Visitors from Sydney

We love having visitors and were delighted to have Maureen and Sofie stay for several days recently.

Both are nursing professionals from Sydney. Maureen works for the NSW Air Ambulance (a high flyer no less) and Sofie at a local hospital accident and emergency department. We've known Sofie since we were all young, single people in Hobart, partying every weekend as though there was no tomorrow, so it was extra special seeing her and we were delighted to make a new friend of Maureen.

For a while Robin had to cope with not one, but three nurses in the house.

I took this photo of Maureen and Sofie on ANZAC Hill overlooking Alice Springs. Almost everyone who visits The Alice drives up the only lookout in an almost flat landscape (excluding the MacDonnell Ranges seen in the background) and gets a great 360 degrees view of the township.

For anyone who considers themselves to be a mountain climber, you can get a better view from the MacDonnells, but they are steep and it's a hard slog climbing to the top. The only vehicle access is on a private road owned by telecommunications company, Telstra which leads to the communications towers at the top of the ranges. Unfortunately, travelling on that road is prohibited, so it's climb or nothing.

While here the ladies followed in the footsteps of Mike and Linda Fairhart and went on an Emu Run Tour of Ayres Rock and Kings Canyon to the west of Alice Springs. They appeared to have had a good time visiting.

After leaving here they flew to Darwin and planned to fly back to Sydney after a short stay.

Our next visitors are due in early July; Diane and Gerry from Al Ain Women's College will also be doing the Emu Run Tour (hopefully the tour company will send me a carton of booze for all the business I've been passing their way ... oh yeah, that's right).

Robin

Travels in Victoria

While staying at our timeshare at Mansfield, 200km north of Melbourne, we visited several vineyards and Mt Bulla, which is a ski resort township in the Victorian Alps. One photo is of Michael and Linda on the Mt Bulla ski lift, an apparatus with which they - and any Canadian worth his/her salt - is highly familiar.

We had also visited Banrock Station, a vineyard in South Australia, before travelling east into Victoria. Banrock Station is an environmentally friendly wine producer with a wetlands bird-life sanctuary at its vineyard and produces wines in as environmentally friendly manner as is practicable eg, their wine casks come in totally recyclable cardboards.

Unfortunately, when wine tasting is on, someone has to drive. Here's a quiz: I'm the photographer. Look at the photo of Christina, Mike and Linda wine tasting and answer this question, "who do you think was driving?" Yes, of course, but the day before Christina drove and I joined in the wine tasting.

Occasionally, we stopped at small townships for coffee. You can see Linda and Christina enjoying theirs
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We dropped Mike and Linda off at Tor and Nadine Hansen's where they are close to Melbourne city centre for their last couple of days in Australia. We drove on to our second week of timeshare at the Nepean Country Club Resort near Rosebud south of Melbourne. Click here for info about the Club.

On Friday we head back to Alice Springs, a three day drive.

Robin

We are fortunate to have Mike and Linda Fairhart still holidaying with us enroute to Canada ex Al Ain. As Christina hadn't had a break for six months (midwifery is a hard life!), we decided we'd head south for a break while showing our guests part of Australia.

We travelled in our old, but reliable Toyota 4WD Forerunner diesel to meet Mike and Linda at Erldunda as they had been to Ayres Rock on a bus tour which terminated (for them) at Erldunda Roadhouse rather than have to travel another two hours north to The Alice.

At Erldunda Mike met and befriended a young kangaroo. A little bread goes a long way in making new friends.

Our first leg took us across the South Australian border where I took a photo of Mike and Linda as proof they had been there, done that.

The first major stop in SA was Coober Pedy, famous for being one of the world's largest opal producers. It's also a place where the heat of summer has driven people underground. The motel shown in the photo is an example of underground living where the hard rock has been carved out to make living space.

From Coober Pedy we headed south to Port Augusta and then east into the Murray River areas of New South Wales an Victoria. More about that soon. Watch this space.

Robin