Tasmania - Day 1 - Hobart

On our first day in Tasmania, we spent Saturday morning at the Salamanca markets. This market is only open on Saturdays and has a combination of crafts, jewelry, clothing and food stalls that line up the street. It is probably the best market that we've seen in Australia, which is probably why we bought the most souveniers from it. Plus, when's the next time we'll be in Tasmania? Tasmania is known for their wood, which is very pretty. Our favorite was Sassafras, which tends to be a mix of dark/light wood.


After the market, we decided to take a cruise of the bays/water around Hobart.


Along the way, we saw some great cliffs. Besides the cliffs, the boat would sometimes stop and lower a video camera into the water. It would allow you to show the sea life underneath. The best part was when these globefish suddenly turned around and started staring into the camera. They seemed to think that we were one of them!

For most of the time, we tried to sit in the back of the boat, but then we couldn't hear the information about the things we were seeing. But the back of the boat had some great views. Here's a photo of David and Casey enjoying the back.


At some points, we would stop and look at certain things, which was when we'd move to the front of the boat. Yep, I'm holding two beers in this picture, but one of them is David's.


Our cruise provided us a very big lunch. There was ham, chicken, smoked salmon, oyster, potato salad and some other goodies. One of the best parts was the berry dessert! We got to eat while we slowly moved around the bay.


During our circling, we encountered some white bellied eagles. The boat tried to feed them with some fish, but they weren't hungry.


After lunch, we stopped at Peppermint Bay and were given the opportunity to walk around. Nicole was never in the photo since she was too busy snapping away.


There were some beautiful views of the water.


Peppermint Bay was a restaurant that provided our lunch. It was also holding a wedding in one of its private rooms when we were there. Nicole wanted to get a photo to remember the name of where we went.


In the back of the restaurant, there were these giant pillows that we used to rest before heading back onto the boat. David and Sarah were staring at the clouds, while Casey (in the lower left) had decided to take a nap.


On our way back to Hobart, we stopped at a salmon farm. The salmon were constantly jumping out of the water. It's natural for them to jump out of the water as if they were jumping upstream when they want to spawn. You can see the fist in the right side of this photo. It kind of just looks like a black mark.

On our way back, Sarah, David and I enjoyed the views of leaving Peppermint Bay.


After the cruise, we were pretty tired. We headed back to our hotel and dropped off some stuff before we got ready for dinner. We ended up eating along the streets of where the Salamanca market had taken place. While we were there, we saw at least 3 hen parties (aka bachelorette parties) along the street. Apparently, Hobart is a happening place. =)

Sarah's Visit - Day 1

After traveling for over 34 hours with 2 layovers, Sarah finally arrived in Sydney!!! I met her at Circular Quay wharf and even though I had just gotten off the ferry, we got back on immediately to travel back to Manly. We dropped off her stuff and I showed her around Manly before we got the regular Australian food choice, fish and chips. We ate by the beach and enjoyed the weather. After some debate, we finally decided to head into the city. We dropped of our luggage at Bain before we walked around the city.


We walked to Lady Macquarie's Chair and ended up finding this great site to take a photo of the Opera House and Harbour Bridge. Sarah also took an amazing panoramic with her camera, but I haven't gotten that photo yet!


In the Royal Botanical Gardens, we saw a wedding! It was just starting when we walked by and we felt really bad for them. They were essentially almost in a zoo since any tourists that walked by would stop and stare. The worst was this mom and 2 kids who were set up exactly behind the bride and groom and wouldn't move. They were ruining their pictures because otherwise they would have had a perfect view of the Opera House and Harbour Bridge.


As we walked around the Botanical Gardens, Sarah was pointing out flowers left and right! She was very excited to see the different varieties, but I had barely ever noticed all of them before. I must have forgot to tell her that bats fly around at night in the area because at one point, we looked up and there were hundreds of bats in the trees. Sarah got extremely worried and started running ahead since she thought the bats were going to dive down and attack her!

We took our time through the Rose Garden and took some beautiful photos of the roses that were in bloom!




