Our favorite beaches...

Well our time in Australia is coming to a close here fairly soon. We have about a month left and are very busy trying to plan for some last minute trips, parties, packing, cleaning, etc. The year has really gone by fast, before we know it we will be back home in Colorado. One of the great things we have enjoyed this year are the amazing beaches and coastlines in Australia. So we thought we would share a top ten list of some our favorite beaches we have been to. (We included a few from New Zealand as well). Who ever coined the phrase life is a beach, must have been from Australia!



1. The "Twelve Apostles" along the Great Ocean Road.



2. Sunset over the beach at Marino Rocks viewed from our friend Dave's balcony.



3. The beach from Innes National Park on the York Peninsula contains the remains of an old shipwreck "Ethel".



4. Wineglass Bay in Tasmania is spectacular. You hike about two miles up to this rocky overlook where you can see the hourglass bay and beach down below. It is another two miles down to the beach which has crystal clear blue water.



5. This is one of the many great beaches just north of Cairns in Queensland. They have the poisonous "box jellyfish" during the summer months.



6. The Coorang National Park along the coast of South Australia contains miles and miles of wide empty beaches.



7. Johanna Beach along the Great Ocean Road, just outside the town of Apollo Bay.



8. Another great beach in Tasmania is the Friendly Beaches outside the town of Bicheno. We hiked out to this beach from a great nature conservatory were we saw some Tasmanian Devils.



9. New Zealand has some great beaches as well. This was one of the beaches on the north island near the capital city Wellington.



10. Moreaki Beach in New Zealand on our way to Christchurch on the South Island. They have some great boulder shaped rocks on the beach.

Kangaroo Island...

Our latest travel adventure took us to the remote island of the coast of South Australia, Kangaroo Island. Kangaroo Island is a very isolated part of South Australia. It was fairly pricey to get to, as they only have a private ferry operating to get there (you could fly if you wanted to from Adelaide). The island is one of the nicest parts of South Australia we have seen. Great quite beaches, wonderful wildlife, neat natural features, and great scenery. The island is about 50 miles wide, by 150 miles long.



Australian Sea Lions up close on the beach at Seal Bay. The are quite docile animals and laze around on the beach.



We took a great scneic drive down to the cape of Hanson Bay.



A sea pelican wandering near the beach at Pennshaw point.



The Remarkable Rocks in Flinders Chase Park. They are aptly named and are a bizarre formation of wind and water weathered and shaped rocks high on a sea side cliff. The rocks are covered in a orange color from a certain type of lichen moss. They were fascinating and we spent a good part of the afternoon climbing and walking around the large area of rocks.



The north part of the island has great sea side roads with magnificent views out into the ocean. We went down to several nice beaches and bays.



We hiked down to a underground cave that looked out into the ocean at the western tip of the island in the Flinders Chase area.



We saw a lot of wildlife, and had to stop many times for them as they crossed the road. Here is an echidna hiding in the bush.



Kim took a great photo of the scrub brush trees.

Dreamtime Story...

This is a series of five Aboriginal Dreamtime stories illustrated by the incredible paintings of Ngarrindjeri artist, Jacob Stengle. These paintings were commisioned for the Department of Enviornment and Heritage and are on display at the Flinders Chase Visitor Center on Kangaroo Island, South Australia.

This story tells about the creation of Kangaroo Island. It is of the Ngarrindjeri people, whose country land in Australia extended from the upper Murray River to Cape Jaffa in the South East. The story is passed down from many generations about the great Ngurunderi and his two wives.


NGURUNDERI AND PONDI



As Ngurunderi paddled his bark canoe along the small stream, he was able to spear a very large cod which he named Pondi. The great fish struggled so fiercely that it widened the river with its tail and flooded the nearby swamps and billabongs by spilling the water over the banks.

THE RUNAWAY WIVES



Ngurunderi was searching for his runaway wives in the southern end of the Coorong. He searched for many years and continued searching as far south as the lakes, continuing all the way to the beach along the Murray River until reaching Encounter Bay. Here he finally found his wives laughing and splashing in the shallow water.

THE PAGES



Ngurunderi finally found his wives who had deserted him and was full of anger. He summoned a great storm that caused the waters to rise and drown his wives. His wives spirits were formed into the two rugged and rocky islands known as the Pages.

