Awake to hot and humid and overcast/sun. Packing up and getting ready to depart. Phyllis makes a beautiful breakfast of smoked
salmon on toast topped with an egg cooked in a red pepper ring. Sorry to leave the Knights, it has been a
very nice stay and they have provided a great tour of the area! Phyllis preparing for a long weekend of 70th
birthday celebration. Heard from Brenna,
she had her 28 week appt this week. Baby
and she are doing fine and are on target.
Ray takes us to the airport (south of the city) and we board Qantas for
Cairns/Palm Cove. Our seats are economy and very little space and completely filled
flight. It is a three hour flight with a
one hour time change. We see downtown
Sydney from the air and the opera house.
Glimpses of the outback, lots of farms and red dirt, not many people. Lots of cloud cover, we are flying into a storm. Cairns and 92 degrees. The heat and humidity are following us!
Qantas very generous with good but simple lunch, ice cream snack, drinks and a
movie. Land in Cairns with rain in the
area but sun and cloud where we are. The
heat and humidity hit us like a wall as we exit the airport. It’s a small airport but with International
concourse. We rent from Hertz and old
gold card gets us an upgrade to a Nissan SUV. Chuck doing a good job
remembering to keep Pat ‘in the gutter’, aka passenger on the left, in order to
keep to the other side of the road. We
drive north with roundabouts about every mile.
Pass small groceries/shops/Mc’D’s.
Arrive at Palm Cove. Have rented
a unit from friend’s of Knights. Lovely
open air reception area looking onto a huge, beautiful pool, surrounded with
huge Gum trees and palms. The unit is on
the first floor looking over the beach and ocean and main street. The street is slow and sparse moving, we are
in low season and practically have the resort to ourselves. The unit is one bedroom and large full
bathroom, living room/kitchen area with another bath/laundry/utility room. The lanai runs the full length of the unit
with separate siding doors from LR and BR.
We walk to a small bar below us for our celebration drink, local beer
and fresh mango smoothie daiquiri! Walk
along the beach to the pier, about one mile, where people are fishing for not
sure what. Signs warning us that crocs
and stinger jelly fish can be in the area. Nice premonitory of rocks, always sandstone. Walk back to the Almond Beach, looks like a
beach shack but inside very elegant with open air dining. It’s Asian fusion, Pat get octopus and barramundi
in banana leaf and Chuck get scallops.
Nice Pinot Gris from NZ. Walk
back to unit in the rain, very tropical rain with start stop. It’s early evening but we are tired. Crank up the AC and into bed.
Welcome
Rambler’s Blog –PatnChuck Pacific Adventure 2016 (February 12 - April 12, 2016)
A word about this blog…. It has been our goal in recent years’ lengthier travels to record for posterity a diary of travel stats, pictures, and personal reflections. So, when we can no longer indulge in trains, planes and automobiles we may relive fond memories. We have invited a few friends and family to ride along through this travel blog (a combo of blather and log), risking exposure to bad puns, spelling errors and sore feet complaints.
It has been our dream to visit Australia and New Zealand for years. Our Australian friends who we met while living in Scotland, the Knights, have invited us many times. With Chuck finally retired it’s time to go! We have planned a whirlwind tour of the Pacific. We are fortunate to front load the tour with a diversion to Alaska and extra time in Sydney staying with friends and time at Palm Cove Resort near Great Barrier Reef. We are able to back load the trip with 5 days in Oahu (Honolulu) for R&R before returning home.
For Oz and NZ we chose a AAA tour as it offers the most comprehensive experience in a good amount of time. We fly from point to point through Australia which is similar in size to the US (New South Wales, Queensland, Northern Territory, Victoria and Tasmania) and bus tour through North and South Islands of New Zealand. We have several opportunities to learn about the Aborigine and Maori native people. We chose the fall season, taking a chance with transition weather but much less heat and being present for the grape harvest at some of the famous Oz, NZ wineries. Their seasons are reversed from ours and they live a whole day later in time. And then there are Oz opals that know no season!
This trip is particularly special because of being with family, old and new friends. We will visit Brenna and Zach in their new Anchorage home and have a baby shower for little scooter due in May; we will visit Phyllis and Ray Knight in their Killara home north of Sydney; we will stay overnight with a native New Zealand family; and we will meet travelers along the way.
Onward and upward. We enjoy knowing friends and family are with us in spirit. We will lift a few glasses of great southern hemisphere wines and ales, meander through cities, mountains and desert, and have a few shrimp on the barbie!
Pat and Chuck
* We may not have daily access to Internet so updates may be delayed, but once they appear they will be in sequence
* The blog includes pictures based on the day’s blog, sometimes delayed depending on schedule and access.
* A map of our route appears on the Homepage.
A word about this blog…. It has been our goal in recent years’ lengthier travels to record for posterity a diary of travel stats, pictures, and personal reflections. So, when we can no longer indulge in trains, planes and automobiles we may relive fond memories. We have invited a few friends and family to ride along through this travel blog (a combo of blather and log), risking exposure to bad puns, spelling errors and sore feet complaints.
It has been our dream to visit Australia and New Zealand for years. Our Australian friends who we met while living in Scotland, the Knights, have invited us many times. With Chuck finally retired it’s time to go! We have planned a whirlwind tour of the Pacific. We are fortunate to front load the tour with a diversion to Alaska and extra time in Sydney staying with friends and time at Palm Cove Resort near Great Barrier Reef. We are able to back load the trip with 5 days in Oahu (Honolulu) for R&R before returning home.
For Oz and NZ we chose a AAA tour as it offers the most comprehensive experience in a good amount of time. We fly from point to point through Australia which is similar in size to the US (New South Wales, Queensland, Northern Territory, Victoria and Tasmania) and bus tour through North and South Islands of New Zealand. We have several opportunities to learn about the Aborigine and Maori native people. We chose the fall season, taking a chance with transition weather but much less heat and being present for the grape harvest at some of the famous Oz, NZ wineries. Their seasons are reversed from ours and they live a whole day later in time. And then there are Oz opals that know no season!
This trip is particularly special because of being with family, old and new friends. We will visit Brenna and Zach in their new Anchorage home and have a baby shower for little scooter due in May; we will visit Phyllis and Ray Knight in their Killara home north of Sydney; we will stay overnight with a native New Zealand family; and we will meet travelers along the way.
Onward and upward. We enjoy knowing friends and family are with us in spirit. We will lift a few glasses of great southern hemisphere wines and ales, meander through cities, mountains and desert, and have a few shrimp on the barbie!
Pat and Chuck
* We may not have daily access to Internet so updates may be delayed, but once they appear they will be in sequence
* The blog includes pictures based on the day’s blog, sometimes delayed depending on schedule and access.
* A map of our route appears on the Homepage.
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