Speed Cameras

They love their speed cameras here. Every few km there is a big sign warning that speed cameras are in use. I don’t know how many cameras there are, but there sure are lots of signs.

I have been trying to drive the speed limit to 5 km over, but it is not easy. It is not bad on open highway where you can set the cruise and relax, except for going down steep hills. But it is difficult going through populated areas. It seems that there is a speed change every few hundred metres. From 100 on the highway, you might slow to 80, then 70, 60, 50, then 70, 80, 60, 90, 60, 50, 80, 70, 90, and finally 100. There are so many speed changes in a short distance that you sometimes forget what the last one was. You come off the highway, so you feel that you are going slowly. As you drive an unfamiliar car from the wrong side and on the wrong side of the road, watching for traffic, pedestrians, directional signs, street signs, and, maybe even to see some of the town, the speed creeps up on you without you noticing. You aim for 60-65 in the 60 zone, but when you look down, you are doing 72. I have tried using cruise, but much of the time you are on hills and the speed still creeps past the limit on the down side. And, when you are in traffic, you just get the cruise set when you get behind somebody going slower and have to turn it off anyway. Then, the next thing you know, you have lost the guy and the speed is creeping up again. I hope that the rental car company won’t have a pile of speeding ticket charges on my credit card when we turn the car in!

Mermaid Beach (for Feb.18)

This morning we started by touring Coffs Harbour. Its harbour and marina are protected by sea walls, making for a calm swimming beach. But outside the seawalls on both sides of the harbour are normal beaches with enough waves for surfing. We walked on the jetty, first built in 1892 and restored in 1997. The harbour was abuzz with people. Some were fishing from the jetty, many youngsters were jumping off the jetty into the water (about a 15 foot drop), some were swimming back and forth parallel to the shore, some were sunbathing and splashing around in the water, and some young kids were taking some kind of training on surf boards. On both of the surf beaches there were surfers, body surfers, sunbathers, and people fishing. And a dolphin was cruising around in the harbour looking for lunch.


From the beaches, we stopped at the Big Banana on our way out of town. It was so kitschy that we had to stop. It was actually a kind of amusement park with various attractions, many of which were out of service for renovations. The main attraction is a lookout tower on a hill overlooking Coffs Harbour. Quite a view. Of course, the other attraction is a wide selection of banana dishes celebrating the fact that the area is a huge producer of bananas. It wouldn’t be right to go on without sampling the local cuisine, would it?




We left Coffs at 2 and stopped in Byron Bay at 5. Byron Bay is another surfer’s haven. The point that separates the two beaches is the easternmost point on the Australian mainland and is topped by a historic lighthouse. We spent an hour checking out the lighthouse and taking a quick look at the beach. I would have liked to spend a little more time because it looked like an interesting place with lots of young people and lots of things going on, but we still had a way to go to reach our hotel. We stopped at Mermaid Beach, one of a string of beaches that goes on for many miles on the Gold Coast, south of Brisbane.

We settled in our hotel about 7:30 and went looking for something to eat. Across the street was a two-in-one pub. We ate in the Mermaid Beach Tavern upstairs. Downstairs was an East Indian place called the MADIRISHMAN Sports Bar. That seemed like an odd combination. As we left, we saw another sign with a space between the D and first I. It made more sense then.

The road today was mostly good two lane highway with frequent passing lanes and not too many towns until we hit the Gold Coast, so we were able to make good time. The terrain was hilly and forested along the coast at first. We turned inland for a while over a river delta where it was flat with some grazing, but mostly sugar cane for about 50 km. Then it was back to a hilly, forested coast until we hit the flatness of the Gold Coast Beaches.

How do you like the pictures? The new camera is less capable than my old one for more money, but what can you do?

They say they have free wireless internet here, so I am going to try it out now and see if I can post this.

Greg V. emailed that the wind chill was -50. No offense, but…At last! It wouldn’t be right to travel to the other side of the world if we didn’t escape at least one cold spell, would it? Is it really that cold or is he just pulling our legs to make us feel better?

Laura sent us an email about how everybody took such good care of her on her birthday. THanks everybody. It made us feel sad to hear all that we had missed out on. We will have to make up for it with a big party when we return.