After our walk around the Royal Botanical Gardens, we headed back to Bain to meet David, Casey and Nicole. The five of us were going to Tasmania for the weekend!! Poor Sarah had barely been in Sydney for less than 12 hours and she was already getting back onto a plane.

I was impressed at how she was never too jetlagged. She took a small nap on the plane to Hobart, before I woke her up to let her know that there was an empty seat next to us. After arriving in our motel/apartment, she managed to stay up until 10:30/11 PM, which was very impressive! Even better was the fact that she never woke up at 5 AM and couldn't go back to sleep like most of us.

Coming up next time: Photos of our time in Tasmania!!

Weekend Update - Darn Mosquitoes!

Since this was our last weekend before we have streams of visitors, we packed in the social calendar with the Bainies. This was the first time that we had hung out with some of them since before the holidays. Unfortunately, it ended up raining for the first half of the weekend.

On Friday night, we trekked out to Paddington, where Casey and Nicole were house sitting. We had organized a pub crawl around the area and were taking advantage of being able to stay somewhere closer to the city. The group started off small with 6 of us, but as we went to each bar, more and more people had come out to join us. We were a pretty big moving group, but luckily with Nicole's navigation and David's time keeping, we moved along easily. Everyone was surprised that our pub crawl actually went to almost all the bars on the list.

On Saturday, we had a slow start in the morning and finally made it to Ben's apartment for a BBQ despite the rain. His apartment was able to hold a big crowd even though we weren't able to take advantage of his patio. We watched a lot of cricket and tennis while just relaxing. As the day progressed, it was more and more apparent that David and I had been a tasty treat to some mosquitoes. It's unclear when/where all the bites occurred, but since no one else at the BBQ was getting bit, we can only assume that it was while we had been sleeping.

Originally, we had planned to play some golf on Sunday, but since the weather hadn't been cooperating, David and I decided to head back to Manly. By the time we got home, I had developed around 20 mosquito bites, mostly on my arms. Luckily, David doesn't have as many bites as me and he has a little more self control so he's not scratching them as much as me!

Weekend Fun

Since this is one of our last weekends without guests, we did a series of random activities with our favorite pair of people, Casey and Nicole. Here's a photo of them diving in the Great Barrier Reef. Doesn't it look amazing!


On Friday, we checked out a different type of movie theatre. It's called Govindas. You can get a package deal for dinner and a movie. They have an all vegetarian buffet and after you've stuffed yourself you go upstairs to let your food digest.

You get to lie down on these bed/couch like things while watching the movie. Luckily for us, there were 4 of us and they had some beds that were made for 4 people to share. Therefore, we weren't lying next to any strangers. We had decided to catch the earlier movie, which was smart because the later movie had tons more people in line. We couldn't figure out how all of them were going to fit into the theatre!


On Saturday, the original plan was to go to the pool or beach and then play some golf in the early afternoon. Since we were trying to rush too many things into the day, we decided to move golf to Sunday and we went to the pool all day. The four of us had our own raft so we were able to enjoy the sunshine lying around.

While Casey and Nicole went to a fancy, paid for dinner, I cooked David dinner. For dessert, we decided to check out Max Brenner, which is this chocolate dessert place that it's in our ferry terminal. We've found a new night time activity for the multiple guests that are about to arrive. We had chocolate fondue that was delicious and we finished it off with a cup of hot chocolate. Sugar overload!

On Sunday, we had brunch with Charlie and Lily, who just moved into our building. After brunch, we went to a bar to watch the Patriots win! Casey and Nicole also joined us at the bar along with Ben, Avaleigh and Ajay. Though there were many anti-Pats fans at the bar, we showed them who was the better team to cheer for.

After the game, the fantastic four headed over to the golf course as dark clouds started rolling in. Since the man at the pro shop didn't believe we'd be able to finish our 9 holes, he gave us a super discount. David and I paid $17 for both of our 9 holes. That's only $8.50 a person!

