Sunsetting on a wonderful adventure

February 22, 23 & 24, 2009

Spent Sunday morning having a final breakfast on the ship while taking in the world famous views of Sydney Harbour - the Sydney Harbour Bridge directly in front of me (and nearly over top of me!) and the Opera House on the other side of me. Beautiful. After picking up our last car rental in Sydney, we high-tailed it over to the famous Bondi Beach for a final walk in the waves before leaving Sydney. Description of Bondi Beach (aka speedo city – My eyes! My eyes! Ahhh!) : a ¾ mile cove-like area of pristine yellow sand beach; rock cliffs and houses were precariously perched on two sides of the cove much like Monaco or Greece. The beach area was peppered with a significant number of bronzed and beautiful bodies (kind of like Bay Watch on steroids!) as well as the quintessential surfer dudes in wet suits with boards tucked under their arms and blue bubble jellyfish washed up on the beach (which, btw, make popping sounds like bubble wrap when you step on them!). There were small groupings of families with picnic baskets on blankets and hand-holding couples leaving side-by-side footprints along the waters edge. Piercing giggles from wave jumping kids of all ages were regularly heard over the rhythmic roar of the tides washing ashore. This particular morning, they were also having some kind of lifeguard competitions going on – it was great fun visually absorbing humanity’s interaction and delight in nature’s gift of golden sun, golden sand and golden moments.

After getting our feet (and pants!) sufficiently soaked in salt water, we began our trek down the eastern coast of AUS to Lilli Pilli. Along the way we saw enough tropical beauty of Australia to impress us forever with this country. Lush green eucalyptus forest followed us on one side and pristine rocky coastline on the other. FACTOID: The bulk of the population of Australia is found all along the coast – most of the country in the centre is uninhabitable desert. And let me expose a lie – the globe we all learned geography on as kids is lying to you. Though depicted as a small island in the South Pacific, AUS is actually similar in land mass to the US!

K- continuing on with the journey .... red parrots, palm trees and kangaroo road kill were in abundance! 30+ degrees of sunshine, sounds of the kookaburro and other unique birds made it seem like we were visiting a Caribbean island rather than a country in the South Pacific. One of our photo op stops this day included watching some very brave (read insane:) individuals run off a beautiful sea cliff and soar like albatross over the ocean below. Yep – gotta say, if we had a little more time on our hands, John and I would very likely have joined this bunch of free spirits – hang gliding over spectacular views is on the “list” for both of us as well ... one day soon for sure!

Our final stop for the day was in Lilli Pilli to connect with the “father of restorative justice” in Australia. “Shrimps on the barby”, great wine, inspiring conversation and peaceful sleeps at the summer house on the ocean he and his wife were retreating at capped an exquisite day for us in the land of OZ. We had a grand time with them. Oh, and FYI, found out Nicole Kidman owned a house on the ocean about one mile from where we were staying! She just recently sold it, but I just want to confirm – the woman has EXCELLENT taste in real estate beauty :)

Monday found us cruising through the capital of Australia, Canberra, for a speaking engagement and further bridge building for restorative justice internationally. Interesting scenery change as we moved further inland. The creep of the desert influence dominated the landscape in this part of the country. We left the tropics of the coast to hit the intense heat, brown grass, parched landscape and sparse vegetation of desert climate. Canberra (pronounced Canbra) is indeed a government town – embassies, monuments and modern parliament buildings are pivotal to the architecture. It’s kinda interesting from an engineers perspective (this is John’s influence in this blog:) The city centre is where you find the parliament buildings and then all main roads radiate from the city centre in the perfect alignment of a star formation – it is an “engineered” city – planned down to the smallest detail by an engineer in early 1900’s. Best way to get a sense of what I’m saying – google a city map of Canberra – you’ll get the picture from that! We ended the day going on a wild “roo” hunt in areas where the locals promised we could find roo’s in abundance at dusk. Ya – they lied! Closest thing we found to a real kangaroo was a perfect roo skeleton on the side of the road – John took a picture – I stayed in the car;) All was not lost though, our hunt took us to some of the high spots on the outskirts of the city and we were treated to some spectacular “bird’s eye” views of the city at dusk. Mmmmmm.

Tuesday we drove another 3 hours back to Sydney to catch our 28 hr plane ride back to the great white north. I’m writing this final blog on the plane before checking out and trying to kill a few hours off this 15 hr leg of travel in dream land.

Final thoughts on the past 3 weeks:

1. NZ and AUS are both breathtakingly beautiful lands
2. The generosity, warmth, and easy-going nature of the people over here was an unexpected treasure we discovered in abundance
3. I like 30 degree weather in February
4. Possum socks can double quite nicely as mittens in a drafty plane (makes typing a challenge though:)
5. I will not wait another 25 years to return to this wonderful part of the world ... it’s only a plane ride away people!

Gidday and Kia Ora my friends. I trust you enjoyed your imaginary voyage with me. Definitely one of my top 5 adventures from my travelling history. It was fun taking you all along with me as well! I only have one last thing left to say to y’all ... when are you going to book your own ticket to the land down under hmm? Carpe Diem everyone!