Buchan Caves

We started out buying breakfast “to go” and ate it overlooking the harbour.

We drove to Buchan Caves via Nowa Nowa and arrived just in time for the 10 o’clock guided tour with 3 minutes to spare.

This is one of these experiences that are very difficult to describe so I will not try.

The drive from Buchan to Orbost was spectacular. It is a small mountain road with hairpin bends and a beautiful view almost all the way down. It took more than 2 h 30 min to drive the 58 km.

                    

Looking out from the restaurant a lot of kangaroos was hopping around.

Lakes Entrance

I sat up to late night / early morning to see Djokovic-Nadal. It was a fantastic tennis match, and the longest slam final ever. 5 h and 53 min of awesome tennis.

Seeing it on TV is not the same as being at the game, but when Courier (AO winner 1992 and 1993) and Hewitt are commentators it is almost as good as seeing it live. The details, the insights, the analysis were amazing.

I started the day searching for my iPhone – it was gone. I phoned the Hotel in Melbourne but they had not found one. I am trying to figure out how to make it useless by informing Apple it is lost, but it is still work in progress.

Closed Gold Mine

Today we have been driving for about 9 hours, stops included. The plan was to go to Walhalla and get a guided tour in a gold mine at 3PM. We arrived at 2:45PM by driving at some scenic, hairpin bend mountain roads. The average speed was 20 km/h for the last 12 km. Upon arrival we were told the 3 o’clock tour was canceled. I suspect it was because we were only 5 tourists present.

We arrived at the hotel 6PM, checked in and got dinner down town Lakes Entrance.

Penguin Parade

After breakfast at our regular diner we got a rental car and tried to negotiate our way out of Melbourne without using toll roads. Then enjoying 35 degree C sunshine, and a great tour at cruise speed. We were headed for Phillip Island 140 km south of Melbourne. On route we passed several wineries.

At Phillip Island you can experience wildlife, nature, interactive attractions, surfing, swimming, fishing and a lot more. We chose a 3 Park Pass including: Churchill Island Heritage Farm, Koala Park and Penguin Parade.

At the Churchill Island Heritage Farm you can see how people lived and worked in the olden days. As it turns out not so different from how life took place in our part of the world.

Well, I guess that the Koala Park is self-explanatory.

The famous Fairy Penguins, the world’s smallest penguin, spend their day out at sea, feeding and catching whitebait for their young. At the day’s end, they waddle up the beach in small groups back to their sand dune burrows. Tonight they did it by the hundreds. That was an exceptional experience.

Photographing was prohibited so the picture is downloaded from the Internet.

www.penguins.org.au

Women’s Final AO2012

Yesterday I was over the Edge, today I was at AO 2012 Women’s Final.

It has been yet another great day in sunny Melbourne and today it was 34 degree C.

After breakfast at our ”usual” dinner we started out at Melbourne Aquarium and arrived quit early (10AM) and could more or less walk straight in. It turned out to be a good idea to arrive early as it turned very crowdie later on. At noon the queue went out to the street.

Melbourne Aquarium is a must see, and we opted for a guided tour which is recommendable. Beside the tour we came back stage and heard about the different variety of food that is used, and saw the guide hand feed a Stingray.

www.melbourneaquarium.com.au

We then spend a couple of hours at Harbour City an outdoor mall in two levels at Melbourne Docklands.

At Rod Laver Arena we had dinner at the Membership Lounge, walked around afterwards and enjoyed the atmosphere. As soon the doors opened we found our seats and saw men’s double warm up before the women’s final.

7PM the roof started to close and a spectacular light show started and the Australia Girls Choir came in and sang the Australia national hymn. Then the AO Trophy were lowered from the ceiling and received by Martina Hingis a 3 times AO champ, 1997-1999.

As the roof was opened again the players were presented and after the traditional coin toss won by Sharapova the game begun. As it turned out the coin toss was the only thing Sharapova won that evening, she was creamed by Azarenka: 6-3; 6-0.

