Hobbiton

Our trip to Hobbiton was one of our best tours, but it happened to fall on one of our worst days.

I have mentioned that often you don't really get complete information from a hotel listing. This was very much the case with our lodgings here, the Comfort Inn Gwendoline. First of all, they did have laundry, but it was only one washer and one very weak dryer. Also, the map showed it as being right on the main street of the town, and that was true, but it was a much longer walk from the center of town than we realized.

Still, we plan and leave lots of room for things to go wrong, so we arrived at Tourism Rotorua with time to spare. All of the major tours leave from here. They have an information center, gift shop, cafe with internet access, and ticket booth, as well as bathrooms, so it's really the hub of Rotorua, at least for tourists.

Danny picked us up, and he was wonderful. He was very friendly and considerate, he had an encyclopaedic knowledge of all things related to Peter Jackson, The Lord of the Rings, and New Zealand, and he got into the spirit of things.

He called us all hobbits, along with anyone else who would be joining us on the tour, and he would just not call anyone crazy, even though based on the stories, we would. Sure, people show up in costume, and you kind of have to expect that, but they had one person there who only spoke Elvish, and had her husband translate everything for her (I guess he spoke both English and Elvish). I would consider that person to be weird, but Danny would not say any such thing, and you could tell he has an affection for everyone who comes.

We had one other person in our van, and then met another person at the farm, so there was a total of five in our group. Danny did not end up being our tour guide for the actual set, but we'll get back to him later.

The film set is well worth seeing. You get a lot of behind the scenes information, and they do a good job of explaining how things were done. In addition, it is the only set you can see. All of the others were dismantled. Even with this set, they cannot make the holes look like hobbit homes, meaning they can't paint them in that manner or plant flowers around them. (Being able to paint the wood white was a compromise.) One of the girls with us had been on almost every Lord of the Rings tour in New Zealand (and the two she missed overlapped with other ones she had taken), and for those, basically they are pointing at a patch of grass or a tree and saying this is where the bed was. So this is definitely more interesting.

It was raining on and off (which will be important later). They provided umbrellas, but you are climbing up some fairly steep paths, and it does get a bit slick at times. It is not terribly hard physically, but I do recommend good shoes.

After the tour, they took us to to, well, I imagine it is a sheep shed, and not the sheep shed. They do shear sheep and feed lambs in here, but it is a small room and the farm has thousands of sheep, so they probably have larger facilities somewhere else on the property.

We got a sheep shearing demonstration, and they are fast and thorough. I think they said that to make any money you need to be able to do a sheep in four minutes. As a professional shearer, you can get very strong arm muscles, but will be lopsided if you do not switch sides regularly. However, you end up with very soft hands because you are constantly absorbing lanolin out of the wool.

We knew we were going to see a shearing, and then bottle feed baby lambs, but it did not go exactly how I imagined. I thought they would hand us each a lamb, and then a bottle. Instead, they distributed the bottles and released the lambs, leading to an itty-bitty stampede. Turns out that you don't need to guide the feeding very much. They know what they are doing. Yes, one did get hung up on the second bottle, trying to wrestle it away from his brother, before we helped him find the third bottle, and I think they all kept drinking long after the bottles were empty (you know, just in case they missed something). Oh, they were adorable.

There is a cafe and gift shop. Danny got us some food, and although normally only coffee and tea are included, this was one of those times when they allowed the substitution. I got a hot chocolate, and I think my sisters got Cokes.

The gift shop is pretty expensive. You can get a beautiful elven cloak made out of beautifully soft merino wool, but it will cost you. I bought a guide book for Misty, and a thing of Lanolin based hand cream.

Danny made a side trip for us to a statue of Gollum that they have in Matamata, and we made our way back to Rotorua. (He also taught us quite a bit about about the hot springs.)

Now, Danny offered to drop us off anywhere we wanted, so we could have had him take us back to the inn, but we wanted to check the internet and get dinner, so we just had him drop us off back at Tourism Rotorua. This may have been a mistake.