Unfortunately, I didn't have my camera, but the club hire and buggy hire for Casey and Nicole was hilarious. They each got their own small blue leather golf bags that held their 6 clubs. The size of their golf bags were about 1/4 of the size of David and my bags. They put their tiny blue bags onto their yellow buggys (pull carts). Sometimes, when they stopped at their ball, the buggy would tip over since there wasn't enough weight with their tiny bags.

We had a great time even though it began to rain on our 3rd hole. We even finished all 9 holes in the rain. On the first hole, the sprinkler system started up near the green as soon as we were on the green. The sprinklers never seemed to turn off even though it was raining. We ended up playing speed golf at the greens since we had to try and putt before the sprinkler would rotate and hit you. On the final hole, there was a river in the middle of the green and the hole was waterlogged. We couldn't even finish it out.

Thanks for a great weekend guys! Thanks for trekking out to Manly 2 days in a row. We'll definitely make sure to come to Paddington sometime this coming weekend.

Wombat Info

Since the Wombat has left to hang out in Hong Kong with Cindy, I figured I'd give everyone some more information about real-life wombats and some photos of them. Wombats are considered marsupials and their closest relation is the koala bear. They are generally slow movers, but if threatened, they can reach up to 25 miles/hour. That's pretty fast for this short legged creature!

Even though our wombat was very small and cute, most wombats are about 3 feet in length and unfortunately not as cute. Here are some more photos of the zoo's wombat. At first it was just wandering around.



It looked at us with curiosity.


At one point, the wombat went over to this water bucket and ended up dumping the bucket over. Oops!


Australia's interesting fact of the day: The movies! Besides the expensive price for going to see a movie, it's very different from the US. The theatre I went to wasn't quite as big so almost everyone had a great seat. Their seats were very comfortable, but didn't rock. The seat part didn't even move up so they weren't trying to cram as many people into the movie theatre. Finally, the big difference was assigned seating. Yep, that's right there was assigned seating. This was actually pretty great because you didn't have to try and get to the movie theatre on time since you knew you'd have a great seat. And since there are about 25 minutes of commercials mixed in with 3 previews at the "start" of the movie, you could show up 20 minutes late to avoid all that nonsense as well!

St. Kilda and Phillip Island

On our last full day in Melbourne we decided to visit St. Kilda, which is a suburb near Melbourne that is accessible by tram. We didn't explore St. Kilda that much except to walk near the beach and onto the pier.

Wombat enjoyed the view from the boardwalk.


Out on the pier in St. Kilda, they have their own little penguin viewing area. While we were there, we found some hiding in their home!


After St. Kilda, we headed home to make the drive to Phillip Island. Phillip Island is a 2.5 hour drive from Melbourne and is connected to land by one bridge. The island itself is relatively small and we were able to enjoy dinner facing the beach before heading to the Penguin parade.

Wombat enjoyed his time on the beach. He even found a little seashell as a hat.


We got to the Penguin place a bit early and had time to kill in the shops. Wombat wanted to fit in with the other animals.


Wombat was even treated like a joey!


Unfortunately we weren't allowed to take any photos of the penguins. I wanted to sneak one in but was afraid of getting caught. If you ever have the chance to go to Melbourne, you MUST see the penguins. There are thousands of them and you get to see them cross the beach and then they will all walk towards their home. They have built boardwalks all along their path, so that you can get up close to them.

After you leave the place, don't forget to check under your car! The penguins are looking for any kind of shelter and they might think it's a home!


This was our last full day in Melbourne and we thoroughly enjoyed it!

Another funny food story for the readers: In St. Kilda, we were getting a light lunch and Cindy was in charge of ordering at the counter. When she came back, she told us that she had gotten a side of cous cous as well. I hadn't seen it on the menu so I had asked her where to point it out. She pointed to the "Shredded Cos Salad". I couldn't help laughing because in Australia, all their lettuce terms are different than in the US. Rocket = Arugula. Cos = Romaine. So instead of a cous cous dish, we were getting a salad dish. The best part was that even though it had said "shredded" in the dish, she still thought it was cous cous. Cindy, we love you. =)

On our final day in Melbourne, the only exciting thing we did was convince Dave to have pho for breakfast. For those who don't know it, David is one of those people who will only eat breakfast foods for breakfast. When I eat anything not thought of as a breakfast food (which I constantly do), he thinks it's weird. David was willing to eat because of a couple of reasons. He had been up for awhile so it wasn't too early in the day and in Vietnam they often have pho for breakfast. We stopped at a restaurant that claimed that Bill Clinton had eaten there and we weren't the only ones there! The restaurant was about half full at 10:15 AM. What a great way to start our day with a big bowl of pho in our tummies. yum.