Coffs Harbour (for Feb. 17)

First thing this morning we went to a nearby internet café for an hour to post the last 4 days of blogging and download our email and financial information. From there we went to a lookout on the highest hill in the area and took some pictures with Celeste’s camera. What a view! The sky was almost totally clear and blue. Next, we went back to the beach where we had our 4WD adventure yesterday. We walked the beach, took some pippi pictures (not as gross as it sounds) with Celeste’s camera, and retook yesterday’s beach pictures with a blue sky. Finally, we drove back to Newcastle to pick up our Japan Rail Passes and find a camera store. After a few tries we found one that had a new model similar to my old one at a decent price and the deal was done. We finally got out of town and on the road at 3:30.

We settled into our hotel 400 km north in Coffs Harbour by 8. The road was good, freeway for about half the way, with most of the rest being good 2 lane road, although there were frequent towns in those stretches. The hilliest terrain was usually forested park, while the more level stretches were used for grazing cattle.

Fortunately, Unfortunately

Unfortunately, the digital camera is broken.
Fortunately, it wasn’t me who broke it!
Fortunately, I still have my camera.
Unfortunately, it is one of those old fashioned film cameras.
Unfortunately, there will be no photos posted for awhile.

PS. Sliding down sand dunes is a blast! Uphill, not so much.

Port Stephens (for Feb. 16)

We went downtown for a walk along the “Foreshore” this morning. The Foreshore is a redevelopment of the habour shoreline into parks and cafes.

Another stop was at a travel agent for our Japan Rail passes. We didn’t realize how these worked until just before leaving home. Then, we understood we had to get them out of Toronto or Vancouver and we thought it was too risky to try to pull it off over Christmas with us leaving on Jan. 5. They also have a three month time limit, which was a factor. So we planned to get them over here. Now we realize that you can get them through most travel agents, wholesaled through the larger agencies. Anyway, we ordered ours today and should have them tomorrow.


From Newcastle we drove to the nearby Port Stephens area. It is a resort area of communities on the shores of a long sea inlet. We took a 4 wheel drive tour of the 32 km long Stockton Sand Dunes area. It has a very wide and flat beach with low, vegetation covered dunes behind it and higher uncovered dunes behind them. The tour was in a 4WD bus through the dunes. It was like the opening scenes of the old Rat Patrol TV show with jeeps flying through the air. The driver warned everyone to do up their seat belts so they wouldn’t’ hit their heads on the ceiling. He immediately headed off the level track and through the hummocks of the dunes. We were near the front, so had only a moderately rough Disney ride, but the people at the back were shrieking with excitement as they were separated from their seats, only held in place by their belts.


We climbed to the top of one of the high dunes for a period of “tobogganing” down the dunes on a skid a little longer than a skateboard. It was very much like the tobogganing back home, except you get sand in your mouth instead of snow. OK, not much sand, but a little. And not just in your mouth, but other places you can imagine. And, just like at home, the exhilaration of the ride to the bottom was offset by the struggle of the climb to the top. Fortunately, it was another overcast day and not too hot – maybe mid 20’s – so it wasn’t too bad.

And all the while, we were entertained by 3 F18s doing circuits at the nearby RAAF base. We saw an F18 fly by low along the coast when we were touring the shore in Newcastle yesterday. It appears that they come up from Sydney for circuits and return.

As we left the bus for the tobogganing, I took my camera along for a couple of pictures. I then put it back for safe keeping. And it was stolen! No, the bus drove over it! No, a little voice told me that it would be safe in my pocket with the button down flap. Liar!! I should have listened to the other little voice that said I was bound to get some sand in it! Anyway, it got jammed with sand and the lens wouldn’t retract, then, even worse, one of the lens extensions broke. Ouch! We can’t very well do the rest of the trip without a camera, so I guess we will be doing some shopping tomorrow.

