Australia
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We started in Brisbane touring with Roy Sonnenberg visiting the area around Lamington National Park and staying at O’Reilly’s Guest House. 

From Brisbane we headed to Cairns for 6 days touring with Phil Gregory of Cassowary House.  Our itinerary was set up to visit take advantage of the rainforest areas at Cassowary House, Kingfisher Park and along the Daintree River; the Atherton table lands and the Cairns Esplanade.  Concluding our experience in Cairns we went aboard the Ocean Spirit for a day of snorkeling at Michaelmas Cay on the Great Barrier Reef.

Next on the agenda was the Melbourne area where we drove along the dramatic scenery of the Great Ocean Road.  From there it was off to Grampians National Park before meeting up with Phil Maher to par take in his Plains Wanderer Weekend.

Upon leaving Melbourne we made our way over to Tasmania with a quick overnight at Tamar House B&B, which hosts beautifully landscaped gardens along the Tamar River.  From there it was off to the incredible waterfalls and fern covered walkways of Lemonthyme Lodge near Cradle Mountain.  And finally kayaking the coast along Freycinet National Park.

The final stop in Australia was in Sydney where we spent a ½ day seeing the sites such as the Sydney Opera House, the Harbour Bridge, overlooks of the city, Manly Beach to watch the surfers and Circular Quay. 

We overnighted at a B&B within the Capertee Valley in the Blue Mountains north of Sydney, which was in a lovely setting surrounded by cliffs with open grasslands. The morning sight of the kangaroos bouncing through the tall grass was like a scene out of a movie… so peaceful.

To conclude our trip we made our way to Windsor where Diana’s friend Wendy had planned to meet us and take us to the airport.  Diana had met Wendy 20 years earlier during a 6 week Contiki tour of Europe, and while they had exchanged letters over the years this would be their first meeting since. 

It was nice to finally see Wendy after all these years and made me wonder where did the time go… the same of which could be said for our vacation which had now come to its conclusion as well…  

2005 Trips North Carolina  Belize  Texas    California 2005