As we were checking e-mail, it started to rain. Well, it had been on and off, fine, we'll hang out a little bit longer. So we browsed in the gift shop and looked at the different tours. It was raining harder. Okay, we do need to get dinner, this restaurant we wanted to go to was only two blocks away, so we would get there and eat and then maybe it would clear up.

Not only did it not clear up, we couldn't find what we were looking for. We found a grocery store type place with kind of a strip mall/food court area, so good enough, we'll eat and hope that the rain stops.

Julie and Maria wanted to play it safe, so they tried the place with American style food, and thought it was gross. I had Indian food, and it was pretty good. Playing it safe gets you nowhere. Still, it just kept raining harder.

Although we were trying to conserve money, if I had seen a cab I would have gone for it, but there were just none to be had. So, we walked about two miles back, in the rain.

We got so wet, and later on I noticed that my clothes had kind of a moldy smell, and I wonder if the sulfur in the air was an issue. Anyway, the dryer was quite weak, and we already had most of our clothes spread out all over the room to dry, so we just had to spread out our coats and shoes as best as we could.

Still, it was a lovely tour. Maybe we just should have asked Danny to hit a drive-through on the way back to the Inn. I bet he would have.



http://www.hobbitontours.com/
http://www.rotoruanz.com/

Waitomo and the road to Rotorua

We were not allowed to take pictures in the glowworm caves, so all of the photos are from the road there.

One thing that I should mention is that New Zealand is really a pretty small country. Our cab driver the first day was saying you could drive the length of the north island in eight hours, spend three on the ferry, and then he wasn't sure about the length of the south island, but others said you could drive it in eleven hours. Obviously if you were to go at this rate, you would not be seeing and enjoying things, but the point is that you can cover a lot of ground in a short time.

The reason I mention this is because there were various places that I had thought about going when I was planning the trip, but decided against because I did not think we had time. Suddenly, as we are on the tour bus I kept seeing signs for all of these places, and they weren't really that far away. It is a good reason to consider renting a car. On the north island, things are really close together, and you can hit more that way. On the south island things are further apart, but all of the scenery is really beautiful.

This particular tour was selected because it went from Auckland (where we knew we would be) to Rotorua (where many attractions are) and stopped at the Waitomo caves. Even with that, it might have been worthwhile to be on our own, because we only saw one cave, and there are three there (Waitomo, Ruakuri, and Aranui). Actually, there are multiple glowworm caves in New Zealand, though I think Waitomo is the best known.

I definitely think seeing one of the caves is in order. There's something eerily beautiful about the glowworms, like a mini-galaxy of stars. The thread of personal connection that we experienced at Waitangi continued, as our guide was the granddaughter of the Maori chief who had owned the land and discovered the caves. It's nice to have that history built in.

For this particular tour, you walk in part of the way, and see some things, and then load into a boat to ride further in. We did not get the full tour, as heavy rains had caused the water to rise about twelve feet. We later met another tourist who had to miss the boat ride completely, as the rain did not stop after we left. We still saw a fair amount.

The tour does not take very long, and our option included lunch. There is usually a cafeteria at Waitomo, but it had burned and the new construction had not been completed yet, so they took us to the Big Apple Cafe. The picture shows the sign only. The Cafe itself is a regular building, with a normal shape, and quite large. It's more like a reception hall than a cafe.

The tour option was a lunch buffet. We had our choice of meat from the grill, and then there was a table with different things you could take. There was not much variety, but the food was really good. Partly it was that there wasn't much of a selection, and partly it was that they were not doing a good job of keeping the different dishes filled, but my steak, pumpkin soup, and fried rice were all good. So, that may not sound like a glowing recommendation, but I would go again.

Other pictures include a view of Auckland taken from Kelly Tarlton's, a tree I shot from the bus because I found it very symmetrical, and two shots from the pitstop we made. The dog building has a kind of a tourist shop/information booth and the sheep is a cafe. If I remember correctly, it is the Slightly Sheepish Coffee House, and the dog is of course the Good Shepherd, for the tourists as well as the sheep.