Great Ocean Road

We spent an entire day driving to the Great Ocean Road. After renting our car and having some nervous issues about driving on the other side of the road, we were off and reached the start after almost 3 hours. The start of Great Ocean Road is already almost 2 hours from Melbourne, but we managed to hit some traffic along the way.

After hitting up an information center, we were aiming to get to the 12 Apostles before sunset. We opted to avoid some of the stops that were for the beaches along the area and stopped at only a couple of places. First up, the lighthouse at Anglesea. We couldn't actually get to the top of the lighthouse unless you paid to take a tour.


Beyond the lighthouse, there were some paths that we could take and look out onto the ocean.


It seems as if lots of rock formations have drifted off the main island to create these rock formations.


Cindy was taking in the view from the other side of the lighthouse.


After the lighthouse, we kept driving along the road and hit even more traffic on our way to a little town called Lorne. By the time we arrived, we were starving for lunch and stopped as soon as we saw some shops. Little did we know that there were about 3 times as many cafes/shops if we had continued to drive for another block. After Lorne, it was a windy, narrow drive until we hit the next lookout point. At Cape Patton Lookout, we could see the drive that we were going to have to do in the distance.


After we reached the next small town of Apollo Bay, we stopped to stretch our legs. We found this little ice cream shop that had some amazing Marzipan ice cream. A couple of kilometers outside of Apollo Bay, there was a small rainforest area that had an easy walk/hike that we decided to take. Unfortunately, since there has been a drought in Australia, the rainforest wasn't thriving too much. We did see some trees where the roots had grown up and around something that no longer existed.


There were these convenient bridges along the path for when there was a river/water flowing through the rainforest. Cindy decided to meditate for a little bit.


After our rainforest hike, our last destination was the 12 Apostles. The road had turned off from the ocean and we drove through lots of countryside for awhile before finally reaching them. Wombat enjoyed the 12 Apostles, but he didn't like the number of flies that were in the area.


The amazing part of the area around the 12 Apostles is that there is no pathway to get down to the beach. These cliffs are at the edge of Australia.


The Apostles were on both sides of the little viewing area that we were able to walk around.


The 12 Apostles made the Great Ocean Road journey worthwhile, but it did take us almost 9 hours to finally reach them. Luckily, there is a shortcut through the countryside that can get you back to Melbourne in 3-3.5 hours.

Wombat in the Yarra Valley

You were probably expecting to hear about the Great Ocean Road, but I forgot about our wine tour to the Yarra Valley, so you'll have to wait another day before hearing about the Great Ocean Road.

We had signed up for a wine tour with the Australian Wine Tour Company through the Yarra Valley. We took a small 20 person bus to the Yarra Valley and our first stop was Yering Farm. This winery is a family run business and does not sell many bottles outside of their shop. They had converted an old hay barn as their cellar door.


Wombat enjoyed the view of the valley.


Then, wombat started drinking. It was only 10:30 AM, but he was offered over 10 different types of wine. He didn't know what to choose.


Our next stop was Rochard. Besides providing lunch, they had a tower that overlooked their vineyards. Cindy enjoyed the view.


We got up close and personal with some grapes, but didn't taste any of them.


We also stopped at Yering Station, but no pictures came from our stop there. The exciting part of Yering Station was finding some truffle mixture made by Tetsuya's that is designated to mix with butter and create yummy truffle butter!

Our last stop of the day was Chandon, which is associated with Moet & Chandon. We went on a mini tour of how champagne/sparkling wine were made and were able to go into the room with all the bottles that were resting on racks. We weren't allowed to touch anything so Wombat was sad that he couldn't play with the bottles.


