Listons Down Under

REFLECTIONS ON AUSTRALIA Australia is a very beautiful country, but it is suffering at the moment from the bush fires around Adelaide, Melbourne and Sydney. We were very lucky with our time in Australia as we were only impacted to a very minor degree although we watched the fire reports for the roads all the time. We couldn't go to the Blue Mountains and we had some ash fall on the balcony of our hotel in Sydney. During our first few weeks in Australia, there were news items on the bush fires but, at that stage, the fires were minor compared with how they developed at the beginning of January. It is good to see that help is being given from so many other countries. We are currently in Arrowtown in New Zealand and two schoolgirls were raising money in support of the Australian fire fighters.  People are really taking notice of the present catastrophic situation.  Perth was a very special stop over as it gave us a chance to meet family that we hadn't seen for years and to mee...

RETURN TO SYDNEY Interesting drive to Sydney competing with huge trucks on the steep winding 3 lane road narrowing to approach the Sydney Harbour Bridge (SHB)! (see picture right) After all the smaller towns we had forgotten about driving in the city traffic but reached our 'old' hotel down by The Rocks.  Lovely welcome by the staff but only stopped to drop off our bags and left to battle fuel top up and find the car drop off place.  An hour plus later ....We finally returned to the hotel and all angst was forgotten when we reached our apartment to find a 70th birthday celebratory bottle of red wine from the hotel to David.  Once again, after 9 years, we had the pleasure of the view from our balcony of the SHB to the left and the Opera House slightly right (see picture left).  Bags down, off we went to get organised. Now we can ride a tram (which only opened on 14th Dec) to Woolworths opposite the QVB (Queen Victoria Building) and visit the basement which is a r...

HUNTER VALLEY We left Port Macquarie for the 3 hour drive to Hunter Valley. For a major wine area, Hunter Valley keeps itself well hidden. There are no signs to the wine region or to Pokolbin, which is the main town in Hunter Valley. Once we left the main A1 highway and turned on to the B56 it became more difficult to find our way as our GPS still wasn't working. In the end, we knew we were not far away so we stopped a man getting into his car and asked him directions. Luckily, he knew exactly where we were going and let us follow him most of the way. We were staying at the voco Kirkton Park Hotel, owned by Inter Continental Hotels. The hotel looked very good, spread out in one storey buildings over a wide area. Very nice people on the front desk who answered most of our questions. We were surprised that there wasn't a shuttle or tour bus to take us to some wineries so we had to book a private wine trip with Gaz. We were shown to the Manor House, with a very pleasant room wi...

NEXT STOP PORT MACQUARIE We had one more breakfast at Dave's in Yamba before taking the road out of town only stopping to buy a bottle of chardonnay at the Liquor Store and a peaked hat for David with Yamba written on it. Back on the freeway, we were at last beyond the roadworks so were able to go at full speed. En route we stopped at Coff's Harbour. This was somewhere that we had considered staying, but everybody told us to avoid the place. Nontheless, we took the sign for the jetty and went through an industrial part of town, not very pretty, but arrived at the jetty. At the Surf Club there was a sign saying coffee served all day. They lied, the coffee shop shut at 4 pm and it was now nearly 4.30. We were soon back on the freeway, glad that we hadn't stayed there. The journey was quite short and pretty soon we were turning into Hastings River Drive, towards our hotel - Sails by Rydges.  Ultra modern design and very welcoming. Our room was on the ground floor, with a ...

YAMBA As we left the Gold Coast we were on the coast road at last. There were miles and mile of beaches (see picture right) from Broad Beach down and a lovely road that ran parallel to the beaches. Some of them, like the one at Nobby's Beach had sports equipment that you could use (see picture left) so David took advantage. We carried on down the coast as far as we could and then decided to have lunch.   I never thought we would ever join a surf club but as food and drink were only available to members we had to join (see picture right).  Lovely friendly atmosphere.  After lunch we were back on the motorway, heading for Byron Bay.  This was one of the big places in the '70s but had become too famous and consequently too expensive. We only wanted to look at the place, but getting in and out was horrendous due to heavy traffic and winding roads, and when we did stop by the (small) beach it was very smelly. Fortunately, we had already decided not to stay ...

GOLDEN DAYS We picked up the hire car in Brisbane, a nice white Toyota Corolla. At first we struggled to get our large suitcases in, but a little jiggling around soon sorted out the problem. We had intended to take the coast road out of Brisbane, but the girls in the car hire office seemed to think that we had to go on the freeway. They had no thoughts as to how we might achieve our wishes. Instead, we had to rely on the GPS. After a few minutes of discussion,we relented and set out on our way. The freeway was like driving up to Birmingham on the M40 only much brighter but not seeing much of the local countryside. After about an hour, we stopped at a service station for some refreshments. Linda asked if they had any road maps and was met with a blank stare. 'Nobody has road maps, all you need is your GPS,' came the reply. We got back in the car and that was when we found out we had a dodgy GPS. It had trouble getting a signal. After a while, the GPS came back to life, but ...

BEAUTIFUL BRIZZI The big decision when we arrived at Brisbane Aiport was whether to take the Airtrain or the Shuttle. The Airtrain only took about 20 minutes as opposed to 50 minutes for the Shuttle but was more expensive and did not drop us outside our hotel as the Shuttle did. Decision made. The Adina Hotel was very centrally located. Opposite the Central Railway Station on ANZAC Square (see picture 1), in the Central Business District (CBD). We were right next to the main shopping centres and minutes from City Hall. Great location but it was a pity that the bed was almost too big for the bedroom and made sockets and the safe challenging. However, it had a nice sitting area, adequate kitchen and breakfast area and (most importantly) a washing machine!!! Having arrived just before 6 o'clock in the evening we took a walk down Creek Street to explore the eateries in the newish area of Eagle Street which were right on the river. With quite a selection we chose Go Centro and it wa...