The drive was not at all bad in terms of distance or rough road. The company was not great. We had a very nice driver from Auckland to Waitomo, who was friendly and gave good information. At Waitomo we switched drivers, and John seemed to kind of hate us. He wasn't outright rude, but there was this thinly-veiled contempt. To be fair, there were some other Americans on the bus, and at least one of them was quite overbearing and obnoxious. I can see that if you get enough of those, you could build up a distaste for it, but then maybe you don't belong in the hospitality industry.

Again, the point of all this is that you should just get a car.

http://www.waitomo.com/

Kelly Tarlton's Antarctic Adventure

I suppose in any place, there are things that locals do, and things that tourists do, and some attractions that work for both. In Auckland, Kelly Tarlton's is worthwhile for tourists, but reasonably priced and convenient enough that it also serves the local community well. I mention this because we went on a weekend, and I have to strongly recommend against that.

The place was packed. It was crawling with parents and children and a large group of Japanese tourists, as well as us. There were things about this that made our trip less pleasant.

For one thing, we were happy to learn that there was a free shuttle to Kelly Tarlton's. It's that van with the shark and two penguins on top. Not that big, huh? We were left behind by it twice, first on the way there and then for our return. The attraction was converted from an old water treatment plant, so is very much on the outskirts of town, and not walkable. When the full van passed us by on the way there, we grabbed a taxi. When it happened again after we exited, we took a bus. Nothing tragic, but both times we spent money that we had not planned on spending. I have to say, the van driver was not helpful. The shuttle is hourly, and they do not make extra trips no matter how many people are waiting. This might not have been a problem on a weekday.

We had purchased advance tickets, and when you go in, you are supposed to skip the line and go into the express lane. Unfortunately, both the express lane and the regular lane are handled by the same people, and the regular line is closer to the actual window, so you stand around waiting, realize you will be there forever, and then cut in while feeling very rude, even though it is pretty much what you have to do. Then they take your picture. Again, none of this would have been as bad on a weekday.

This makes the attraction sound like it's not very good, and that's really not the case. They just need to handle their flow better. Once you are in, there are a lot of things that are pretty cool. First of all, there are very few places in the world that have a giant squid on display. It is dead of course, but it is still kind of impressive. You get an idea of it's size, and they removed a section of one tentacle so you can get a closer look at the suckers and the talons that come from them. I would not want to meet one in the water. Fortunately, the odds of that are low.

They have a moving walkway that takes you through a tunnel under a large tank, with sharks and various fish, as well as several smaller tanks with things like piranha, seahorse, and lobster, as well as an octopus that we could actually see. I don't know if that is because they set up the environment better or we just got lucky, because usually when I am at an aquarium, the octopus is hiding really well. I did have the usual problems with aquarium photography, but there are more photos available (pictures 173 to 205 at http://harristravel.shutterfly.com/560). However, I want to spend more time on two things that were special.

So, in addition to the enclosed shark tank with the tunnel, they also have an open ray tank. There are clear, high sides so you can see them and hear them splashing, and maybe sometimes you could even touch them, but part of the tank had been sectioned off, and was being used for turtles.

An injured loggerhead turtle was being rehabilitated there, and was sharing that part of the tank with a green turtle and hawksbill turtle as well. Two of them were definitely being prepared for re-release into the wild, but for a while you could see them up close, and it covered the time we were there.

I love turtles. I don't know what it is, but they just make me happy. So we could watch these, and the loggerhead was quite lively. I know they can stay under for quite a while, but what he was doing was swimming from one side of the tank to the other and sticking his head up at each end. I think he was interested in the people. You'd think with all of that I could have gotten a good photo of his head sticking up, but he was moving too fast, and it was always blurring. Frustrating.

They were fun to watch, and it was worth going, but it also led to a brush with horror. Obviously, they had to capitalize on the turtles, so they had what they called Turtle-topia going on, with games and contests and a focus on children. Again, I am sure that we would have been better off on a weekday, but on this day, in addition to the coloring contest, there was live entertainment for the kids. There was a man on keyboard and a female singer, and this was probably their big break, getting a step up from birthday parties, but oh, the garish, multi-colored cheesiness. I couldn't get good pictures of them either. They were jumping around too much, and I think my camera was rebelling.