We were offered a full glass of bubbly before being able to taste their other bubbly and wines that Chandon produces. Wombat was excited to be around all these bottles of yummy tasting wines.



By the end of our tour, we had drank our fair share of wines and were looking forward to the nap on our car ride home. Maybe from all the wine, Cindy was drunk at dinner because this is the conversation that took place. Early on, Cindy had decided that she was going to order steak tartare, while David and I debated on what to get.

Waiter: Can I take your order?
Cindy: I'd like the Steak Tartare... Medium
Waiter: ummm...
(As David and Denise try to explain to Cindy that Steak Tartare is chopped up raw/rare steak, they can't stop giggling inside)

Amazingly, the waiter told us stories of how he has served steak tartare to other customers and they had told him that he had forgotten to cook their steaks. So, he was glad that Cindy had made the medium comment so that they could fix the situation immediately.

The second best part of this story besides the "medium" comment was that as Cindy was looking for other items to order, the waiter would try to explain her other items on the menu and Cindy would instantly put on a sour face when she heard something she didn't like or want.
Finally our waiter decided to let Cindy decide on her own and he would come back.

For the rest of the night, I couldn't stop laughing every time I thought of the story.

Anyways, tomorrow will be about the Great Ocean Road!

Wombat's Adventure to Melbourne - Part 1

Early on in Cindy's visit, she randomly purchased a small wombat and it went on our adventure in Melbourne with us. I think we ended up taking more photos of the Wombat enjoying Melbourne than ourselves.

At the airport, we got some food. Wombat didn't really like the pasta since it was too dry, but the bacon in the pasta was pretty good. The domestic airport was very different than the US. It was like the old days in the US, where you didn't need a boarding pass to go through security so you could wait at the gate until it was time for your friends or family to leave. You could bring liquids over 3 oz onto your aircraft. It was just very casual.


Apparently on every domestic flight, they'll make an announcement requesting you listen to the safety features on the aircraft since every plane is different. But it seemed as if everything was still the same. Wombat was secured into his seat before we left the airport.


The flight to Melbourne was very short and when we arrived, it was dinner time! We got some recommendations for food, but ended up eating at a little Japanese cafe near Chinatown. The food was delicious! Unfortunately, I haven't been able to find as good food for as cheap in Sydney/Manly. Afterwards, it was bedtime in order to prepare for the next day.


The next morning, we stopped by Federation Square to eat our breakfast on the steps. The architecture in the area was amazing and since it was still early, there weren't too many people around.


After breakfast, we rushed over to Day 2 of the Boxing Day Test Match at the Melbourne Cricket Ground. To give our US readers an idea of how big of an event it is, Day 1 of the Boxing Day Test Match is about the equivalent of Thanksgiving Day football games. Boxing Day is the day after Christmas and also a national holiday. The Test Match can last up to 5 days, but you would definitely want to go on Day 1 or 2 to guarantee some excitement. Every year, they rotate who Australia plays and this year they were playing India, which is a big rival.

The Melbourne Cricket Ground had all these rules that don't exist in the US. If you got onto the field, you were fined up to $6000. You couldn't start the wave and aren't supposed to participate in it. Apparently, people were throwing things during the wave, which is why it was banned. You couldn't make any racist comments or you'd be thrown out of the stadium for life. If you were seen inflating a beach ball and throwing it around, you could also get kicked out. The rules were pretty strict and we were able to see some people get walked out of the stadium.

We had bought tickets for general admission, which meant we could sit anywhere we wanted in a couple of areas. The view from the lower stand was great except for the beating sun. It got hot very quickly.


Wombat seemed to enjoy his view except that people are much bigger than him.


From the upper grandstand, you got a view of the entire arena without any obstructions, but the people ended up being very small and it was easy to miss the plays that were happening since it happens so fast. Luckily, they replayed all the events on the big screens so we could rewatch from there. We alternated between these two seating areas due to the sun. In the sun, it was too hot, but in the shade it was actually pretty chilly because of the wind.


Coming up tomorrow: The Great Ocean Road!