Travelogue :  Wanderlust : Travel in broken bits

Travelogue-Specials:

sign the guestbook of this travelogue!

This was a family trip, my dad and mom wanted to come along with us. So with the hostels booked,the rough guide purchased, the parents warned in advance not to do something too embarassing we left KL for Melbourne.

I think my dad really was into the whole backpacking thing except he had to have an ensuite room in the hostel. In Melbourne we mostly walked around , went to the Victoria's market etc. I didnt quite enjoy Melbourne, but anyways...

Since there was an airshow in town all the rental agencies were out of cars so we booked ourselves on a tour down to the Great Ocean Road incl. the 12 apostles, and also one for the Prince Phillip Island to see the penguins.

what i really liked about the great ocean road were all the small towns we passed like Lorne...and the tour bus was a small coach so i liked that a lot. the 12 apostles took our breath away, they looked so majestic and the view was great. photos dont do the scene justice.

As for the other tour, the penguins failed us. only 5 turned up. so all the effort, us sitting like idiots on the beach at night,freezing away, and just 5 turned up. ...but those 5 behaved so funnily that we enjoyed their antics nonetheless..it would have been amazing if the usual number had turned up..but thats nature i guess..totally unpredictable..

As part of the penguin tour the guide also took us to an animal farm where everyone got to stamp on kangaroo dump and check those roos out..we aso got a chance to carry a wallabie..that was the , the wallabie is one cool dude animal as the following photo should show you...

we also took a tour to get us from Melbourne to Sydney. It was a 3 d 2 n tour and we stopped at many places along the way, a fun and a cheaper way of going to Sydney...some of the places we stopped by were Ned Kelly's town, Khancoban, Mt. Kusciusko, Thredbo, Snowy Mountain range, Katoomba Blue Mountains, Three Sisters, Canberra, Jenolan Caves etc.

The Katoomba Blue Mountains YHA was voted as Australia's best hostel and rightly so...very cozy and just a hop skip and jump from the 3 sisters..

oh well, so when the tour did come to an end it was a bit sad coz we'd got to know everyone quite well. the guy from Hong Kong who was too busy taking snaps with his huge SLR camera, everyone called him HongKong coz nobody could remember his name..or the nice old couple from Israel..i think my parents made some friends too ;p

bus dropped us off at our sydney hostel, we checked in the rough guide in hand tried to find our way to Darling Harbour..took lots of snaps, i loved sydney 10 times more than melbourne..we also caught the matilda catamaran for the darling harbour cruise..nice sunny day, cool breeze..it was a good day..going under the bridge, past the opera house..things you always see on the telly..now seemed larger than life..

other places we went were the botanical gardens , the walk to macquarie's chair..the rocks..we walked up to the harbor bridge..on our last day we took the ferry to Manly beach..the views were good and the beach was similar ot blackpool but on a smaller scale..we saw surfer dudes and spent the whole day on the beach..papa was happy coz some of the guys recognised his chelsea jersey and they had a good laugh about it..

well that was our trip Down Under. we had fun, mom and papa had fun. we managed to do whatever we wanted to see..but australia is huge and we havent seen the ayers rock or been to tasmania nor has josh dived off the barrier reef..its good to leave some things unfinished..gives us an excuse to go back again