When we were all too pooped to climb the hill anymore, we bounced over some more dunes to the beach where we dug for pippis. These are little clam-like animals that live an inch or two under the sand and filter feed. When you dig them up, they spit out a little jet of water. When left on the sand for a few minutes, they open up enough to stick out a wide, thin tongue-like muscle and dig their way back into the sand. Pretty cool. I would have taken some pictures, but…

From the 4WD tour we went to our hotel and for a little walk. Although we have seen several kookaburras in captivity and in the wild, we heard two of them “laughing” for the first time today. They do sound a little like humans laughing. I have been meaning to comment on the wildlife here for some time. It is funny how, to us, it is all so exotic, but here it is normal. Here, kangaroos and wombats are road kill instead of deer and porcupines. And the birds here are so colourful compared to those at home. They all seem like they could only be found in a zoo instead of flying freely in the wild. Just today we saw kookaburras, bright green parrots with red flashes on the wings, a black and white magpie-like bird that perched on the railing of our balcony while I was eating (I might have given him something until he crapped on the railing.), a pigeon-like bird with more colour and a plume on the top of its head, an ibis, and some grey cockatoos with red heads and a red flash on their chests. Then, of course, there are the white cockatoos we saw the other day and the wild emus we saw in a field at Sunbury. It seems like the whole country is a zoo of exotic animals.

We have a beautiful view from our hotel room again tonight. In the evening there was a thunderstorm off the main coast. Although we are on the water, we are on an inlet from the sea a few miles from the actual coast. It was very interesting to be in a peaceful place watching the storm a few miles away. Then the sun burst through the clouds behind us, lighting up the shore across the bay. It was very beautiful. I would have taken a picture, but…

Newcastle (for Feb. 15)

We left Gosford at 10 and drove through a few of the small towns on the coast, stopping for a walk on the beach at Terrigal. We then turned inland toward the Hunter Valley Vineyards. We toured around for a bit, finally stopping for a tasting and buying a couple of bottles of their cheapest hooch. We had to do it for the experience!


Having achieved our goal for the day, we had to decide where to stay for the night. Newcastle wasn’t even on our radar, but the fellow at the winery said it had a lot to offer, so we checked it out in our guide book and decided to give it a try. We pulled into the hotel, had a bite to eat and went out touring about 6. We managed to take in all the sights on our list before dark. Nobby’s Head is a landmark and lighthouse at the entrance to the harbour.



The Ocean Baths is a huge salt water swimming pool on the beach and the Canoe Pool is an adjacent paddling pool just off Newcastle Beach. The Bogey Hole is a small pool that an early governor had dug out of the rock on the shore by convicts. The Obelisk is a landmark on the highest point of land in the area with a 360 degree view. From one of the lookouts, we also spotted a pod of dolphins (do dolphins travel in pods?). And we also marveled at an armada of ships offshore, presumably waiting to enter the harbour. I counted 19 for sure, and possibly a 20th behind one of the others.

The day was mostly overcast with occasional weak sunny breaks, but it was nice and warm. It got quite windy in the evening as we toured Newcastle.

Gosford (for Feb. 14 Happy Valentine’s Day!)

We left the hotel at 9:30 under a low overcast. As we climbed up into the Blue Mountains, the cloud became fog and mist – not the best scenario when the task for the day is to observe scenery. By the time we reached our first objective, Wentworth Falls, visibility was quite poor, but the overcast seemed a little patchy, like it might break up soon. We decided to take a hike down to one of the observation points and hope for improved conditions. We started to get some light drizzle, but from the viewpoint you could see some brighter spots in the valley below. It didn’t make much sense to sit and wait, so we decided to hike to another viewpoint and keep our hopes up. At the second point it was still pretty foggy so we gave up and returned to the car. Celeste’s hip was pretty sore from all the steps down and back up. We got a few pictures of nearby features, but we were pretty disappointed that we couldn’t see more than a mile or two.





Next stop was a series of viewpoints at Katoomba. With fingers crossed, we pressed on. To our surprise, the cloud had lifted, giving decent visibility below cloud, and there were even some breaks allowing the sun to shine through. Here we walked and drove around, taking in the views, although Celeste wasn’t able to participate fully.


The last stop was Blackheath, which promised views of the Australian Grand Canyon on the opposite (north) side of the escarpment. The nearer we got, the lower the ceiling until we were again in fog that grew thicker until visibility was down to about 50 metres. We pressed on to the viewpoints, hoping for the best, but the visibility didn’t improve, so we turned back along our original course. We had planned to make a loop by continuing on another road on the north side of the canyon, but I expected similar poor conditions on that route, so we returned on the one we had just driven that had been pretty good. Although our route was only 65 km each way on the map, all the walking, driving around, and observing took us all day, as we passed by our start point at 5:30 en route to our stopping point for the night.

