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AUSTRALIAN EDITION
We had a great 3-week trip to Australia and we were impressed by the country and the friendliness of the people. It is a great place to visit with lots of interesting things to see. If you have been thinking of visiting – Go there! By the way I took some pictures! I have chosen the best and organized these into sets by locations and themes of the 1500 pictures during the trip. I still like panorama pictures and have several to see. Start off with the best Australian photos here for an overview. We visited the area around Sydney, the area around Cairns in the northern territory of Queensland, and we made a special trip to Lord Howe Island, an island 1/3 of the way between Australia and New Zealand. Since Lord Howe is such not frequently visited I have group together Lord Howe Island travel tips we found and have added our experiences to this. We also visited the Outback in Queensland and New South Wales, the Atherton Tableland and the Daintree Coast.
We organized our own trip, hotels and flights for the trip which is typical for us. We soon realized that Australia is the size of the continental US so we took flights within Australia to allow us to get around. August is the end of winter in Australia, but the weather is generally much milder than the equivalent time in the northern USA. Sydney was a pleasant 65°F to 70°F daytime temperature which was great for walking around and Cairns in northern Australia was a pleasant 80°F. The weather was generally great with little rain. We flew through San Francisco and arrived early in the morning. After a day in Sydney we flew to Townsville in Queensland and visited Cairns, where we went snorkeling on the Great Barrier Reef, visited the Atherton Tablelands, Rockhampton and the town of Charters Towers in the Queensland Outback. We flew back to Sydney and then flew to Lord Howe Island off the coast of Australia. After Lord Howe Island we visited West Wyalong in the New South Wales Outback, and the Blue Mountains. Three weeks go by very quickly. We also visited Lord Howe Island, an island about 1/3 of the way between Australia and New Zealand. I had seen pictures of it on Google Earth and found it very intriguing so we went there for a visit. I have a separate web page for this since we have some special travel information on this location if you are interested in visiting. See my Lord Howe Island web page. Photo Sets First of all, here is a photo set of my best pictures of Australia from the over 1500 pictures I took. Sydney is such a great city. In 1770 Captain Cook landed in Botany Bay in the south end of the city and the location of the airport. When a penal colony was established there it was moved to present day Sydney. The first settlement is around the Sydney Harbour Bridge and the Opera House. The picturesque old town is still visible and is called “The Rocks”. Sydney has a great natural harbor and a cruise around it is a great tourist excursion. Here are some photos of Sydney. The Sydney Opera House was designed by Danish architect Jřrn Utzon. Construction started in 1959 in stages with the final stage finished in 1973. It is actually a collection of several building on the same site and it looks stunning and different from every angle. What is surprising is that the entire roof structure is covered with over one million beige and white tiles, but this is not visible from a distance. Here is my photo set taken over several days of the Sydney Opera House. Cairns is a large regional town in Queensland, the second largest province of Australia, which occupies the northwest of the country. This part of Australia is famous for the Great Barrier Reef, the largest reef in the world. There are many organized tours to the reef and we opted for Reef Magic for our cruise. They have fast boats to maximize time at the reef. We went to the Moore Reef, about 60 km from shore. Here are some pictures of our snorkeling trip, Cairns and our hotel. We stayed at “The Lakes” resort which was very nice. Cape Tribulation is about the farthest you can drive with north with a regular car. It is situated in Daintree National Park which is the only rainforest left in Australia that is on the coast. This park is home to the famous cassowary, a relative of the emu. Here are some pictures of the lovely beaches and scenery in this area. Cape Tribulation was named by Captain Cook after he hit a reef there and had to spend a few months repairing his ship. Here are some pictures from the northern coastal area. The Atherton Tableland is a high elevation plateau that has a much more temperate climate than the coast and arable volcanic soil. Millaa Millaa is a great area for waterfalls and the rest of the scenery is beautiful. Here are some pictures from this nice area. Also in the same area is Kuranda, a small tourist town with a great zoo, and a bird and butter fly garden. Here are some pictures of the Atherton Tableland. Rockhampton is where the Tropic of Capricorn goes through Australia,
so naturally, we went to see it. It
also has a very nice zoo and botanical gardens. The Tropic of Capricorn moves a significant
distance every year because of the wobble of Charters Towers is a town in The Outback due west of Townsville. It was once a prosperous mining town and still retains the wealth and charm of that area. It was a surprising find. On the way to Charters Towers you cross the Burdekin River with a flood marker showing the incredible floods that happen in The Outback. We also visited The Outback near West Wyalong in New South Wales. See Outback pictures here. We also noticed the unique style of inns in every village and town. Here is a collection of Australian Inn photos. There is separate web page for that has Lord Howe Island information on the island. Visit here for pictures. As we were traveling in the countryside we noticed that there is a distinctive style to Australian inns which all have pubs attached. These are the centers of small towns everywhere in The Outback. Here are some photos of these great Australian inns. We were excited to see all the animals in the country and we did see a few kangaroos and wallabies. We saw a large monitor lizard that was hanging around the picnic area in Daintree National Park. There were a lot of unusual animals in the zoo at Kuranda and Rockhampton. There are a lot of birds in Australia, but many of the wild birds are parrots that fly away in a huge movement of color. We fed a wild rainbow lorikeet at a restaurant and visited a great bird park in Kuranda. Here are some photos of Australian animals. Here are some unusual road signs from around Australia. When the scene was right I took pictures to assemble into these great Australian panoramas. My favorite is the night scene of Sydney from the top of the Marriott Sydney hotel. It is right across from Hyde Park which allows a great long distant view of the city. Best of Australia Some of the best and most interesting things from our trip were: · The Night Sky in the Outback. We were more than 50 miles from the nearest town on a deserted road at night. “Town” in this area would be a collection of a few buildings. We stopped at a rest stop and turned off the lights and the night sky was the best I have ever seen it. The Milky Way was a band of white in the sky and the stars were dazzling. We saw other night skies during our trip, but this |
