Homeward bound

 Cousin Grant's street is typical of those in the suburb of Elwood, with lovely trees forming a canopy over the road. Most of the houses  are Edwardian/Federation with many very well maintained and the odd house in really poor condition. Evidently there was a lot of fill used in this area and as a result the occasional house shows major cracking in the walls. Grant says it hasn't stopped them from being sold for over the $1m mark.

 We left early this morning to beat the Melbourne peak hour traffic, are spending tonight in Dubbo and should be home tomorrow.

There was much evidence of the recent flooding around Forbes. There was lots of damage to the Newell Highway and water lying in the low areas forming temporary 'lakes'.

Hope you enjoyed the blog as this will be the last post.

Melbourne Wednesday

 Wow, what a visual feast for us petrol-heads.  A visit to the Fox Classic Car Collection is well worth consideration.  Lindsay Fox has opened his personal collection to the public and the entry fee is passed to charity.  There are Mercs, Porsches, Rollers, Jags, Bentleys, MGs, Ferraris - so many it is a real mouth-watering experience!

Gull-Wing Mercedes

These don't need explanations but....

E-Type Jaguar

600 Mercedes Limo (once owned by Ringo)

Evidently, Melbourne is Australia's only capital city which allows free motorcycle parking on the footpath (unless otherwise signed).  It seems a great idea and a shame other cities don't follow this example.  I know there are some designated spots in other cities, but opening it right up would encourage greater use of motorcycles for commuting and ease peakhour congestion.  Plus there are lots of bikes to look at! Well done Melbourne.

Melbourne Tuesday

Melbourne is famous for it's trams and we've certainly made use of them since we've been down here. Grant's house is close to St Kilda tram terminus and from there it's a pleasant trip into the city where we worked out quickly how to get to different tourist attractions. Some of the trams arequite old whilst others are modern. The old ones have a certain charm so given a choice we used them. Public transport is very reasonably priced and trams in the inner city area are free. Needless to say they are all well patronised.


Today we visited the Queen Victoria Markets. There are three main sections: general merchandise (mainly stuff/junk), fruit and vegies and meat/deli. The stalls ranged from very general to extremely specific. This one sold only honey; another was called the Eggporium and lived up to its name. Soooo many eggs!! Butcher shops led to the deli's and cheese shops, then on to the bakeries. Much more interesting than the stalls full of Chinese made 'dust collectors' and clothing.

Opposite Federation Square was St Paul's Anglican cathedral. As you would expect for a cathedral it was glorious in its architecture and opulence. We were both particularly impressed by the ornately tiled floors (marble, alabaster and granite from the UK) and walls and the high, vaulted wooden ceiling (Kauri, from New Zealand). It had its usual array of impressive stained glass windows (crafted in the UK), including one set, unsurprisingly, depicting scenes from the life of St Paul. The craftsmanship is amazing.

Diagonally opposite the cathedral is Flinders Street Station, a grand old building but dedicated solely to rail transport. We had expected, as inside Melbourne Central Station, to find an extensive food court. As soon as we entered the building we were met with turnstyles for platform access. The upside of this was that we explored several of the minor lanes around the station and were attracted to a small food retailer with a large queue of customers. We figureed they knew something we didn't, so we joined the queue and ended up having marvelous chicken wraps. It's a good mantra - when in doubt, follow the locals!

Degas - Portrait of a woman

Picasso - Weeping Woman

We spent a leisurely afternoon wandering through the both the Australian and International collections of the National Gallery of Victoria. Such a difference within the collections - Degas and Picasso and the modern Australian artist, Tanya Schultz (right). Chris was really pleased  to see some of her favourite Australian artists of McCubbin, Roberts and Streeton, as well as the french Impressionists Renoir and Degas.

John was amazed at the size of this painting (the quality wasn't bad either!) showing Moses delivering the 10 Commandments. We had a laugh remembering Mel Brooks version in The History of the World, Part II but could not spot the other 5 commandments on broken tablets at his feet. That's me in the bottom left corner of the photo giving a bit of perspective of the size of the painting.

It's an awe inspiring experience to stand in front of so many original masterpieces.

Melbourne Monday

 Today started off  bleak and windy. Far from perfect but not unpleasant enough for us to change our plans for a day in the city. We caught the tram from St Kilda to the Melbourne Museum where we had an enjoyable few hours browsing. The highlight for John was undoubtedly seeing Phar Lap in all his glory. John remembered seeing Phar Lap as a child on a visit with his mum so this brought back fond memories.
Also on display was a cross-section cut from Kauri Pine which had a diameter of almost 2m and growth rings showing it to be over 800 years old. very impressive!

