Later in our 6-day stop in Sydney we walked from our hotel to the next harbor west, to visit the acquarium on Darling Harbor. (Larger) (Big as possible) This view from a bridge shows the HMAS Vampire on the left, docked at the National Maritime Museum, and downtown Sydney on th right, with a waterfront where cruise ships tie up.
Our next stop was the Hunter Valley, where we went to taste wine. We stayed at Belltrees, a ranch and B&B run by the same family for more than 100 years. (If you go to the Web site for Belltrees, you might get the impression that guests stay in an impressive 19th century mansion with a wide white veranda on two floors. Actually we slept in a smaller, more modern home called the Country House where the current owner was brought up.) We found that the Hunter Valley is also a center for horse studs and the scene of strip coal mining and several large coal-fired electrical power plants. The best part of the Hunter Valley on this trip was the birds, bird calls, and scenery. Mostly we heard the calls, and occasionally we could connect a call with a bird sighting. This picture shows some of the scenery near Belltrees. Here's another landscape, and this was taken from a bridge near the ranch house at twilight.
We headed south from the Hunter Valley, and looking for lunch near Singleton, we came across an old school house converted to a tea room and craft showroom. This picture shows most of the family that runs the Old Whttingham Schoolhouse. (Zoom in)
After lunch we continued down the Putty Road, which leads to the Blue Mountains, a weekend and summer vacation spot for Sydney since the 19th century. We stayed in a splendid B&B run by Ron Gamack, a weaver, documentary film maker and wonderful host in Blackheath. As we were drinking sherry with Ron, unwinding after a day of driving, we could watch parrots at his bird feeder and look out over his large garden, filling most of a city block. Ron steered us to good restaurants and good sightseeing, and his niece Fiona and her husband Tom, visiting Ron for the first time in 12 years, helped us plan the rest of our itinerary south to Melbourne. Ron recommended a visit to Mount Wilson, where we came across the splendid garden at Merry Garth. (Big as possible) The whole thing is the work of two people, and includes flower gardens, a rain forest, azaleas, exotic fowl, and reputedly lyre birds, though we missed seeing those.
From the Blue Mountains we moved southeast, to reach the coast south of Sydney. We put up for one night in a small farm house near the Shoalhaven River, just east of Nowra. Swanlea Farm has been in Jim Knapp's family for 100 years, and he and Jan have renovated a couple of rooms beautifully, while keeping the character of the original house intact. Jan has a lovely, small garden.
South of Nowra, we saw this blue roadside weed, which also grows in most fields, and is known as Patterson's Curse. Here's another example, which we drove by a couple of days later near Rutherglen, covering the distant hillside.
Pebbly Beach was reached by a 30 minute drive down a very rough dirt road, ending in a steep descent to the ocean, where a tame mob of kangaroos hangs out. Driving up, you are immediately met by a few kangaroos hanging about the trash bin, waiting to cadge handouts from fresh tourists, before they can see the Don't Feed the Kangaroos signs. I was also approached by a crimson rosella, who flew onto my hat. Mariana shot this picture while I was trying to photograph him myself with my camera at arm's length.
Leaving the coast, we turned west, and crossed the Snowy Mountains to get to our next wine district, at Rutherglen in Victoria. We stayed at Mt. Ophir, a former winery that was abandoned for many years before being converted to a B&B and emu and elk farm. We were lucky to find a room the night we showed up, since they were having a weekend wine tasting at various wineries in the neighborhood, and we joined a dozen other guests who were winding down after a big event the preceding night. The countryside near Rutherglen is beautiful.
We ended our Australian visit with 5 days in Melbourne, which has this splendid 19th century train station near the Yarra River. We stayed in a serviced apartment just north of the downtown, and walked past a park on the way back from dinner where we saw this bushytailed possum. There were no squirrels to be seen by day, but at night these possums, about the size of a large cat, came down from the trees to eat in the park. Though we'd heard several kookaburras calling at various places during our trip, we hadn't seen one so close up as this until we visited the Melbourne Zoo. We'd also seen a lot of road signs warning of wombats in the road at night, but this was the first we'd seen of real wombats. These guys are almost 3 feet long.
The food was great, the people straight forward and friendly, the sights were good, and there are a lot more places we want to see on another visit soon. We want to travel the south coast from Melbourne, to visit the Coonawara and Barossa Valley and other wine districts, to see Western Australia, Tasmania, the Northern Territory, Queensland, the Great Barrier Reef ... No end of vacations to take!