The road into the Mountains was quite good – wide, with good shoulders and no sharp curves, although it wound back and forth quite a bit. It was even divided in a few places. The speed limit varied from 60 kmph through the many towns in that short distance to 80 kmph when things opened up. After passing our starting point, we drove 30 km on freeway, 20 km on ‘Lewvan Drive’ type city streets, 50 km on freeway, and the last 10 km in Gosford, arriving in our hotel at 7:30. The last stretch of freeway was pretty impressive, with some huge cuts through rock.

Every time we turn on the radio or TV in the last couple of days, all we hear about is the Bali 9. This is the group of kids that tried to smuggle heroin from Bali to Australia. So far, two have been sentenced to death and four to life in prison with three more to be sentenced tomorrow. Everybody has an opinion. “They knew what they were getting into and now they should face the music.” “The penalty is too severe and they should be shown leniency.” “The Australian police are to blame because the parents of one boy tipped them off and they didn’t stop him.”

Penrith (for Feb. 13)

We checked out his morning and went to the nearby internet shop to post our blog. Pretty good deal - $4.50 for 1.5 hours. From there we went to MacQuarrie’s Point, where we were last night, to take some more pictures. Unfortunately, my camera batteries died and I didn’t get all I wanted, but here is one of Celeste at Mrs. MacQuarrie’s Chair. Mrs. M was the wife of the first governor. He had some convict workers carve a chair out of the rock for her in 1816 because she liked the view of the harbour from there.


Next stop was Bondi Beach. Apparently you haven’t been to Sydney unless you have been there, so we went. I even went in the water! It is fairly shallow and the waves break in front of the beach. There were a lot of people body surfing and just playing in the waves. It was a lot of fun. They say the main action is on the weekend, but we are more interested in nearby parking, so Monday was fine with us. There were quite a few people there for a Monday. I can’t imagine a weekend crowd. And yes, some of the girls are topless. Celeste erased my 102 pictures though!



Here is what some guy drove to the beach. You don’t see a Lamborghini in Regina every day – especially not in February. The guy noticed me admiring it and offered to take me for a ride. I said, “No thanks. I just had a ride in a Porsche a few days ago.”


We left about 3:30 because we wanted to beat the rush hour traffic enroute to Penrith, west of Sydney and at the foot of the Blue Mountains, tomorrow’s goal. It still took us an hour and a half to get across the city through some fairly heavy traffic. We don’t always get a great view from out hotel room window. Here is tonight’s view – a painted concrete wall.

At dusk we were again serenaded by a huge flock of those white cockatoos. What a racket! There were a few hundred of them in a clump of trees in front of the hotel.

Afterthoughts by Glenn

When we were walking around Sydney on Saturday, Feb. 11, there were wedding parties being photographed wherever we went. We must have seen nearly 10. Another popular activity was wedding receptions on chartered cruise boats. We saw about 3 of those too.

They have a huge campaign on here aimed at falling asleep while driving. There are signs every few km asking if you are feeling sleepy and suggesting that you pull over and have a rest. There must be a dozen different variations.

The sand on some of the beaches here squeaks! Especially if you drag your feet. I am not sure exactly what causes it. It has to be fairly fine sand and quite dry, although, of two sections of dry sand on the same beach, the one nearer the water squeaked while the one farther from the water didn’t.

Canadiana Odds 'n' Sods

The John Candy movie ‘Cool Running’ was the movie on TV tonight (Feb. 10). Winter Olympics are starting you know.

We stopped to buy fresh roasted nuts from a street vendor in the market square. Of course, once she heard us talk, she asked us if we were from Canada. Turns out, she is from the Yukon working and traveling like Carla and Tyler did. Apparently, she has relatives in Saskatchewan around the Prince Albert area.

When we were on St. Kilda’s beach in Melbourne, there were posters and billboards everywhere announcing the premiere for the movie ‘Just Friends’ which was filmed in Regina.