 Adjoining the Museum is the Royal Exhibition Building - a grand old building from a bygone era. It was completed in 1880, it's the world's only surviving Great Hall constructed as an exhibition space and still used for that purpose. it was also the site of Australia's first Parliament in 1901.

 A short walk away was the magnificent St Patrick's Cathedral. Truly breathtaking in its architecture and artifacts and definitely worth a visit  regardless of your religious inclinations. The gardens were in full bloom, with statues and sculptures intermingling with roses, cherry trees and gardens full of flowers.

From here we wandered through the beautiful Fitzroy Gardens to Captain Cook's Cottage. Although there is some conjecture as to whether Cook actually lived in the cottage, it is certainly a quaint stone house. It was built in Yorkshire in 1755 by Cook's parents. It was dismantled, transported and rebuilt brick by brick in 1934 and is now a major tourist draw card.

Melbourne weekend

Leaving Albion Park early yesterday morning and heading up Macquarie Pass on a beautiful day, we were glad we were in the car as the wind was ferocious. Such a lovely drive up and over the range, through Robertson and Moss Vale then down to Goulbourn. We followed the Hume Highway through Gundagai and stopped at Holbrook for a cuppa next to the HMAS Otway. It is amazing how long submarines really are!
We continued our uneventful trip till we reached Melbourne, where we battled Saturday afternoon traffic, finally arriving at Elwood.

Sunday, being a lovely sunny day, enticed us for a walk along the foreshore to St Kilda jetty, the markets and Luna Park. It was fairly crowded with merry makers enjoying the lovely weather. On the way we saw people in a park looking up and soon discovered this was the landing zone for tandem skydiving.  We watched several groups of 8 descend gracefully and land with great precision near the marker in the park. We assumed this wasn't the instructors' first attempt at skydiving.

Most of the equipment in Luna Park was looking a tad weary and the lack of crowds was a clear indication that popularity had waned significantly from its hey days. The carousel, undoubtedly the centre piece, still looked fantastic. It is the largest carousel in the southern hemisphere and looks spectacular when operating. Unfortunately even this received little patronage with the biggest 'crowd' we saw being four riders.
                                                                                                                                                                               

This shop front in St Kilda caught our eye. We haven't made the connection between the space theme and the hair and nail shop, but they certainly were creative.

After a busy Sunday it was nice to have a relaxing night with John's cousin Grant.

Merry Beach, Bateman's Bay area

How good is this!  We went to a gorgeous spot on the NSW South Coast called Merry Beach.  I kid you not, and the next beach around the headland was Pretty Beach (and it was).  We had a super relaxing time with Dave as you can see in these photos.  Dave's daughters have these permanent vans setup opposite each other and they were kind enough to allow the three of us use of the holiday park.  Being mid-week and outside school holidays, there were few people there.  Sitting around the fire with a cuppa takes some beating.


Dave and I have the tradition of always having a surf whenever we catch up anywhere near the beach.  This can be challenging when the water temperature drops.  This wasn't as cold as Bulli in winter, but it certainly was 'refreshing'.  The water was crystal clear as you can clearly see in this photo of us in the waves.  We spent several hours investigating the rock pools and interesting formations below the cliffs.






There were several walks through the bushland, along the headlands, on the beaches and across the rock ledges.  Around each bend a fresh spectacular view was waiting.  This photo looks south from Snapper Point Lookout.
Below are a couple of photos showing Pretty Beach, a pleasant 30 minute walk from Merry beach.
Everyone knows that I am the world's least successful fisherman.  Actually, the only two fish I have caught (up until this beauty) were when one ended up in our yabby net and couldn't get out and the other was hooked through the tail as I wound in the line!
This fella was tossed onto the rock platform by a large wave before our eyes.  As it lay struggling in 10 cm of water, I casually walked over and picked it up, Chris took a photo for proof, and then I tossed it back into the sea because neither Dave nor I knew how to clean it for cooking.  Talk about its lucky day!

Albion Park

After putting our faith in the GPS we struggled through the remnants of the peak hour traffic through the southern suburbs (we waived to Matt and Kelly in Kogarah, and they either weren't home or they ignored us!) and onto the freeway for the trip to Albion Park.
We made our usual stop at lovely Sublime Point Lookout (Photo, right) which gives glorious views of the Illawarra. It was a shame not to see the famous landmark, Port Kembla copper smelter stack, which was demolished in 2014.

