Sunday, 18 May 2014
Hi All,
As many of you know, we are leaving Saturday May 24th for a five week trip down under. This will be Robin's longest vacation ever and my last continent (yes, as I'm often asked, I've been to Antarctica). While we miss the kids there are benefits of being empty nesters and repurposed respectively. It was precipitated by long time friends and traveling companions Kate and Aaron moving to Brisbane for six months. Aaron, lecturer at UW on Health Policy, has a sabbatical at the University of Brisbane from January to June this year. Nice if you can get it. Being an opportunist it was a good excuse for us to travel to the antipodes with them.
We will travel separately from K and A the first four weeks in a clockwise loop around Australia. See map below. After a week in Sydney we fly to Alice Springs in the Red Center and tour Uluru (Ayers Rock) and other natural features. Then we travel by train for 24 hours to the Top End for a three day camping trip outside of Darwin in Kakadu WHS (World Heritage Site) in the tropics. This is where Crocodile Dundee was filmed - if you care, I never saw it. This will be a test to see how we like train travel in anticipation of the Siberian Express or India. We fly again to Cairns and drive north to Port Douglas where we meet up with Kate and Aaron. Aaron and I plan to get our scuba certification refreshed there after over 40 years for me and almost as long for him. We scheduled a dive, whist the ladies snorkel, on the Great Barrier Reef. We part for a day as Robin and I visit her cousin and wine afficionado in Cairns before the four of us meet again in Brisbane and fly to several Fijian islands for the last 10 days. Hopefully more dives there.
As many of you know, we are leaving Saturday May 24th for a five week trip down under. This will be Robin's longest vacation ever and my last continent (yes, as I'm often asked, I've been to Antarctica). While we miss the kids there are benefits of being empty nesters and repurposed respectively. It was precipitated by long time friends and traveling companions Kate and Aaron moving to Brisbane for six months. Aaron, lecturer at UW on Health Policy, has a sabbatical at the University of Brisbane from January to June this year. Nice if you can get it. Being an opportunist it was a good excuse for us to travel to the antipodes with them.
We will travel separately from K and A the first four weeks in a clockwise loop around Australia. See map below. After a week in Sydney we fly to Alice Springs in the Red Center and tour Uluru (Ayers Rock) and other natural features. Then we travel by train for 24 hours to the Top End for a three day camping trip outside of Darwin in Kakadu WHS (World Heritage Site) in the tropics. This is where Crocodile Dundee was filmed - if you care, I never saw it. This will be a test to see how we like train travel in anticipation of the Siberian Express or India. We fly again to Cairns and drive north to Port Douglas where we meet up with Kate and Aaron. Aaron and I plan to get our scuba certification refreshed there after over 40 years for me and almost as long for him. We scheduled a dive, whist the ladies snorkel, on the Great Barrier Reef. We part for a day as Robin and I visit her cousin and wine afficionado in Cairns before the four of us meet again in Brisbane and fly to several Fijian islands for the last 10 days. Hopefully more dives there.
I made the mistake of having Robin read Travels in a Sunburnt Country by Bill Bryson in prep for the trip. Hilarious book about Australia's exploration, convict history and it's wildlife. But Robin has great fear of being eaten, stung, bitten, chewed on or otherwise harassed by creatures - and Australia has the lion's share of the worlds deadlist wildlife. So it'll be interesting. I have prosac with me.
Below the map is our itinerary. Historically, I prefer to be a little looser, but Australia is very busy now. I booked many of our places last december and recently when I had to make some changes it was difficult because they were full.
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Cheers Mate
Bill
Black - Trains
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Red - Planes
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