Sydney (for Feb. 12)

We weren’t sure what we should do today, so, by the time we made some decisions and got out the door, it was after 10:30. We first stopped at the ANZAC War Memorial in a park near our hotel. It is not just a cenotaph, but a substantial building, with a two story viewing hall of a large monument, a small museum, and offices for some veteran’s affairs groups.


We then walked to the Chinese Garden, a gift from Guangdong province to New South Wales as a symbol of friendship, arriving at 11:30. It is a little piece of tranquil paradise in the heart of the city. It is so carefully thought out with winding paths through the plantings. At every corner you are greeted with a new view, often of the same elements, but from a different perspective. They explain it all with a bunch of hooey about yin and yang and the symbolism of every rock, plant, and pool. I don’t buy all that mumbo jumbo, but they sure know how to lay out an attractive landscape.

I dragged Celeste out kicking and screaming after an hour and a half. She would have gladly stayed all day getting ideas for me to implement in our yard at home.

We grabbed some lunch, and then wandered over to Paddy’s Market, a four days a week market similar to the Victoria Market in Melbourne, by 2 PM. Once again, virtually every consumer product under the sun was available. Their food section was much smaller than Melbourne though. Celeste needed some new sun glasses, but, by the time we checked out the whole place for t-shirts, we had spent an hour. We then made our way to the Maritime Museum again, as they had an exhibit on Vikings we wanted to check out. We were there from 3:30 to closing time at 5, enough time for landlubbers in a ship museum, but we could have easily spent much longer if we had wanted to.

After the museum, we parked ourselves on a bench at Darling Harbour, rested our weary feet, and watched the world go by. Well rested, we next wandered over to the casino to see if it was any bigger than Casino Regina. It was. Who would have guessed it? Maybe 10 times as big – just like Vegas. After a quick walkthrough, we tried to squeeze in a harbour cruise, but we were too late for the last one of the day. Maybe another day.


We thought our day was done as we headed back toward our hotel with a slight detour to check out some downtown walking streets. I took some pictures of some of the many pre 1900 buildings that are so full of character, but, in most cases, there was either stuff in the way or you couldn’t get back far enough to get a good picture. Only a few blocks from home, we decided to squeeze in a few minutes at the Royal Botanic Garden before it closed at 8. Thus began a whole new series of scintillating adventures.


First, we were just in time to witness the hordes of bats come to life for the evening. It was like those old movies of World War I dogfights. They were joined by the raucous squawking of some white cockatoos (I think that is what they are.). Then, we stumbled upon an outdoor film festival. They have a fold down movie screen mounted in the water that they open up to show the movie and what looked like permanent seats on the shore. We weren’t interested in the movie and we were too tired to stay anyway. It was still light when we came upon it, so we continued our walk to the scenic lookout at the end of the point and returned later for a picture with the screen open. From there, we dragged ourselves back after 9. After culling and renaming pictures (only 84 today), composing the blog, getting ready for bed, and watching the end of a movie that Celeste had on TV, it was finally lights out at midnight.

Sydney (for Laura’s birthday – Have a happy one, Laura!)

We went to bed late last night so, by the time we got going and figured out what we were going to do, we didn’t get out of the hotel until 10:30. Shortly after 11, we caught the Sydney Explorer bus, a two hour tour of points of interest in the downtown area. It was not a tour bus in the usual sense, but a city bus aimed at the tourist trade. It stopped at 26 places where you could get off if you wanted to and catch another bus on that route later.



We rode most of the way around and got off under the Harbour Bridge on the opposite side of Sydney Cove from the Sydney Opera House. We took some pictures and toured a trendy shopping area called “The Rocks” where they also had a street market on Saturday. We grabbed lunch at an outdoor square that had excellent live entertainment, then continued to work our way around the cove toward the Opera House. The whole area was filled with throngs of people and hundreds of shops of all description, especially outdoor cafes. We found a statue of William Bligh, captain of the Bounty, that said he was really a great guy who had been misunderstood, and a Didgeridoo band. The ferry terminal and harbour cruise terminal are here and there is a steady stream of large boats in and out.
We decided that, since we had already toured the major points of interest, we would skip the harbour cruise. The main attraction we wanted to take in was the Sydney Aquarium at Darling Harbour, so we started working our way back in that direction, with a detour back toward the Harbour Bridge, so I could get a picture in better light than when we first got off.