THE LAST WALK



When Ngurunderi's anger subsided he realised what a dreadful thing he had done to his wives. He fled over to Kangaroo Island, full of remorse, to try and cleanse his soul. Here he rested in the scrub among logs, gum trees, yaccas, and sheoks. The morning sighing sound among the trees helped him to temporarily forget about his terrible actions.

THE FINAL ACTION



Ngurunderi rested a long time on Kangaroo Island. The time had come for him to return to his heavenly home. His final action on earth was to leave instructions for his people to follow his steps to the western end of Kangaroo Island and pay respects to the rugged Pages Islands. In remorse for his wives, he leapt from a cliff into the sea and drowned, but his cleansed spirit rose to the sky.

Tasmania...

Well we finally got back this weekend after two exciting weeks of traveling around Tasmania. Tasmainia is the southernmost island of Australia located 240km south of Victoria across the Bass Strait. The island is fairly small compared to the rest of Australia (its the smallest state) and is 300km long by 315km wide. The highest mountain on the island is Mt. Ossa at 1617km (5300 feet). Nineteen National Parks covering one quarter of the island help to preserve the abundance of beautiful coastlines, beaches, rivers, forests, wildlife, glacier carved lakes, and stunning mountain ranges.

The island has a bleak history, Europeans discovered Tasmania in 1642. By the mid 1700s they were starting to settle on the island and wiped out most of the indigenous Aborignies within the next 150 years. Hobart was built around 1790 along with prison colonies around the area south of Hobart, Port Arthur. Convicts were shipped from mainland Australia and England. Over 74,000 convicts were sent to Tasmania between 1800 to 1850s. In 1853 government stopped the penal conlonies and convicts from being shipped and sent here. The island was originally named Van Diemens land, but was later changed in 1858 to Tasmania to free itself from the image of its tainted penal history.

Today Tasmania is a vibrant relaxed place. Although you can still visit the remains of the prison colonies, most notbaly Port Arthur and learn about its past. The biggest cities are Hobart, Launceston, and Devonport. The are very small cottage seaside towns and villages scattered throughout the island. For the most part, life is relativley laid back, rural, and unhurried here. There are about 500,000 people on the island. The people we encountered were very friendly and interesting to talk to. The main industries are mining, logging, tourism, and agriculture. The local cheese and fresh seafood were fantastic. Below are a few photos from our trip.





The sunsets over the ocean were breathtaking. Our favorite beach was Wineglass Bay in the Freycinent Pinensula.



We hiked around Dove Lake in the Cradle Mountain. The weather was raining and cold, and the rain later changed to snow.



The tall gum trees were massive. Here you can see Kim in the bottom right to give you a sense of scale. This picture only shows about the bottom half of the tree. We saw trees even thicker and taller than these, and some were close to 98m (300 feet high) and very old. I can't imagine the sound one of these trees must make when it eventually crashes to the ground.



We had a great place to stay in Hobart, thanks to Kim's friends Ron and Avril. The have a nice house in the hills overlooking the city and this is the veiw we got to see from their deck.





Kim and I went to a great photo gallery exhibit in Cradle Mountain. We found out that they had a photo contest from pictures taken in the world heritage areas around Tasmania, so we decided to send in two of our photos. The first one Kim took of Lake St. Clair, and Patrick took the other one of the the green moss along a hike named the "Enchanted Forest". Let's keep our fingers crossed, top prize is $5,000. But hey even if we get our photos displayed that would be great!



Here is the infamous Tasmanian Devil. We stopped at a nature park outside of Bicherno were we could see them up close and watch them feed. They are small, cute, animals, but have razor sharp claws and teeth, and can be hightly aggresive when feeding. They are under threat to a new disease that spreads tumors in their mouths and faces, and has devestated much of the population. The Tasmanian tiger went extinct in around 1940, lets hope that dosen't happen to the Tassy Devil.



We went up to the top of Mt. Wellington outside of Hobart, and saw our first taste of snow in Australia. Some kids earlier in the day decided to build a snowman on the summit.



Rocks and washed up driftwood along the coast.



This is the old historic church building in the convict town of Port Arthur. There is a great museum explaining the local history of the penal colony and you could walk around the grounds and visit 30 different buildings, jails, shops, houses, and prison quarters to see what life must have been like here 200 years ago.