In keeping with the world-wide trend of vandalising (oops) famous tourist attractions with padlocks, the council has provided 2 chains to allow lovers this symbolic gesture, and the warning that locks not on these two chains will be removed. If the depth of love is measured by the size and cost of the lock, then one couple's love must reign supreme. The lock John's holding in the photo was a monstrous, stainless steel Lockwood with a shaft at least 15mm in diameter! As you know, the ritual involves closing the lock and throwing away the key. We reckon there must be a pile of keys at the bottom of the vertical escarpment, a couple of hundred metres down.

No trip to the Illawarra is complete without a scenic drive through Port Kembla. This area is a prime example of the changes in Australian industry. Many of the once thriving workshops and factories centred around the BHP Steel Works are now derelict. The main commercial centre of Port Kembla today is a far cry from past prosperity. Very few shops appeared to be operating and we could have counted the number of shoppers we saw on one hand. A sad byproduct of globalisation. Prior to 2014, the 198 metre tall chimney, built in 1965, stood on the site in front of John and Dave (right).

Who remembers TAA? Albion Park Airport incorporates a well respected air museum called HARS. Their display includes a 747 (called the City of Canberra) which caused great excitement when it landed on the smallish runway.  It was a matter of local public debate as to whether it would stop in time! Other aircraft on display include a Constellation (Connie), Catalina, F111, DC3 (pictured) and Tiger Moth. If you are interested in aircraft a visit to the HARS web site will not disappoint.

The Illawarra Yacht Club would have to be in one of the most delightful spots. On such a beautiful day, how could you not enjoy the view after a coffee at a window seat?

Where would we be without Halloween! Yesterday was our mate Dave's birthday - Halloween. A walk around their neighbourhood showed just how involved some people get. This yard (right) got our vote for the most creative. The front yard was peppered with graves, bones, headstones and skulls. Maybe they had a lot of budgies that died all at the same time!

Sydney

Another day, another adventure.
We started the day with a poached eggs on toast breakfast with Emily at a local eatery about 50m up the road from the hotel (Called : 22 Grams).
We walked with her to the university so she could head off on a science demo troupe road trip through southern NSW.
We then drove to and parked at Clovelly Beach so we could enjoy the Coastal Walk along the headlands and inlets to Bondi Beach.

Along the way we saw a huge queue of people (photo left) and John commented that the last time he'd seen a queue like that they were giving out free pies! Unfortunately this wasn't the case here but we did get to see many of the Sculptures by the Sea which were dotted along the coast from Tamarama to Bondi. (If you have seen the Dulux Paint ad you'll recognise the Surf Club on the left). It was great to see the nippers in competition at Bronte Beach.







There were more than a hundred sculptures created by some very creative artists. In the interests of you not spending several hours looking at photos, we've just included a sample of what we saw. John thought the thong was particularly humorous and thought it must have been a big person to loose a thong that big.

Wicker birds nests

The thong

Perspex female-made with horizontal layers of perspex

Recycled white plastic objects - the foam is milk bottles.

For anyone is planning on buying real estate here in Sydney, our advise is to start saving now. Emily told us that the other half of the duplex in which she lives sold at auction recently for $1.8m. Yep. 2 bedrooms, 1 bathroom, 0 car space, 1/2 duplex. Insanity!!!

Seen today: A pawnbrokers called Happy Hockers; amazing stained glass in a church near our hotel; fabulous weather in the morning.

Brisbane to Sydney

 Our 2016 road trip got off to a good start. It was great catching up with Tessie in Coffs Harbour, and the walks on the beach set a relaxed tone which we hope to continue for the trip.
We had a pleasant drive down to Newcastle and the Pacific Highway drive will be much quicker when the multiple roadworks are completed.  For a city that was supposed to suffer greatly at the closure of the steel works, Newcastle appeared to us to be thriving, with beautiful beaches, lots of historic sights and a great deal of development. Although it was rainy at times we did the tourist coastal walk from Merewether Beach to the AnzAC Memorial Bridge. (John on the bridge and Chris showing she's a ''Popular Girl''. We doubt whether in this age of political correctness they could even have  such a competition, listing the 4 winners. Things must have been very different in 1930!)

In the afternoon we took the Tunnel Tour at Fort Scratchley. The fort's claim to fame, as told by the volunteer guide, is that it held the only land-based gun to be fired at the Japanese in WWII. This occurred when a Japanese submarine surfaced to shell Newcstle town and the fort faught back! The tour took us underneath the fort to the powder rooms where supplies of black powder were kept at the ready. They developed ingenious procedures for supplying the numerous guns with powder and shells stored below.

We left Newcastle this morning, had a relaxing catchup and lunch with friends in Terrigal on the Central Coast and are now spending the first of 2 nights in Randwick, Sydney. It was lovely to catch up with emily and see her so happy and enjoying her research at the uni.