After having seen Kvitova, Sharapova, Azarenka and Clejster it is evident that Caroline doesn’t have what it takes to beat the likes of Clejster. 

Eureka

Every once in a while you should do something that scare you. I did that today.

First we walked via Treasure Garden to Fitzroy Garden to see Cook’s Cottage. Cook’s home was broken down brick by brick and sailed to Australia and rebuild in Melbourne even though Cook never came near Melbourne. www.cookscottage.com.au

On the way to the Tram we got breakfast and continued to Victoria Marked. At Victoria Market you can buy a lot of stuff you really don’t need. But it is fun to look at and it is huge. Going around to see it all would take hours.

The tourist tram transported us via the Docklands to Federation Square where we took a boat ride on Yarra River to get a seaside view of Melbourne Harbor.

www.cityrivercruises.com.au

From outside Eureka looks beautiful, the glass on the top 10 levels is 24 carat gold plated. The lift ride to the skydeck is very fast; it took 36 seconds to the top. Going around at the skydeck was comfortable with a great view over Melbourne able to see the places we have been. 2/3 around the skydeck was a queue for something called: The Edge. Without much thought I bought tickets and was informed there was 25 minutes waiting time. During these 25 minutes I was brought further and further out of my comfort zone starting to realize I was 300 meter up a high rise and had just bought tickets to something called the Edge! Having vertigo it was maybe not the best decision I ever made.

When it became our turn we were guided in a 3 meter by 3 meter cube with frosted glass in the floor, in the walls and in the roof.

At the same time the cube started to move outwards it started to shake and squeak, then the cube stopped and the noise disappeared.

Suddenly the frosted glass became crystal clear and you were in a glass cube 3 meter outside a high rise 300 meter up in the air, with a floor of glass so you could see directly down.

I have been in a more comfortable situation.

www.eurekaskydeck.com.au

Before going back to the hotel we walked along side Yarra at Southgate. There was a lot of small tents where it was possible to buy food, stamps with your picture on, paintings, plastic toy and a lot of other stuff you don’t need but it was a nice walk in 29 degree C.

Australian Open 2012

Today we started at Old Melbourne Gaol after breakfast. Old Melbourne Gaol is a prison operating from 1845 until 1924. It has three levels. Second level was for those prisoners who demonstrated that they could keep the prisons rules. Cells on third level housed trusted prisoners and those nearing release. 

At Police Watch House we were arrested and during the booking procedure we were treated as criminals, lined up, allowed only saying:  ”Yes Sergeant” or ”No Sergeant” and put in a cell. I was arrested for public nuisances. No further comments, but I am sure it was a coincidence.

In the Court we witness a scripted courtroom drama about the trail of Ned Kelly, a famous bushranger. There was 10 scripted roles possible for the visitors to choose from. Those who not got a scripted role became part of the gallery.

Then we headed for Australian Open 2012. We planed to take the free tourist tram line 35. Having waited for approximately 15 minutes a tram driver stopped, got out and asked us if we were waiting for the tourist tram. Maybe it was the hat. Maybe it was the camera hanging around the neck that gave us away but I admitted we were tourists. He then told us that due to national holiday the route was changed. And he then offered us a ride to the nearest stop to the stadium.

That is Australia in a nutshell.

Sitting at Rod Laver Arena seeing tennis is a big experience. The atmosphere is fantastic. Seeing it on TV is not the same, you have to be here and experience it your self.

We saw Clejsters - Azerenka and Sharapova - Kvitova.

We walked back to our hotel nearby and cached Federer-Nadal on TV. 

The Colonial Tramcar Restaurant

After arrival at the hotel there wasn't much time to do anything before going to the colonial tramcar restaurant.

The Colonial Tramcar Restaurant departs from and returns to Tramstop # 125 Normanby Road, near the corner of Clarendon Street.  It is located diagonally across the road from Crown Casino and adjacent to the Melbourne Exhibition Centre. 


