Travel

We obviously landed OK, and I’m now sitting in the Kingsgate Logan Park Hotel, getting ready to head back into Auckland. The hotel sits halfway between the airport and downtown Auckland, about 35Km apart, with Auckland to the north.

To finish up yesterday (or actually to start from the beginning) we got up a little early to be able to catch a public bus to the Circular Quay for the river cruise. It was a beautiful day with no clouds.

Another day wandering around downtown. We got on the Explorer again in a light rainstorm (drizzle). We got off again in Chinatown just to walk through it for the first time. It was a block long and kind of boring. From there, we caught the next bus around to the Circular Quay to take a guided ferry tour of Sydney Harbour.

We jumped back on the Sydney Explorer and went across the Harbour Bridge to Northern Sydney. It was a great place to get pictures of the Opera House. A couple interesting facts about the bridge: The two huge stone pylons are NOT used for structural support, they are merely decoration. All 65,000 tons of steel are resting solidly (I hope) on four HUGE pegs which mount the four ends of the bottom arches to solid cement buttresses.

Where do I start? How about yesterday? Did I mention that the flight was on a 747? With lots and lots of people? Our first indication that Sydney would be considerably different from Cairns was its size. Landing was spectacular. You could see (on the left) the coastline, and then the entire city, the Opera House, the Royal Botanical Garden, the Harbour Bridge and much, much more. It was slightly overcast, but not enough to cause worry.

Sitting here on an airplane on the way to Sydney. I feel kind of lucky that we’re on this flight. For some reason, I spent the entire week thinking we were leaving Sunday morning, and luckily found out before today (Saturday) that I was wrong. But that story will come out later

Today we took the Kuranda Train up to Kuranda (imagine that). It climbed from sea level up to 390 meters through vertical rainforest. The railway was built in 1891 using hand tools (picks and shovels). There are 15 tunnels and some large number (I believe 30+) bridges.

We went sport fishing today with 2 other people on a small boat. It was light tackle fishing. I think that means fishing for fish up to 250 pounds.

Well, we warned everybody we’ve met and told them to stay off the road, because we’re going to rent a car today. I think Bill’s going to drive, and he think’s I’m driving, so between the two of us, we’ll probably just sit in the car at the rental agency, and hope it goes by itself. Stay tuned, as this could be interesting. If you don’t hear from us again, call the police.

After a 1/2 hour ride through miles and miles and miles of sugarcane, we finally got to the river and the boat. From there it was a 20 minute boat ride through a slow, muddy estuary before open sea. From there it was 20 minutes straight out to sea, and the Frankland Islands, which are a national preserve and sanctuary. The 35 of us on the boat were the only people on the island (this particular company is the only group to have permits to go there).