Australia
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![Sad Little Went Tent]()
Australia Notes For Budget Travelers
Sad Little Went Tent It should come as no surprise that Australia is not the cheapest of countries on our itinerary. That said, the country is well equipped for backpackers on a budget. Like New Zealand, if you watch your $ in the cities and self-cater (camp and cook yourself), you can stretch your dollars pretty far.
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![Fanboat Lolo!]()
The Top End - Darwin
Fanboat Lolo! We’re in our last stop in Australia before we head off to India. Darwin is the capitol of the Northern Territory, but it’s only a city of about 50,000 people and it has a very different feel from most of the other Australian cities that we’ve visited.
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![TimTams, the shadow currency of Australia]()
TimTams & The Lot
TimTams, the shadow currency of Australia Aussies are very close cousins to Americans in many ways, in fact had it not been for the American Revolution many of them (the convict labor) would have ended up in Georgia, not half-way around the world.
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![Book-Em]()
It's Raining Books
Book-Em As you might imagine, reading is a popular past time for Dave and I these days. It’s also something we were both looking forward to on the trip. Prior to our departure, as we packed up the house we made little piles of books we’d take and not so little piles of books we’d have our friend Mary send to us down the road.
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![Newton - One Hell of a Town]()
Newtown - One Hell of a Town
Newton - One Hell of a Town We’re back in Sydney for one night to return our rental car and jump on a plane to Darwin. Luckily this gives us a chance to visit one of our favorite neighborhoods in Sydney: Newtown.
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![Descending the Giant Steps]()
The True Blue Mountains
Descending the Giant Steps We spent the final days of our Oz road trip in the Blue Mountains just an hour and a half outside of Sydney. It was quite amazing to watch the dry, dusty land gradually turn into rolling green as we made our approach.
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![Mad Maxs Car - Sweet!]()
Diesel & Dust - The Outback
Mad Maxs Car - Sweet! As our car camping adventure in Aus continues we headed back to Sydney via the Outback. To say there’s a lot of nothing out there is a bit of an understatement. Aside from mining towns, road houses, road trains and red dust there’s not too much.
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![Why, Why, Why?]()
Outback Radio, Oh-oh!
Why, Why, Why? One of the downsides of the outback is the dearth of radio stations available. We had grown use to pretty good radio here – much better than the states –
Triple J is a standout. You loose all those once you leave the cities.
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The Fabulous Cook Family
Some of you know our friend Lorraine (aka cycling fool). Well if you do, then you are aware that she is one great lady. It should come as no surprise then that her family in Adelaide are equally awesome. We felt they were deserving of their very own entry!
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Dude, Where's Our Stuff?
It was a lovely day, the sun was shining, birds were singing, the air was hot, the water was cold. Then we went back to the car… did you notice there’s no photo attached to this entry?
Our second to last day in Adelaide our car was broken into and a bunch of stuff was stolen.
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![Something about the label appeals]()
Vibrant Straw with Flecks of Brilliant Green
Something about the label appeals When you hear something like “vibrant straw with flecks of brilliant green”, what do you think? I am guessing it wasn’t, mmmm… pour me one of those. As you probably well know, Australia is home to many a wine that we enjoy in the U.
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![Book-Em]()
Little Adelaide
Book-Em It seems Adelaide has something of a self-image problem. It’s not hard to understand why – with competition like Sydney & Melbourne it’s easy to think of oneself as a little provincial. I can assure you this is not the case.
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Gimme, Gimme, Gimme - Some More Internet Access!
One of the more mundane things we do – a lot, of thank you Mr. Blog – is find Internet access. For those of you who haven’t traveled abroad recently there are a lot of ways to get online. Some are surprising, others surprisingly stupid.
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![The 12 Apostles Along the Great Ocean Road]()
Notes From the Great Ocean Road
The 12 Apostles Along the Great Ocean Road We’re on the Great Ocean Road at the moment. It runs from the suburbs of Melbourne to the edge of South Australia and was built after WWI as kind of a works project to employ returning veterans in the 1920’s, before that the only way to access the small towns along the road was by ship or ferry.
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![Queen Victoria Market]()
Marvelous Melbourne
Queen Victoria Market After a few days on the road from Sydney we arrived in Melbourne – the second largest city in Australia and the capital of the state of Victoria. Aside from a stroll though the Botanical Gardens and along the Yarra River, we spent most of our brief visit to the city at the Queen Victoria Market and at the Melbourne Zoo.
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![Captain Kangaroo]()
Phillip Island Wildlife Park
Captain Kangaroo Making our way west from Sydney toward Melbourne, we decided to head a little off route to visit Phillip Island just southeast of Melbourne. Our trusty guidebook highlighted a couple of interesting wildlife opportunities – one in particular where you could interact with and feed kangaroos, wallabies and emus.
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![Oh, What a Feeling!]()
Diary of a Car Camper - Australia
Oh, What a Feeling! We’re leaving Sydney and car camping again. If you’ll recall we were hooked up in New Zealand with a very cheap rental. In Australia, not so lucky. Still lucky, we have it for $29.00 a day AUD, and it’s a much sweeter ride.
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![Welcome to the Year of the Pig!]()
New Year (Chinese New Year) in Sydney
Welcome to the Year of the Pig! So we’re here in Sydney and we’re learning that Sydney kind of marches to the beat of a different drummer. Part of the reason we came to Sydney when we did was timing.
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![Ride em Cowboy]()
Dave - Queen of the Mechanical Bull
Ride em Cowboy Some of you may be aware that Dave has always dreamed of riding a mechanical bull. Well his dream came true just the other day! No, it wasn’t at some dirty, dusty saloon somewhere in the middle of the Outback.
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![Tropfest Crowd]()
Cinema Under the Stars
Tropfest Crowd A really fun part of life down here is that ever major city has an outdoor movie venue and most weeknight during the year you can go to the city park, pack a picnic and see a film under the stars.