The restaurant advises booking well in advance. Even though I booked 4 weeks in advance it was a close call to get a reservation at the right day and at the right time.We were advised to arrive no later than 15 minutes prior to the departure time as the trams was departing promptly at the scheduled time.


Just to be sure we got there 20 minutes before, after a short ride with the tourist tram.


The colonial Tramcar Restaurant run on selected standard tram routs through the city and some nearby inner suburbs, returning to the origin. The food is precooked in an conventional restaurant with final heating and serving carried out on the tram. However, unlimited alcohol was included in the fixed meal price.

Halls Gap to Ballarat

After breakfast we drove straight for Ballarat.

The Avenue of Honour is a boulevard in Ballarat which commemorates local soldiers who fought in the First World War. It is a 22 kilometer boulevard that extends westwards, lined with over 3,000 trees, each with a bronze memorial plaque listing the name of a soldier.

Arraving a Ballarat we dorve stright to Sovereign Hill, an recreation of what life was like in the town during the gold rush.

Sovereign Hill

It is a sort of outdoor museum presenting the story of Australia’s goldrush history. Its particular focus is the impact of the great 19th century gold discoveries on the growth of Ballarat, which was a small pastoral settlement when gold was discovered in 1851.

Searching for gold.

There are lots of activities to choose from, we were down a mine to see the ordeals of a gold digger.

We timed our stay at Sovereign Hill so we could be back at our hotel in order to see Caroline play quarterfinals. 

What a disappointment.

:-(

In the evening we saw: “Blood on the Southern Cross”.

Port Fairy to Halls Gap

We started out driving north to the Grampians National Park with its woodland walks, waterfalls and rock formations, via Penhurst to Dunkeld just south of the Grampians.

We stoped in Dunkeld to get some inspiration as to what to see and where to go, but the sweet old lady at the info center was not of much help, we were refered to the info center at Halls Gap. We then took a short stroll  through Dunkeld Park to the Post Office to get stamps for overseas. 

From here it was a scenic drive through the Grampians National Park to Halls Gap where we ‘did’ Silverband Falls, Reids Lookout and the Boroka Lookout.

Halls Gap is located in the heart of the Grampians National Park. The centre is nestled between the soaring rocky mountain peaks that constitute the Wonderland and Mount William Ranges. And the National Park covers 167,000 hectares and is home to hundreds of species of native animal life. 

The info center at Halls Gap knew even less than the old lady in Dunkeld so we relied on what we had prepared back home.

Via Mount Difficult Road we drove to the Boroka Lookout where I tried to take photos capturing the spectacular views over the Halls Gap town centre and south to Lake Bellfield. Further along on the Mount Victory Road was the Reed Lookout with its views across an endless expanse of dense bushland and of Lake Wartook and the Moora Moora Reservoir.

We decided to cut the Sightseeing tour short in order to do some Kangaroo hunting. As being in Australia without seeing a kangaroo was not an option. 

We rated Brambuk National Park as having the highest possibility of seeing kangaroos. And at the info center we got a map with possible ‘kangaroo hotspots’ marked in. And on we went in +28 degree C.The Kangaroos was understandingly hiding in the shadow, difficult to find and impossible to photograph. We went on for quite some time but in vaine. Not wanting to give in we made a Plan B  coming back later on when it had cooled down and the darn creatures would come out from the shadow. With reluctance we stoped our kangaroo hunt to go to our accommodations.

We checked in at D’Altons Resort and what is walking around on the lawn just outside the door a few meters from the patio?

Apollo Bay to Port Fairy

Departing from Apollo Bay this morning we traveled along the Great Ocean Road to Port Campbell.

The road does leave the coast and wind through the ferny slopes of Cape Otway, this rainforest country is silent and untouched and the first stop was a rainforest walk. Now you may think that this does not compute: No roughing it out in a rainforest! In all fairness it should be said that there were wooden boardwalks at the tricky parts of the walk. 

