HomeInTheAir

When you travel over 12 hours on any one flight, I highly recommend using your frequent flyer miles to upgrade to business class. The seat goes all the way down to make a bed and you have your own little cubby hole to snooze away. On May 7 I will be taking my ninth Los Angeles to Sydney flight, and the fold down bed makes the trip a pleasure. Unfortunately they couln't do anything about the circles under my eyes from lack of sleep and sadness that the adventure is over, at least for now. I will be heading off again in 6 days; this time to visit good friends scattered throughout the east coast of America. I then come home to Santa Fe with a week to pack and get ready for the next month long trip to Timor. I invite you to join me for my continuing travels. Happy Trails from Ramblin Me

JacquiAndMoi

Almost a decade ago I met Jacqui on a flight from Los Angeles to Sydney. She is a film producer who lives in Sydney. I am still awed by the fact that, after we met on the plane, she took a day off to show me my first tour of Sydney. My perception of Sydney will forever be colored by the wonderful hospitality she showed a perfect stranger on my first trip to her city. On this trip, Doug and I met with Jacqui in Sydney's China Town for Dim Sum. I'm still trying to figure out how she keeps getting younger looking.

AnotherSuccessfulFlight

SydneyFlightSimulation

I am betting that Doug's favorite experience in Sydney was spending an hour in a flight simulator. You can pick out the airports, weather conditions and other added bits of excitement as an instructor guides you through the take off and landing of a passenger jet in the Flight Experience at a shopping center in Sydney's Darling Harbour.

GettingAroundInDarlingHarbour

MakeAWish

A lovely little statue in a secluded nook in Sydney's Botanical Gardens.

MillionDollarView

From the Botanical Gardens you have this spectacular view of the Sydney Opera House and bridge, where Australia's world famous New Year's Eve celebration is held each year.

ExoticPlantAtBontanicalGardens

Didn't I see this in a science fiction movie?

DougHidingBehindElephantEar

IdeasForTreeDecorating

From a distance the flying foxes hanging in the trees at the Botanical Gardens look like Christmas decorations. Once you notice them, you see that they are EVERYWHERE throughout the park.

TheyAreFoxesNotBats

I know, I know, they look like bats, but they are actually flying foxes and they are hanging everywhere throughout the Botanical Gardens. They sometimes get restless and spread thir wings to move to another branch. During most of our visit they seemed happy to hang upside down in the trees. I wish that I could say that this is a photo of live foxes (that I actually moved close enough), but these are stuffed foxes at the ranger station.

SydneysBotanicalGardens

This was the biggest surprise of the trip to Sydney. The Botanical Gardens are on the harbor overlooking both the Opera House and the Sydney bridge. It consists of acres of beautiful exotic plants, trees, and birds, as well as perfectly maintained lawns for family picnics overlooking the harbor.

AmericanMeatPieEndorsement

The outside of the meat pie stand in the next photo is covered in photos of famous people eating said pies. This one of Colonel Sanders chowing down caught my eye.

WhereToFindMeatPiesInSydney

CondosInSydneyHarborArea

You can imagine how expensive these harborside condos are, especially with a view of the city skyline. The entire first floor consists of back to back gourmet restaurants. The condo on the very end belongs to Mel Gibson.

TouchingWarMemorialAtTheHarborArea

AustralianBirds

One of the striking differences about being in Australia was that the most exotic birds can be seen almost everywhere. The cockatiels and parrots that we see only in cages in America, are actually considered pests in the city because of their large numbers and constant loud bickering with each other. Sitting in an open air cafe in Adelaide I was stunned by the noise and the beautiful colors of the red,green, and blue parrots fighting in the tree beside me. In Sydney, this Ibis was casually wandering around an open air market.

SydneyAndTheBigBus

After visiting Adelaide and the beach town of Rogue's Point, we headed to Sydney, probably the best known city in Australia. My favorite way of visiting a new city is a "Big Bus" tour. It is usually a British double decker bus with an open top. Your all day ticket allows you to get on and off at the various tourist attractions. It is a perfect way to get a quick overview of a city on your first day there, and Sydney was no exception.

YabbieInMemorium

MyFirstYabbie

It is not as rique as it sounds!!A yabbie is a freshwater crustacean that is a bit bigger than a crayfish but smaller than a lobster. They are yummy! They cannot be sold in Australia but thank goodness Doug's best friend knows someone who knows someone. He surprised us with a bag of yabbies and an exquisite bottle of local wine to welcome me to Adelaide.I couldn't have asked for a better welcome.

AdelaideWineCountryTour

The city is surrounded by some of the best wine growing regions in Australia. Doug took me on a tour of some of the gorgeous wine growing areas. We discovered this lovely Hotel called Thorngrove. It is one of a world wide network of "small luxury hotels;" all of which provide maximum pampering at a price of many thousands of dollars a night. This is as close as we got to the actual hotel!

HouseInTheAdelaideCountryside

While visiting Adelaide, a local paper reported that real estate values in Australia are the highest in the world and are roughly 3 times what you pay in the US. This is inspiring more Australians to look at American real estate as an investment opportunity

ASignThatYouAreInAustralia

NewerLookOfDowntownAdelaide

OlderLookOfDowntownAdelaide

AdelaideFromTheAir

Flying into the airport, the red roofs of the Adelaide neighborhoods near the airport reminded me of the red roofs of Santa Fe.

MyFirstTripToAdelaide

On the last trip to Timor, I invited myself to Doug's home town of Adelaide, South Australia, on the return trip home. It was a beautiful pristine city with a blend of old and new architecture. This is the view flying into Adelaide

DarwinGatewayToTimor

When we travel to Timor, we have to spend a day or more before catching a plane to Dili. Doug worked in Darwin many years ago and gave me the tour of the city and one of the famous watering holes (very much like the bar in the Crocodile Dundee movie.) Here he is trouncing me at pool.

TimorMemories

On May 7 I will be heading back to Timor for my third trip but here are a few more photos of trip two. I managed to go through 2 cameras on the trip and it required a search to find all the photos. This photo should come with sound. Doug and I watched these Timor goats butting heads for over half an hour and the crack of skull against skull was amazingly loud.