Travels WithJohn and Janice
Australia

Oceania

Australia

10 adventures documented

All Stories

The Sydney Harbour BridgeAustralia
8 min read2015

Dateline March 6, 2015, Sydney, and Then Home

Our last stop. We arrived in Sydney from Narooma and pulled into the Russell Hotel at the Rocks, an old boutique hotel with a wonderful staircase puzzle (cut through two fire-exit doors, up two stairs, down three stairs, to find your room). A few days to wind down a 42-day adventure: a pass on the $250 walk across the Harbour Bridge (we'd rather get high at the pubs, thanks), a Sydney butcher-counter dinner at Phillip's Foote where you cook your own steak, a Saturday market crowded by 3,000 of our closest friends off a cruise ship, a small Pony Lounge dinner we loved so much we went back for the End-of-Vacation supper with Pete and Bunny, and a Sunday round at Moore Park Golf Club that turned out to be eight holes because of a booking-system quirk. The last bottle of Lambert Estate, The Commitment Shiraz, was opened in the Russell's reading room. We donated the chill box to Maxine at the front desk. Then a 24-hour flight, and a landing at Daytona Beach just before midnight on a Monday. Forty-two days, 4,200 miles, fifty-some bottles of wine, six of rum, six of vodka. Goodbye to another adventure with Pete and Bunny.

#australia#new-south-wales#sydney
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Kookaburras on the electric wires at Narooma, New South WalesAustralia
8 min read2015

Dateline March 2, 2015, Melbourne to Sydney

We enjoyed our final breakfast at Robinsons with Stanley saying his goodbyes, packed the car, and Paul gave us directions to the M-1. His suggestion for the first night was Metung, a small fishing village where Paul's family had summered when he was a boy. From there it was Eden (with golf among the friendliest kangaroos we had met yet), then two nights in Narooma at Anchors Aweigh B&B with Heather and Kerry, where the train ran through the ceiling, the kookaburras on the wires had two chicks, and a crow at Narooma Golf Club stole John's yellow ball and flew with it out over the ocean. A picnic on the way at Bega Valley with prawns, leftover steak, and the last bottle of Lambert Estate sparkling. The Blow Hole at Kiama as we drove north. Then Pete behind the wheel for the run into Sydney, and the keys to our final room at The Russell Hotel on the Rocks. We returned the car to Avis and closed out 4,200 miles of driving between New Zealand and Australia.

#australia#victoria#new-south-wales
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Coops Shot Tower at Melbourne Central, Victoria, AustraliaAustralia
11 min read2015

Dateline February 27, 2015, Melbourne, Just a Great City

After our wonderful afternoon with the kangaroos at Anglesea Golf Club, we arrived in Melbourne at Robinsons In The City, a boutique hotel in an 1850s heritage building that began life as Henry William Bennett's bakery. We were welcomed by the General Manager, Paul Humphreys. Three days of city wandering followed: the Royal Mail pub with John's first taste of kangaroo steak (like eating Bambi, but really like eating Joey after a week of golf with them), the Victoria State Library and its beautiful Domed Reading Room, the Coops Shot Tower under a glass canopy in the heart of the central shopping center, a Saturday cricket ticket attempt that failed because India versus Pakistan was sold out, a long Sunday walk through the botanical gardens, the Australian Henley Regatta on the Yarra, the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra practicing in the open, the Shrine of Remembrance with its Ray of Light ceremony, and a round of golf at Albert Park Golf Course laid out around the Grand Prix track. We had Lebanese-Italian on Errol Street to close it out. Melbourne should be at the top of any Australia list.

#australia#victoria#melbourne
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The Great Ocean Drive coastline, Victoria, AustraliaAustralia
4 min read2015

Dateline February 26, 2015, The Great Ocean Drive

As we left Port Fairy we knew we were close to starting one of the most beautiful drives in the world. John and Janice had done the drive in 2009; this was Pete and Bunny's first time. The Great Ocean Road is more than a string of fabulous beaches, cute towns, and spectacular cliff and rock formations. It is also a war memorial. Survey work began in August 1918, and thousands of returned WWI soldiers descended on the area with picks, shovels, and horse-drawn carts. The first stage, linking Lorne and Eastern View, was completed in 1922, and the full route was officially opened on November 26, 1932. We drove toward Apollo Bay with frequent stops: Bell's Beach for the surfers, the Bay of Islands for the rock formations, London Bridge (which famously broke off the mainland in 1990 and stranded a few tourists who had to be helicoptered out), the Grotto for the ocean-level view, the Twelve Apostles (which is, historically speaking, a kind of marketing miracle), and the Otway Lighthouse in the Great Otway National Park, where we watched a mother koala let her baby out of her pouch and onto its own little perch in the tree. Apollo Bay for dinner at Casalingo. Onward in the morning.

#australia#victoria#great-ocean-road
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The kangaroos at Anglesea Golf Club, Victoria, AustraliaAustralia
3 min read2015

Dateline February 27, 2015, Anglesea Golf Club

We drove out from our motel in Apollo Bay with a planned stop for breakfast at the Wye Cafe, about twenty minutes up the coast. John and Janice noticed on arriving that it was the same cafe they had stopped at on a previous Melbourne to Adelaide drive — a small coincidence to start the day. Then on to Anglesea Golf Club for the round we had been waiting for. Anglesea is famous for the kangaroos who share the fairways with the golfers. Looking out from the clubhouse before our 1:15 tee time, we couldn't see a single one. The pro told us they sleep in the heat of the day and start feeding as it cools. We started on the 10th hole. By the 11th green, our first mob. From there, it was constant. Many of the kangaroos wore collars with names — permanent members of the club, we figured. The course was a good test of golf, except for the part where there are kangaroos everywhere and you cannot stop taking pictures of them. The pictures tell the story.