Next stop was the lighthouse at Cape Otway. We were advised to look out for Koala Bears on the last part of the road to the lighthouse. As it turned out we did not have to look for Koalas all we had to do was to look for parked cars because that meant tourists photographing. We stopped a couple of times and I managed to get a picture of a Koala.

Visiting the top of the lighthouse was a windy affair with a great view. 

Back in the car, setting the A/C on 18 degree C and drive to the next event: Tree Top Walking. Tree Top Walking might not be the obvious choice if you have vertigo. As the name suggests some degree of elevation is involved. And it certainly was. Walking on the steel construction looking down I estimated the hight to be approximatly 80 meter in average, it turned out it was 25 meter in average.

When the road meets the coast again we saw some amazing rock formations including the Twelve Apostles, which are huge stone pillars in the surf, carved over time by the crashing Southern Ocean waves.

The apostles were formed by erosion, the harsh weather conditions from the Southers Ocean gradually eroded the soft limestone to form caves in the cliffs, which then became arches, which in turn collapsed; leaving rock stacks up to 45 meters high. The site was known as the Sow and Piglets until 1922  after which it was renamed to The Apostles for tourism purposes. The formation eventually became known as the Twelve Apostles, despite only ever having nine stacks. In 2005, a 50 meter tall stack collapsed, leaving eight remaining.

Port Campbell to Port Fairy is pure transportation. 

Great Ocean Road

(This is written on a windy mountain top 200 km SV of Melbourne at 4:00AM)


Todays first task on the agenda was to get a rental car at AVIS. On the way we had breakfast at a not so posh looking diner. But there was a good atmosphere and it had a bigger variety of dishes to choose from and the portions was bigger. Learnings: Go for the local diners to have breakfast.


I did the classic mistake to get in at the passenger side. The wiper and the indicator had also switched places, so before making a turn I turned on the wipers.


The directions was a print out from Google Maps and not to much use, and the GPS did only help to some extend as it would like us to go the shortest route, not the designated route.


After a short detour in the out skirts of Melbourne we drove to Torquay via Geelong where we stopped for lunch.


Some of Australias most famous surf beaches are near Torquay.

It is difficult to describe the impressions and the experience of driving at The Great Ocean Road. Even unbelievable beautiful scenery does not make a just description.
The ocean at one side, steep cliffs at the other. Hairpin bend roads. Unbelievable views. Lots of possibilities to stop and enjoy the scenery. 

The speed limit is creasy 80 km/h, with a much lower limit at the bends though. Slower traffic, tourists, are to give way whenever possible by pulling out in the left lane and designated areas usually in connection with bends or view points.

At home you would be annoyed whenever traffic is slowing down or even stops. Her it is a signal that your fellow tourist has found something of high importance is going on. At one point the traffic stopped and cars started to pull over. Instead of overtaking as you would back home, you do the same - pull over.
It turned out that a family of koala bears were sitting in the trees eating leaves.


As we approached our accommodation for the night starting to anticipating primitive conditions as the road turned into a dirt road I got a bit negative and we had to do a 8 km up hill climb at a mountain near Apollo Bay.
But it was in vain as it turned out to be an up to standard accommodation. It was a very small place with only a few rooms, but with a library, fireplace and a nice view.


We went back down to Apollo Bay for dinner and got Kangaroo beef.

Melbourne

Bangkok Airport

We arrived on time at Gate E9 and had enough time not to stress in order to walk to the security check and back to Gate E7. As it was early in the morning there was almost no other travelers, which meant no cue at the security check. We had some time to spear and used it in the lounge.

After roughing it out at  business class, from BKK to MEL, (just kidding) Thai Airways Business Class or Royal Silk Class as it is called is highly recommendable, we arrived at Melbourne Airport at 21:20 PM

Now we finally are here.


Immigration, baggage claim, transport to the went without any complications.

