Sydney to the Snowy Mountains
Trip Start
Jun 15, 2004
1
28
40
Trip End
Apr 03, 2005
Canberra, Australia
Sunday, January 16, 2005
Following up on our last entry, (sorry for being so slow in updating) we arrived back in Sydney following our visit to the Blue Mountains. After a short visit with Justin and picking up our stuff, we headed into the city where we met up with our Halifax friend, Carol. Carol had arrived in Sydney that morning after what must have been a 24 hour flight from Halifax so it was an early night to grab as much sleep as we could.
We hopped on our Oz Experience Bus at 7:00 am with coffees in hand and met our hosts for the trip, Steve (Peanut) and his lovely wife Amanda. Ours was a 14 person bus pulling a trailer for all our gear.
Our first stop was the capital of Australia Canberra. Rather interesting story of this city. Way back in 1901 all of the various colonies in Australia decided to become states which led to discussions of which city should be the capital. Both Sydney and Melbourne felt that they should be the capital and, after 7 years of argument, it was decided that a new city would be created in the middle of no where. According to our guides, a competition for the design of the city was held and a man by the name of Walter Burley Griffin edged out the North Sydney Primary School to win the international competition. The only thing left was to choose a name for the city. They chose Canberra as they thought that it was an Aborigninal word meaning "meeting place". Turns out that the Aboriginal man who gave them the suggestion was a bit of a jokester and Canberra really means "hey, your a funny looking fella" Anyway, the city is very clean and well laid out with lots of circles. We visited an amazing war museum as well as the National Museum and Parlaiment house. It was a full day and we arrived at our hostel at about 8:00 for pizza dinner. This was a chance to get to know the other folks on our bus and for Jacquie to spend some quality time with Carol. I think they went grocery shopping.
The next morning we were back on the bus and heading for the Snowy Mountains along some really interesting (perhaps a bit scary) dirt roads through the canyons formed by the Snowy River. The scenery was beautiful and the little hikes that we did to lookouts gave us huge views. We got up close and personal with a couple of smaller goannas (only about 2 1/2 feet long) on one of our hikes. We spent the night at a guest ranch where we saw our first Koala in the wild as well as a couple of Wombats from a distance. Lots of Grey Kangaroos and Wallabies as well. Jacquie and I set up our tent rather than staying in the dorm rooms. There was no room for Carol in the tent so she spent her first night in a mixed dorm room. She was apparently not as traumatized by the experience as she thought she would be.
On the bus again the next morning heading for Melbourne. Our first stop of the day was a little winery in the Snowy Mountains called Wyanga where the proprietor served us samples of 14 different wines and ports. Our host Geoff was quite a character and his sample sizes were large and he had no problem with refills. Keep in mind that it was 9:30 in the morning!!!! Our favorite was a Chardonay that was made from grapes harvested shortly after a really big bush fire in 2001. The wine actually had a smokey flavour. We were perhaps a bit tipsy when we bought 2 bottles of wine and a bottle of port. Everyone was exuberant when we got back on the bus and within about 15 minutes everyone, with the exception of our driver, was fast asleep.
Our route to Melbourne took us back to the coast through some really pretty little towns where we had a chance to poke around and walk on the beaches.
Once in Melbourne we caught a cab to Carol's cousin's house . Sherry was a brave soul and had agreed to put the three of us up at her house. One bedroom, four people and two cats makes for a pretty full house. We had such a great time getting to know Sherry who turned out to be a fabulous chef as well as great host/chauffeur/tour guide. Thanks for everything Sherry, please come to Victoria some time so that we can return the hospitality.
After three days (remembering that company is like fish and after three days it begins to smell) we moved on and checked in with Smiley Dave who we met on our African Tour. Dave had arranged for a bit of a reunion with some of the Africa crew living in Melbourne and we found ourselves in a little Nepalese Restaurant with Greg, Damian, Fiona, Jennette and Smiley. So great to see familiar faces after travelling for so long. They all seemed like long lost friends even though we had only known them for 15 days. Dave put us up in his fabulous batchelor pad overlooking the Yarra River and the harbour. We had to say our sad goodbyes to Carol who was heading north east to Newcastle to visit some other friends.
Melbourne is a really very pretty. Its a mix of new modern buildings and old buildings with narrow alleyways where there are lots of cool little shops. The Australian Open Tennis was on while we were in town so things were really busy. Sorry to both our friends in Sydney and Melbourne, we loved both cities and couldn't possibly pick a favourite.
We are flying out to Tasmania to do a little hiking but that will be another page.
Until then, be happy
Jacquie and Dave
