July 9: Sunday

Nate: We left our house in Phoenix at about 5pm on Sunday (AZ time) and finally reached Adelaide, Australia about 11am on Tuesday (South Australia time). It’s a 17.5 hour difference, South Australia (the only place in the world) has a 30 minute daylight savings time in the winter, crazy… Anyway, the trip actually wasn’t too bad. Other than some confusion about our tickets which required us to wait in a line for about 2 hours in LA, Qantas was great. Each seat on the plane had its own TV with movies, tv, CDs, radio, and video games on demand. That was pretty sweet because you could start a movie whenever you wanted, instead of waiting for the next movie to begin and not having a choice of what to watch.

July 11: Tuesday

Nate: Short layover in Melbourne

Toured Adelaide –

1) Went Bowling

2) Henley Beach: We played on the beach a tad, just to say we touched the Southern Ocean.

July 12: Wednesday

Nate: Toured Bordertown

Saw kangaroos: We saw rare (once only found in South Australia) white (but not albino) kangaroos and normal wild kangaroos on Quentin’s land. The kangaroos are very funny creatures, very cool.

Watched a sheep shearing: We sheared sheep, not a bad start to our Australian vacation I’d say. Well, I didn’t shear a whole sheep, I was far too slow for it to be profitable, but it was a neat experience I suppose. Poor sheep though, I don’t think they like it too much and many of them seem to get some pretty good cuts from the process.

July 13: Thursday

Becca: Stopped in Koonwarra to taste wine: South Australia is known for its red wines (I still like white better.)

Drove to Warrnambool – the beginning of the Great Ocean Road: We had a wonderful time playing games and singing songs in the cars. Almost every time we stopped, we would play musical chairs, switching drivers and riders. Also, it was nice to catch up on conversations with the Milnes. 🙂

Saw Whales the next morning: Alayna didn’t think we would see any and we were just wasting our time, but we did see at least one. Look for more pictures in the photo album.

July 14: Friday

Nate: Great Ocean Road: We slowly worked our way down to
Melbourne on the The Ocean Road, a wonderful scenic tour of Australia’s coast line. It was beautiful!

Arrived in Numurkah around 10:00 PM.

July 15: Saturday

Becca: Hung around in Numurkah – kinda took the day off to sleep in and recuperate
Played Putt-Putt
Played Raquetball
Cooked on the Barbie

July 16: Sunday

Nate: Drove to Melbourne

Watched a Footy Game: Took in a game of Austrailan Football (or footy for short), which was very exciting. Aussie’s take their version of football very seriously.

Bus tour of Melbourne to see the sights, including Federation Square and Flinder’s Street Station.

July 17: Monday

Becca: Echuca was a huge trade town during early Australia times. It was a river port where goods would come from upstream (wool and lumber) to Echuca where it was transferred to one of 5 rail lines that ran to Sydney. River trade bustled until it became cheaper to drive the goods on the highways.

July 18: Tuesday

Nate: Ned Kelly tour: Australian’s have their own wild-west version of Robin Hood (or more likely the Dukes of Hazzard) named Ned Kelly (1870s) who is now something of a legend. An interesting but short lived story as he was executed at age 25 and spent 3 years of his short life in prison.

Becca: Wildlife Park: The girls and Mom and I decided to sleep in and met up with the rest of the group in the afteroon for the wildlife. Mostly a zoo, but there were some animals that were considered ‘free range’ and could come up to you (or you could go up to them). I got to pet a kangaroo, see koalas (and babies), wombats, tasmanian devels, and lots of local birds. We didn’t
see any wallabys (not on display at the time) or the echidna (sleeping in his nest at the time).

July 19: Wednesday

Becca: Drove to Sydney

The Dog Statue: Dog on a Tucker Box is an old Australian Folktale that has been made into songs. Apparently, pretty much everyone in Australia knows what it is if you say you went there.

July 20: Thursday

Becca: Nate was pretty much infatuated with the Opera House, as you will be able to tell from our photo album. I think we got some great shots of the city, the skyline, and the two main attractions, the Opera House and the Harbor Bridge. We spent the afternoon on a Sydney Harbour Tour and learned a lot about the history of the area and the modern harbor industry.

After the Harbor Tour, the Diltz’s did a little bit of walking in old downtown Sydney and the Milnes and Moehrings went to the Sydney Aquarium. It was really neat to see a duck-billed platypus and some crocodiles as well as a lot of the reef fish and animals (since we didn’t get to go to the Great Coral Reef.

After dinner Nate and I wen to a bar called Minus 5. -5 Celcius is a warm as it ever gets. Everything is made out of ice including your drink glass and they have an antifreeze fountain. The ice sculptures were neat too.

July 21: Friday

Becca: Sydney Bus Tour – Friday we spent the day tourin the city on the buses. We bought passes that allowed you to get on and off at all the main attractions: the Opera House, the Harbor Bridge, the Aquarium, the Sydney Tower (Milnes and Diltz’s went up in it to get some good pictures), through the tunnel under the harbor (that was neat), and a bunch of other historical areas. When the others went up in the tower, Nate and I went shopping through this huge underground/above ground, crossing multiple blocks, get lost really easily, mall thing in the middle of Sydney.
Then we visited the old Sydney Observatory where most of the Southern Stars were mapped out. After the walkthrough of the Observatory, we stopped at the oldest bar (hotel) in Sydney, Lord Nelson’s, and had a beer called Trafalgar Pale Ale. It was pretty good.

July 22: Saturday

Came home – arrived in Los Angelas 4 hours after leaving Sydney! 🙂 Here’s a picture of all of our souvenir loot.

A write up of overall impressions, is here.

To view the rest of our pictures from the trip, Click here.