I will say they were enthusiastic. Sure, the song "I Love Turtles" may have been adapted from something else (like Elton John did with Candle in the Wind), but I think the song about how to make a baby turtle (no it wasn't dirty, nor at all accurate) and the one about plastic bags were probably written specifically for Turtle-topia, so good on them.

The other feature is really the one we went for. You see, there were many places with Antarctic Adventures or Discovery points on our trip. A lot of Antarctic expeditions depart from Australia and New Zealand, so it makes sense. However, this was the only one with a penguin habitat.

The exhibit is closed off, and you get into a snowcat type vehicle and go around on a track. The light and temperature patterns are set to mimic the seasons at the South Pole, so the colony of King and Gentoo penguins housed there are on the same breeding cycles as the birds in the wild. (When you are walking through the exhibit of Scott's cabin, there are also portholes where you can look in at the birds, but we did not make the most of this because we were trying to escape the mob. Weekend.)

Honestly, the area was a lot smaller than I pictured, but we did get to see both King and Gentoo penguins without going to Antarctica, so that is that. Since the humans are in the vehicles, all the birds see is the car going around, which does not seem to phase them. I thought they seemed a little crowded, but then they do that in the wild, so maybe they like it that way.

One factor that probably leads to the crowding is that to control the temperature while still connected to the rest of the building, they have to have these passageways in between. To keep the customers from getting bored during these steps, they have added some features. On the way in, they put in a tunnel where the wall rotates around you to similate a whiteout. This is quite similar to the avalanche simulation found on the Universal Studios tram ride. There was another parallel.

As we left the penguins behind, exiting that area, I saw another penguin in the new chamber, and was wondering if there was a separate group. Now, although penguins can stand quite still, the nerd in me was puzzled becasue it looked like an Adelie penguin, but it was too big, and they weren't supposed to have Adelie's anyway. Then I saw the seal, and realized I was looking at models because they would never let a seal anywhere near the penguins. Then we went back to Universal, as an animatronic orca rose out of the water with a seal in its jaws. Frankly, it was a bit more impressive than poor old Bruce (Jaws). Then there was some 2-D CDI footage of killer whales, and that was pretty much the end of the ride. Nonetheless, it was fun.

There is one other thing to know. As you are exiting, you are underground, and one arrow points to cars and one to buses. The way you take is actually which side of the road you come up on, and it is not a great road to cross so this is really kind of important. The shuttle bus is with the cars (if you can get on). Buses really just means the coaches that you're on if you are coming with a tour group. If you are going to catch a public transit bus back in to town, you want to be on the car side as well.

http://www.kellytarltons.co.nz/home/page.aspx

Waitangi Treaty Grounds

I already wrote about part of this day, spent in the Bay of Islands, from the road. There is a picture of the boat here, and you can read the account of our time on it at http://sporkful.blogspot.com/2008/10/bay-of-islands.html.

The ride was not great, but it was only part of the trip. First we stopped off at the Waitangi Treaty Grounds.

On the way, they played a video about the history of the area, so I had some background. One downside to being relatively close to a large penal colony is that you are the first logical stop for anyone who escapes or is released. New Zealand started having a problem with lawlessness, and the Maori made a treaty with England to establish law and bring order to the area. The chief donated a flagpole.

One of the tidbits they will tell you is that the original Waitangi treaty is unique in not having sprung from a war. This sounds nice, except much like English-Native American translations, some concepts were understood differently by the two sides, and so conflict arose from it, including the flagpole being chopped down by the Maori multiple times. You can see the current flagpole in the photo with our guide.

I'm afraid she was much more boring than she should have been. When we were looking at the waka (war canoe--that really long boat that I can't fit into a single frame), there was another guide talking to a couple, and he was obviously so much more engaging. Fortunately he offered to jump in and she accepted, and then the history came alive. I suppose the personal connection could have been a factor. His grandfather helped carve the boat, and his father and he had both paddled it (to give you an idea of the size, it can hold 150 people, and requires at least 100 paddling to get it to move). Still, the female guide was a descendent of Abel Tasman, who discovered New Zealand, so she could have felt connected. Maybe he was just more charismatic.