Next day we were up and in the streets of Melbourne at 8:00AM, which was much to early. Nothing goes on before 10:00AM, but we managed to get breakfast at one of the numerous diners.

Tourist Tram

First we went to a mall called Central Station to do some shopping. Using the Tourist Tram we then aimed for Federation Square  to get lunch. While eating we could see at a big screen that Caroline won her match and is ready for next round. YES.

Federation Square

After a short visit the National Gallery we walked to the near by Botanic garden.

Entry at the National Gallery

While walking around we saw some people preparing for what looked like a wedding. Shortly after an older couple came and asked directions for a wedding and I of cause gave direction to the place we had just seen. Later on I discovered that out door weddings are quite popular as we saw yet another wedding, realizing I properly had given the couple direction to the wrong wedding.

Copenhagen Airport

Copenhagen Airport Terminal 3

We arrived at Copenhagen Airport using the Metro. Checked In and went to the lounge. 

On the way to the gate we could see plane we should fly with. It was named Siriwatthana and it was enormous.

Siriwatthana

When I received the travel documents from Maria at Team Benns, I noticed that we should sit at row 03 from Copenhagen to Bangkok. Just to be sure, I checked and was confirmed that row 03 is at First Class. 

At Thai Airways Royal First Class you get an exquisite treat.

While boarding it was difficult to keep up the “world-tired-globetrotter-have-seen-it-all” attitude. It was just fantastic. 

Row 03 Seat E

If I should try to describe the setting, try to imagine: Tranquilizing music in the back ground while you are being served Laurent-Perrier Brunt Champagne and have a look at row 03 above. Do I need to say more?

All I had to do was to relax and enjoy the flight.

First serving:

• Hot Savaury
• First Cause
• Salad
• Main Course
• Desert

Served with:

Bourgogne Rouge Pinot Noir 2009 and Remy Martin XO to the coffee.

It was so delicious I even ate the green stuff.

Preperation

To the extend it is possible to get Net access I will try to blog frequently, and please remember that English is my second language. Hopefully I spell better than this poor bloke: 

The planning started back in 2009 for the tour to commence in 2010, but due to circumstance it has been postponed until now. 


Team Benns

First I had to find a Travel Agency and after some search on the Web the choice fell on Team Benns. It turned out to be a very good choice. After a few questions about travel preferences my travel agent - Maria - suggested a travel package just to my liking.

I have been a boy scout for 12 years and have been doing the "live in the nature" bit. I have done the backpack traveling, and done my fair share of traveling on turist class. When it comes to primitive living and cheap traveling I have been through the mill.

Been there, done that, got the t-shirt. 

So the general theme in the User Requirement Specification Maria had to work with for designing the tour was: A high level of comfort regarding traveling and accommodations. 

Maria quickly tuned in on the message and suggested a package including Melbourne, Sydney and two five day trips by car.

Australian Open

If you look into the statistics, Denmark has a higher ratio of Championships and Gold medals per capita than average. You might argue we are a sports interested nation, and we are very good at sports. Let’s use Football as an example. There are more registered football players in Germany than inhabitants in Denmark. Yet we can beat them any given Sunday, for instance in the final at the European Championship in 1992, just to mention one example. 

I am very interested in tennis in general, and especially in how well Denmark's tennis darling Caroline Wozniacki is doing. For now she is ranked number one at the WTA ranking list second consecutive year.
Being in Melbourne at the same time Australian Open 2012 is taking place, I just had to get tickets to the semi-finals and finals in the women’s tournament in order not to miss an opportunity to see some World Class tennis - and hopefully being able to see a Dane win the tournament.

It was not an easy task sitting in Denmark trying to get tickets to a sports event on the other side of the world. But with a little bit of luck I managed to buy the tickets in a close race with the clock.

