Australia 2019

It was another lazy get up day. But the day went a bit differently than planned. I had booked us standby seats on Virgin Australia flight 274 to Melbourne, but as we surveyed our luggage from 75 plus days of traveling, we were over VA's weight limits. So we ate a quick breakfast and took a local bus to the end of the line and found an Outlet Mall. Inside this large enclosed mall we found an Asics store and a $30A duffle bag which would meet our needs. We hopped on the next #56 bus back to the Ibis hotel, repacked spreading our the load with our new bag.  We checked out of the hotel and attempted to purchase an additional baggage allowance, but the website would not allow it and required a call to VA customer service. I made that call and their system would not allow any changes be mwade to the itinerary. We'd have to do it at the airport at a higher fee. So we hailed an Uber which came in about 3 minutes. The Asian driver was already on his way to the airport so he was...

We woke up a bit earlier today and after having breakfast, we boarded the now familiar R06 towards downtown. Only today we got off the bus at the Old Bus Depot Markets. We were, however, a bit early and many vendors were still setting up. After a quick preliminary tour we walked down to the Kingston Harbor area with its mega million condominiums. We could have rented an electric party boat for $200A, but we passed on that and bought two tickets on the MV Southern Cross for $15A each (concession rate). Before the cruise started, we had a great chat with the ticket seller about cruising.   The cruise made a couple stops to pick up more passengers and after the second stop we were pretty full. One party of 6 got off at the Yacht Club stop as 'grandma' was on another tour boat and somehow communications got mixed up. But our tour continued on and we got to see many of the sights we had seen from land but now from the water. At one point we got to see the start...

Since we're on vacation (wait this is life), we slept in until 8am. We ate breakfast in the hotel and then headed out to the city on bus R06. At the bridge into the city, the Floriade which is the Canberra spring flower festival was in full swing with lots of attendees. At our R06 bus stop we finally found the Cultural Loop bus stop. After a quick trip into Target to look for a replacement fuse for one of our electrical cords. None was found. We boarded the Cultural Loop bus and rode it for its 45 minute loop which oriented us further to the city. I should comment that this city is big and the venues are quite spread out. Using the Cultural Loop bus which only runs until 4pm worked out well.   After riding the Cultural Loop bus one loop, we took it to the Australian National Museum where we spent a couple of hours. While there was a Dreamworks exhibition currently showing, we viewed the historical exhibits which were very good. We then hopped back on the Cultural Loop bus...

Our plan for today was to take the #6 bus downtown and make our way to the Australian War Memorial. That we did. The bus ride was about 1/2 hour to downtown, and we walked about 1/2 hour to the War Memorial. It's an imposing structure with a very wide street stretching from the steps at the foot of the memorial at least a mile down to the lake. It's impressive. We first took a docent tour of WWI artillery pieces, one of which was a captured large German gun which was mounted on a railroad carriage. Afterwards we spent the remainder of the day until just before 5pm when we watched the Last Post ceremony. The museum is definitely in the world class category. The exhibits are sensitive and present Australia's contribution to the many conflicts our world has faced since WWI. There are a number of airplanes on display along with a Japanese midget submarine that was destroyed in Sydney harbor. It was later recovered and the blast damage is very apparent on...

We woke up to the first announcements of our arrival in Sydney. I had wanted to get up early and watch the sail in, but our arrival would be in the near dark and since we didn't have to disembark until 9-9:30, it became another chance at 40 winks. Around 8am we arose and ate our last breakfast this cruise. We said our goodbyes to a few fellow passengers before taking a last tour around deck 12 to snap a few photos. Right at 9am, our RED3 disembarkation number and color were called and we disembarked, went through immigration with a very friendly agent, gathered our luggage and passed through customs and began the short walk to the light rail station opposite the ferry terminal which was at the end of the pier the Maasdam was berthed at. We had saved our OPAL cards from 3 years ago and those were still valid and had more than enough value on them for us to take the light rail to Central Station. At Central station we walked over to Track 4 where our train to Canberra was depart...