Heat, sun, sand, and fish all welcomed us to Queensland. Apparently we haven’t spent enough time at the beach, so here we go again. We’ll head north again in three weeks.
The first stop was Cairns. There certainly was a bigger celebration in Sydney, but we experienced ANZAC Day up north instead. It is the Aussie version of Memorial Day, and celebrated in much the same way. We got a head start on the occasion by eating a whole bag of ANZAC biscuits (a delicious oatmeal and coconut cookie) a few …

The main destination in New South Wales was Sydney, but the first stop was the Blue Mountains.

Feeling that the name was a bit familiar, we looked into it and found out there are at least ten mountain ranges in the world known as the Blue Mountains. This one was probably unique in that it had a city named Katoomba, which is where we spent the night. The town was quite pleasant, we even found several places serving high tea with all the traditional items. We were mostly there to see …

At least that’s what the license plates say in the state of Victoria. We officially set foot on our 4th continent since January by landing in Melbourne and we hit the road yet again. The three of us didn’t have the same flight so Beth had a little extra time in Melbourne to check out the shopping center. She found Woolworth’s and Target!
We headed for the Great Ocean Road and Apollo Bay. The first day was spent mostly in the twilight and dark which made driving the unfamiliar twisty …

After the ferry ride from Wellington to Picton, we made our way towards the west coast of New Zealand. The first night we made it through wine country and stopped for a pint and glass of wine at the Cork and Keg and continued on to St. Arnaud before we parked the Hippie Camper for the evening. The next day was a long haul to the glacier area. We stopped throughout the day to see the sights like Pancake Rocks, and a brewery. We also had a seaside picnic lunch. …

We’re back on the road after a week on the beach. This time we get to drive. On the wrong side of the road even. Apparently, the thing to do in New Zealand is to rent a camper and drive around the islands. Everyone we had talked to along the way had recommended that plan, so we went along with it too. The campers here are known as campervans, although the one we got was just a van. The company we ended up with was named, appropriately enough, Hippie Camper. …

We were excited to finally get off the plane after a 10.5 hour flight, but just ended up in the airport with no idea what to do next. This is the first place on our trip that we didn’t really plan on visiting, it was just a layover on the flight to New Zealand that we extended from two hours to six days, so we didn’t really bother to figure out what there was to do here. A quick check at the airport ticket counter revealed that flights to other …