  

I had no clue what so ever on how to obtain tickets to AO 2012. After some Googleing it was obvious that TicketCity was the only authorized dealership of AO tickets. But I did not have a good gut feeling using them. I wanted to go to the source, and started to investigate the AO 2012 homepage. I found a membership page and learned that membership was the way ahead. So I joined and mailed the AO back office about buying tickets. I got a mail back from Marc writing that pre-sale did not open before fall.

As pre-sale approached I started to mail Marc again but got no answer. A few days before pre-sale started I found out by chance that it was possible to up-grade my membership status to a category with guaranteed access to the finals. A few days after I up-graded my membership, I got a mail from Marc saying:

 "Just a reminder that your ticket order forms for pre-sale access to purchase tickets to Australian Open 2012 must be returned by 5.00pm Tuesday 16th August 2011."

5:00 PM Melbourne means 7:00 AM in DK.

I received the mail Aug. 15th. AM, but did not checked my mail before 11:45 PM. This meant I had 7 hours and 15 minutes to the deadline.

What happens next is not suitable for describing at a blog, it involves figuring out the tournament schedule , figuring out which events to get tickets to, uninstall the printer, install the printer, and a lot of foul wording shouted at the PC - Yes PC - as I was between MacBook's due to lightning  struck my old MacBook.

I will spare you the ugly details - I pressed "Send" at 5:00 AM with 2 hours to spare and went straight to bed.


I was not the first to meet in at work that morning.

iPad or MacBook

Preparing for writing this blog was not  a "Just Do It" either. Back in Marts/April - approximately at the same time the trip was booked - I bought an iPad for the purpose of using it to write some sort of travel log. At that time I did not know I would blog. Next I bought a lot of different notebook apps and diary apps - but none came close to meet my expectations. The software that came closest was "Pages", but the functionality in the iPad version is limited compared to "Pages" on my MacBook. 

I became an Apple freak while visiting a friend in Minneapolis. During a visit to the Mall (MoA) I went in to an Apple Store, and after a few minutes using a Mac I decided: No more PC.

So it hurts to come to the conclusion that my iPad do not suit the purpose. To make a long story short I ended up with bringing my MacBook. That in turn gave difficulties to choice of bag / suitcase to take on board, because a 17 inch laptop do not fit in a normal sized photo-backpack.

Photography
Photography is an old interest of mine now getting a renaissance.


Going to Australia I didn't want to bring a Pocket Camera. I wanted to bring a Camera being able to take high quality pictures. So as a part of the preparation I bought a Canon EOS 600D (That is a Rebel T3i in US terms) back in May in order to get acquainted with the functionality's well before departure.

Beware!  Before you enter the world of photografy you should set a limit on how much you want to spend. Let me elaborate...

First of course you buy the books, and photo books are not in the cheap end of the scale. Next you buy a lot of super expensive photo-magazines to read about tests and reviews. You decide for a make and a model and buy: A camera with the standard 18-135 mm Zoom lens, a memory card, a UV-filter, an extra battery and a photo-bag, thinking it will do - it won't.

After a short while you will need an extra lens (you actually need at least two extra lenses, but you don't know it yet). First you buy the sensible 70-300 Zoom lens, then you buy a 24-70 mm  Zoom with fast glass. Your photo-bag is now much to small and you need to have a some what bigger photo-backpack.

Now we are happy and ready to go photo-hunting for the perfect picture - except for the two UV-filters you forgot to buy for the new lenses. At the store you realize it is impossible to take night pictures and do panorama pictures without a tripod, and instead of coming home with two UV-filters you are bringing home: Two UV-filters, a tripod, a wireless remote and a special made bracket for your camera so it is centered when you mount it in a 90 degree turn on the tripod.

When you have learned to know all features on the camera, a painfully awareness start to be awakened that some very usefull features are missing on your model, but they can be found on an other and more expensive model. For a month or so you are convinced that two cameras is a good solution, but have enough sense to instead opting for: A flash, a printer and some photo-paper.


At this point in time you realize the necessity of a decent (which translates into expensive) piece of software to manipulate the pictures so it doesn't look like you have been using a pocket camera!