Tasmania was great and we really enjoyed our time traveling there. It was such a contrast to the other parts of the country that we have seen so far. The area was rich in history and very scenic with incredible natural parks and beaches. There were also many interesting people, places, and things to see.

The Grampians...

We took an exciting camping trip a few weekends ago to the Grampians in Victoria. It is a huge national park that has a broad diversity of flora and fauna, wildlife, and rock formations. We did some great hiking, and saw some very neat rock caves painted with Aboriginal rock art. We also had a great campfire and enjoyed hanging out with our friends Ginger and Paul at the campsite as well. The park suffered a very extensive big bush fire about two years ago and it was very visible. So we made sure to use extra special caution when we put out our campfire. You could see the charred markings form the brushfire on trees, however, there was much new growth starting to happen along the forest floor. Luckily, none of the surrounding towns sustained any damage.

More information about the Grampions region can be found at online at www.thegrampians.com.au



Extensive view of the Grampions mountain range.



Kangaroos hopping away upon are arrival near Asses Ears pass.



Large yellow farm fields of canola grow all throughout this region.



Patrick, Kim, Ginger, and Paul at the base of the Pinnacles hike, before starting the climb up through the canyon.



Ginger and Kim enjoying a cool little waterfall stream.



Looking up to the sky through the burnt trees at our campsite.



Kim and I on the summit of the Pinnacles.



Kim showing of her bouldering moves.

Birdwood the Giant Rocking Horse...

We took an interesting daytrip a while back to the Adelaide Hills. We took a scenic drive up through the Torrens River Gorge up to do some hiking and visit the Chain of Ponds winery. We continued driving on and later came upon the silliest thing I have ever seen. It was a statue of a giant rocking horse in the town of Birdwood. It is apparently the biggest one of its kind in the world. It is built in the parking lot of an interesting shop called the Toy Factory which sells quality hand made wooden toys. There was also a small enclosed park in the back of the shop that had tons or peacocks, chickens, ducks, and other birds wandering and squaking all over the place. You could purchase small bags of feed to hand out to the animals. South Australia is truly unique, where else could you do a little wine tasting, climb a giant rocking horse, by some small wooden toys, and hand feed a few domesticated peacocks all within a few hours.




The giant rocking horse in Birdwood. I circled Kim in red in the bottom left to give you a sense of scale.



This sign show exact distances to Birdwood from various cities in North America.



I couldn't resist this photo. It's not everyday you come across five peacocks all perched together on a fence.

Glenelg Beach...

One thing we really like about living in Adelaide is the close proximity to the beach. Glenelg beach is a nice spot we go to fairly often. It is only a ten minute drive away and we can also take a train right there as well. Nothing beats walking on the beach in the late afternoon or evening and hearing the ocean waves roll up on shore. Since the ocean lies to the west, the sun sets over the horizon out to sea making for some amazing sunsets. We definetly will miss this when we get back to Denver!




Glenelg Beach in Adelaide.



Kim enjoying an evening stoll along the beach.



Interesting beach front apartments with a giant shark mouth for the entrance.

Deep Creek Conservation Area...

Recently we went and visited the western tip of the Fleurieu Peninsula. We went down through McLaren Vale and then along the coast to the tip of Cape Jervis. Cape Jervis is the launching point for the ferry that takes you out to Kangaroo Island. We stayed in a very nice B & B there and did some great hiking at the Deep Creek Conservation Park. The were a lot of hiking trails in the park, and the views were great. One of the hikes we did was on a ridgetop looking out to the ocean for most of the hike. It was however quite windy that day. On our way home we encountered a fairly large brush fire beside the road. The firetrucks and crew were there right away, due to the high winds, to contain it. We had to drive through this thick cloud of smoke to get around it, and we could smell the smoke right through the car. We definetly plan to go back to Deep Creek and spend more time there. It is only a hour and a half drive from Adelaide, so it makes for a great weekend getaway. There are numerous hikes you can link up for a two or three day backpack trip. Cape Jervis is also the start of the Heysen long distance hiking trail in South Australia that goes for 1200km up into the Flinders Ranges. It passes throught the Deep Creek Conservation Area after leaving Cape Jervis.



This was the view from our windy hike in Deep Creek along the Heysen Trail.






Sunset along the coast near Second Valley. They also had a great fishing pier out on some jagged rocks with neat abadoned colorful fishing shacks along the beach.