves out on the bridge on a support beam below the car deck. We walked along this beam for a couple hundred meters until we reached the south tower. A set of stairs took us up to just under the car deck. Next was a set of narrow twists and turns until we reached the main support column. These steel columns actually support the bridge, not the concrete towers which seem to be mainly for show.

Next was a series of several ladders until we reached the edge of the arch. Things were fairly easy from this point on as we simply hiked up the eastern side of the arch until we reached the top, some 440 feet above the water. The weather started to get a little cold and blustery at this point. At the top Mick took group and individual photographs.



After reaching the top we crossed over on a beam under the Australian and New South Wales flags and then proceeded down the western side of the arch and followed a similar reverse path back to the start.


Once again, booking the first tour of the day was a good idea, as the climb seemed to be at a rather leisurely pace. By the time we got back, they were pushing groups through like crazy. Up to 500 people a day can do the climb. During our four days in Sydney, we could look at the bridge anytime of day, and see climbers.

This is THE must do event in Sydney!

Bondi Beach

We still had a few hours left on the 24 hour hop-on hop-off bus tour, so we decided to take a ride out to Sydney’s famous Bondi Beach and see what it’s all about.

We walked around the area near the Botanical Gardens trying to find the proper bus stop. As we were standing on a corner deciphering the map, the bus pulled up right in front of us. It wasn’t a regular bus stop. The driver said we looked lost and he had spotted the red map in our hands, so he pulled over and picked us up. (As our vacation progressed, we found the Aussies to be quite helpful in assisting lost tourists.)

We rode the bus to the main transfer station and switched buses for the ride to Bondi. A fellow who looked like Santa Claus gave us a tip on how to get back quickly to the hotel from Bondi. Just take the 355 bus. It was fairly direct and saved a lot of time by avoiding bus transfers.

Bondi Beach is world renowned and appears to be rather popular on a hot summer day.


On a cool spring day in early November, it appears more like this.


Annette walking into the Tasman Sea (Surf’s up!).


We walked around the beach for awhile, took each others picture and had a late lunch at Nicks, the round glass building behind Annette to the right.



After lunch we shopped a bit and then caught the bus back to the hotel in time to change and walk over to the opera house for the first show mentioned in a previous post.

Sydney Botanical Gardens

By the end of the opera house tour, the last of the heat wave was gone and the weather had returned to a cool, rainy, dreary pattern (much like Seattle in the spring). We took a stroll through the botanical gardens located behind the opera house.

Looking back toward the harbor, this view captures the opera house, bridge, and one of the many commuter ferries.


Many giant fig trees inhabit the grounds. It wasn’t until we got home that we noticed an alien peeking out from the right side of the tree.


According to various botany text books and arborist guides, this here is a big ass tree.


We had seen the following from the bus the day before and thought it might be a cemetery. In a way it was. Each block was salvaged from an old building that was torn down and captures a bit of the style of that building. A plaque on each block named the building and the year it was built. Rather cool idea.


OK, enough gardening, let’s find the bus to Bondi…

Sydney Opera House

Following some excellent advice, we went to the Sydney Opera House early Wednesday morning and signed up for the first tour of the day. Our little group had a total of only nine people. Near the end of our tour we saw groups with thirty or more people passing by.

The Sydney Opera House is arguably the most iconic building on the planet. Seeing it live and in person for the first time gave me chills.


The tour was quite interesting and naturally covered much of the history of the opera house. Many designs were received from around the world and the present design from a Danish architect was originally rejected. We saw several examples of the other designs and nearly all were standard boring box buildings. An American architect on the selection committee arrived late and insisted on seeing the reject pile. As he looked through the rejects, he pulled out the now familiar design and said, “This is it!” Good thing too. Today it’s hard to imagine Sydney Harbour without the familiar sails of the opera house.


Interesting tidbits: If all the sails were assembled together, the pieces would form a sphere. There are a little over one million tiles on the sails. The tiles actually have a yellow tinge. If pure white was used, the glare would be blinding to planes flying by. However, it does look and photograph as white from a distance.


Our guide told us that the restrooms are so unique, visitors actually photograph them. (She was right.) The stalls are curved like waves and are back lit from behind the toilet.


The toilet paper rolls are tastefully backlit as well.


Upon first glance I thought the sinks were missing. In this angle the shadowing shows that the sinks are merely indentations in the counter top and the water rolls off the back.


We decided we had to see a show (how often does one get this chance?). We had a choice of two, The Taming of the Shrew and God of Carnage. The ladies behind us had seen God of Carnage in New York and said it was a very good play and a Tony award winner. We debated back and forth about which one to see. Eventually the answer became obvious. We have time, we'll see them both.


The Taming of the Shrew had an all female cast which even played the male roles. During scene changes, one of the characters would go to a karaoke machine at the back of the stage and sing while the set was changed. The entire dialog was the original Shakespeare, which is rather hard for us rubes to follow anyway, and so the show got a bit long and tiresome.

God of Carnage on the other hand was great. The entire play takes place in a living room where a white collar couple has come to meet a blue collar couple. The premise is that their two kids had a school ground fight, one was hurt, and the parents are getting together to discuss things in a civilized manner. As the evening wears on, the situation slowly deteriorates, tempers flare and fights break out; but all done quite humorously.

This is blog post number 200. Woo hoo.

Melbourne Cup

Upon hitting the streets of Sydney, I commented to Annette that the temperature must be pushing the high 90’s. (We just arrived and hadn’t fully switched to Celsius mode yet). Even to the surprise of the locals, Sydney was having a major one day heat wave with temperatures above 36C (97F).

Our first order of business was to find food and beverages. It may have been Tuesday morning, but our internal clocks were telling us it was late Monday afternoon. As it turned out, the Aussies were already pouring down the suds in celebration of the Melbourne Cup.

Until this point in our lives we had never heard of the Melbourne Cup. It’s a horse race similar to the Kentucky Derby, except it seems to engulf the entire nation. People take the day off and every restaurant was booked for celebratory lunches with expensive set menus.

The locals like to dress up for Melbourne Cup day, especially the women. Approximately every other girl was wearing a prom dress and an elaborate hat. Annette tells me a lot of the guys had nice suits on as well. Was a good day for people watching.


This link has a pretty good example of Melbourne Cup Fashion.

With all the private events going on in the area, finding lunch took some time. Eventually we found a Turkish kabob stand with outdoor seating along the sidewalk. The food and beer were fair, but it was nice to finally sit down and relax for a moment. We saw this fellow sitting at an adjacent table.


The hotel took their time getting the room ready. We checked back a couple of times and finally got our room around three in the afternoon. I switched on the television and happened to catch the start of the Melbourne Cup race. Good timing! We were able to see what the locals were all hyped up about. It was a good race with a come from behind win by a horse named Shocking.

Refreshed, we left the hotel and did the Hop-On Hop-Off tour that most major world cities have. Taking the full loop is a good way to get orientated to an area, and then get off and on as desired. As we suspected, Sydney is pretty much just another big city with business, residential and industrial areas. The Rocks (old Sydney) was the place to be!