The aquarium was open until 10, so we decided to try the National Maritime Museum a short distance away. Unfortunately, we only got there 15 minutes before it closed at 5, so we toured some of the outside exhibits, including replicas of Captain Cook’s ship, the Endeavour, and the Bounty, of Mutiny on the Bounty fame. Then it was back to the aquarium at 5:30.
The Sydney Aquarium was everything we hoped it would be. The only disappointment was that the seal exhibit was closed for a private function. How can they justify charging the public the full price of admission, and then close an exhibit for a private function? Ron Sprung knows how I feel – ripped off. The highlight was the Oceanarium, in which you walk through a Plexiglas tunnel and the fish, big scary ones, swim by you. Very cool.


Another highlight was the Great Barrier Reef exhibit. There was a huge tank filled with the larger fish, big scary ones again, as well as smaller tanks filled with all the most colourful small reef fish you might find in a salt water aquarium.

By the time we got out at 8:30 it was dark and we were starving. Another throng of people had descended on this area. The perimeter of the bay is wall to wall eating establishments, virtually every one with a lineup. We finally found a place with a table and ate at 9. We then toured the harbour again, soaking up the atmosphere. It was a ‘happening’ place on a Saturday night.



We had planned to ride the monorail earlier in the day, but things didn’t work out. It is a 4 km above ground circuit around the Darling Harbour area. We rode all the way around, and then part way a second time to a stop near our hotel. A few short blocks later we were finally back in our room just before 11. By the time I wrote the day’s story and culled some of the 154 pictures we took, it was after 12:30 when I hit the sack. We are tired puppies. Should sleep well tonight.

Sydney (for Feb. 10)

We checked out of the hotel at 10, toured around a bit, and checked out the Internet Café. It was very reasonable ($5/hr; $3/half hour), so we took the laptop back to catch up on posting our pictures. I found the reason that we were having trouble – they don’t support Netscape 8.0. Funny that it worked until now. Anyway, it went pretty smoothly after I used Internet Explorer. Celeste went for a haircut, but still had to wait quite a while for me as it took 2.5 hours for the blogging, email, and Japan Rail research I was doing. At the time, it seemed like a long time to spend, but necessary to get caught up. It was 2 PM by the time we got some lunch and hit the road.

We stopped at Nowra at 3:30 to tour Australia’s Museum of Flight at a Naval Air Station. Unfortunately, all that blogging time came back to haunt us as the museum closed at 4. I made a quick run through and we got back on the road.

Although it is less than 300 km from Bateman’s Bay to Sydney, it took us until 7 to get to our hotel, 4.5 hours after deducting the museum tour. Although the speed limit for the first 200 km was 100 kmph, we could not keep anywhere near that pace. Many timid drivers drove 10-20 kmph below the limit. Between the winding road and the heavy opposite direction traffic, the only place to pass was on dedicated passing lanes. Even there, it was difficult to pass more than one or two cars because other passers passed so conservatively. Then we hit 20 km of freeway, followed by 10 km of city driving, followed by another 20 km of freeway, and finally another 50 km of city driving. I guess it is hard to build freeway through a city that is already well established. The terrain was hilly and green with a roughly equal mix of forest, farmland with ample trees, and built up areas.

We squeezed into the world’s tightest underground car park and, after a bite to eat, we went out exploring. Boy, these Sydney guys sure are friendly! They all seem to walk in pairs around here, so nobody will be lonely. Except one guy we saw wearing leather pants and also a leather harness on his torso with no shirt. But I am sure he will find a friend soon. And there are some very interesting looking shops and bars. Carla and Tyler, did you ever visit Oxford Street?

Checking our guide book, we found that Sydney’s gay community, apparently rivaled only by San Francisco’s, is centred around Oxford Street, about a block from our hotel. And February is a month long festival for them. Party time! I don’t begrudge their right to live the life they choose, but, like nuclear physics, I just don’t get it. It’s all too much of a spectacle for a small town boy from Saskatchewan.