#australia#victoria#anglesea
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The Obelisk at Robe, South AustraliaAustralia
7 min read2015

Dateline February 18, 2015, Robe and Port Fairy, Australia

We drove almost six hours to get to our next destination, Robe, one of the oldest towns in South Australia. We checked into the Harbour View Motel, where Robbie at the front desk offered us an 'upgrade' for an extra hundred dollars (we politely declined). Drinks at the Caledonia Hotel, built in 1858, then dinner at Sails, the best restaurant in town and probably in the province. A morning walk along the cliffs by the lighthouse, breakfast at the Marina Cafe, a lobster pickup at the fish market that became one of our favorite lunches of the trip on a picnic table at Cape Bridgewater. Then north to Port Fairy and the Quamby Homestead, where William and Ailsa host out of a property whose gardens were designed in the 1880s by William Guilfoyle, who ran the Melbourne Botanic Gardens. A round of golf at Port Fairy Golf Club, oceanside and beautiful, where a friendly woman at the bar afterward showed us a photo of the tiger snake she had recently found in her house and warned us about the copperheads on the course. A walk around Griffiths Island, a first wallaby sighting, and a second night at Clonmara Cottages. Onward to the Great Ocean Drive.

#australia#south-australia#victoria
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Lambert Estate Winery in the Barossa Valley, South AustraliaAustralia
7 min read2015

Dateline February 13, 2015, Lambert Estate, the Barossa Valley

From New Zealand to Australia. We left Queenstown on an evening flight, with an overnight at the Auckland airport, then on through Melbourne to Adelaide, landing about 11 a.m. We picked up the rental car and pointed it at the Barossa Valley to visit Jim and Pam Lambert at Lambert Estate. We had met Jim and Pam about eight years before through a small online wine company we ran with partners, specializing in boutique wines from around the world, and visiting their winery had been one of the highlights of our last Australia trip in 2009. A great change this time around was meeting their son Kirk and his new wife Vanessa, who is from Peru. The two met in the University of Adelaide's wine science program and are now the winemakers at Lambert Estate. Over two evenings at the property we worked through about thirteen bottles between the four of us and the Lamberts and their friends Kingsley and Kathy, including the flagship Silent Partner Cabernet Sauvignon and the Family Tree Shiraz, which once beat Penfolds Grange nine-to-ten in a Milwaukee blind tasting. We chased kangaroos through the vineyard, dined at the Wanera Wine Bar in Angaston, played pokies (Bunny cleaned up), and slept gratefully in the Lambert Estate Retreat. A wonderful welcome to Australia.

#australia#south-australia#barossa-valley
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A koala at the Parndana Wildlife Park on Kangaroo Island, South AustraliaAustralia
7 min read2015

Dateline February 15, 2015, Kangaroo Island, Meet the Koala

We left the Lambert Estate Retreat, headed over to Jim and Pam's to buy a few bottles for the drive to Sydney, and pointed the car at the Cape Jervis ferry through the Adelaide Hills route to Hahndorf, the oldest German town in Australia, settled in 1838 by fifty-four families escaping religious persecution. We strolled the shops and had lunch in town, then caught the 4:00 ferry across to Penneshaw on Kangaroo Island. We were based in Kingscote for two nights. Over a motel dinner that turned into wine and conversation, we met Terry Modern from Victor Harbor, who was on the island for the Kangaroo Island Cup Carnival. The next morning we drove to the Parndana Wildlife Park, fed the smaller, darker island kangaroos in the enclosure, and met Dana, the conservationist who walked us through the koala — marsupial, related to kangaroos not bears, threatened more by drought and chlamydia than by predators, sixteen thousand on the island and ten thousand sterilized to keep the population in balance with the foliage. Two of Dana's rescues had been raised in a burlap bag with formula. Then on to Flinders Chase, where koalas sat in the trees right above our car, and out to the Remarkable Rocks, Admirals Arch, and Weirs Cove on the wild south coast. A wonderful two days.

#australia#south-australia#kangaroo-island
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The Sydney Opera House from the harbor, on the ferry out to Watson BayAustralia
4 min read2015

Dateline January 21, 2015, Sydney — The Adventure Begins at Doyle's

In 2010 we had spent a couple of weeks in Australia, primarily to play the great Sandbelt courses around Melbourne, and we ended that trip with a few wonderful days with Jim and Pam Lambert at the Lambert Estate in the Barossa Valley. We had been looking for an excuse to go back ever since. This trip is the excuse. New Zealand and Australia with our friends Pete and Bunny Warenski, who were with us on the Alaska Walkabout and on the Robert Trent Jones Trail in Alabama. We arrived in Sydney Tuesday morning after twenty-four hours of flight time, met up with Pete and Bunny at the hotel, walked the city, and tried to stay awake until evening to outwit the jet lag. The next morning we took the ferry across the harbor (past the Opera House and under the Harbor Bridge) out to Watson Bay and Doyle's, the seafood restaurant we had visited on our last trip to Sydney and had been looking forward to introducing the Warenskis to. Tomorrow we fly to New Zealand.

#australia#sydney#sydney-opera-house
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