Category: 2023 02 Oz
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And, that’s a wrap!
It took 53.5 hours to get from Perth to Calgary, including a one night layover in Auckland. Out of that, 21 hours was in the air and 7 was spent sleeping. 🧟♂️ But we are back home now. 😊 We have been traveling since June 30th, 2022. Some interesting stats (these are minimums since we…
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Adorable rats and blazing tropical snow.
The second “must do” here is Rottnest island. The island was given its name by 17th-century Dutch explorers – it was based on the island’s rather unique inhabitants, which they thought were large rats (Rottnest is “Rat’s nest” in Dutch). The “Quokka” looks exactly like that, only much cuter. However, it is a marsupial, not…
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Freo, an Aperol Spritzer and lots of bars.
On our last full day, we caught the train out to Fremantle, aka “Freo”. It’s a charming beach town, with loads (“heaps” even) of history. When you get off the train, you are immediately hit by quaintness and history. Like so many other places in Oz, Freo was created largely during the convict era (1788…
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An $84.3 million gold coin.
We did two very cool things on March 11th, 2023. First was a visit to the Perth Mint, which has been refining and selling gold since 1899. The building itself is gorgeous, having taken three years to build. It used limestone quarried from nearby Cottasloe and Rottnest island. The Perth Mint went through quite a…
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A tract of land fit for a King.
Hello from Perth, the second most isolated major city in the world (after Honolulu). When visiting this beautiful and bustling city (population 2.1 million) on the Swan River on the west coast of Australia, there are two “must do’s”. The first is a visit to “The King’s Park’”, a 1000 acre park smack in the…
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A botanical garden on the side of a mountain. 😠
Yup. Some wise-arse put a botanical garden on the side of Mount Lofty. I was not surprised that we saw few visitors. However, there were lots of critters. Those two observations are probably linked.
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Eine charmante deutsche Stadt.
Gill took us to the charming town of Hahndorf, located to the SE of Adelaide. Founded in 1839, this little town recognized the value of maintaining some of its heritage. I am definitely developing a taste for German architecture and cuisine!
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A massive urban donut.
Adelaide is a fascinating place, with an outstanding mix of heritage buildings, impressive modern architecture, statues, green areas, rivers and beaches. The entire CBD is surrounded by a continuous stream of parks, making it look like a donut on a map or viewed from above. The first thing we did, as always, was to walk.…
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Tazzie!
Total driving distance was 1737 kilometres spread over 13 full days. Holy moly, we did pack in a lot! Along the way we met some lovely people. Shoutouts to Linda, Diane, Richard and Tilly. Ozzie, Ozzie, Ozzie! Special shoutout to our new friends Gill & Deb, whom we met in Omapere, New Zealand, and raved…
63 and free 