So, your guide can make a big difference; no surprise there.

For the site itself, I have to say I found the house museum boring, although the garden was nice. However, there is a lot of history there, the grounds have a lot of native plants, and you have two great examples of Maori craftmanship. One is the waka, and the other is the marae.

This is the traditional meeting house, and you will find them all over. However, the one at Waitangi was built to bring the different tribes together, so every tribe of the North Island contributed a pair of carvings. The pair face each other, and they are generally husband-wife pairs or father-son pairs.

Apparently there is only one South Island tribe, and they have a different relationship with the North (don't know what that means, it was the girl guide), so instead of a pair of carvings they donated a throne. Still, everyone contributed something.

The Bay itself is okay, but we simply did not fall in love with it the way we did with the South. More on that later.



http://www.waitangi.net.nz/

Maru and Phillip Island

This was our last day in Australia. Really, our last six days were all supposed to be with Adventure Tours, as we went to Kangaroo Island and back, along the Great Ocean Road, being dropped off in Melbourne Wednesday night, picked up in Melbourne on Thursday for the day trip to Phillip Island, and then leaving Friday. I've already wrote about what happened to the Great Ocean Road part of the tour.

One thing I am doing now as I write these is also sending feedback or thank you messages. I just posted reviews for the two Melbourne hotels, and now I need to contact Adventure Tours with my feedback. This is what I will say. They do offer good tours, and the prices are decent. It is not necessarily obvious from the web site how much roughing it is involved, or how active the tours are. The adventure makes it sound like things might be a little dangerous or exhilarating, but they are not. They are grueling.

The itineraries are exactly right for someone who is backpacking and staying in hostels between hikes. Now, if you are going to one place, and doing some exploring there, you might be able to get yourself around cheaper, but when you have several stops in the same general area, having a company that is taking you on the road and arranging your lodging and meals can be a really good thing. Our Kangaroo Island guide, Peter was great. Our Phillip Island guide, Stephen, was not quite as on top of things, but still got the job done, and was a really nice guy.

So really, I only have two complaints. One is the inadequacy of the web site, which was really pretty common for this trip. The other is that they just never picked us up on time. This was bad enough in Adelaide, where we were being chatted up by drunks at 6 in the morning in front of our hotel, but the concierge did keep checking on us, and we knew we were in the right place.

In Melbourne, we were on a street corner that was nowhere near our hotel, and there was no specification for which corner, and it did not look like a place where you would get picked up. Two of the corners were right by strips of grass leading to an underpass, one was by the side of a building that I think was a museum, but am not sure, and the other was by a mostly vacant building. There was no phone near by, and we did not have cell phones there, so as we waited for an hour (they said noon, but be there 15 minutes early, and he came at 12:45), it was really nerve-wracking. Plus, it was clear later that there would have been other stops that would have been closer to where we actually stayed, so I guess when they assigned that, we can add them to the list of people who have no idea where the Albany is.

Honestly, punctuality does not seem to be the most valued trait Down Under, and I don't mind being a little bit casual and laid back, but when you are afraid of being left behind, it's hard to relax. Fortunately, we did get picked up, so that was a help.

Given the chance to do it over, I am not sure I would take this particular tour of Phillip Island, because there is a lot we did not see. The island is most famous for the Penguin Parade, which I highly recommend. Other primary attractions include the Nobbies (some rocks with seals), Churchill Island Heritage Farm, and there is a Koala Conservation Center of which one feature is that you walk along a boardwalk through the trees, so you can look down or across at the koalas instead of up.

We only saw the Parade and the Nobbies, and honestly, you don't get a very good look at the seals. They're too far away. Instead, before leaving the mainland we stopped at another wild animal park, Maru. Maru was not bad at all, but I'm not sure that getting the three-attraction pass for the Island wouldn't have been better.

Maru is small, but they do have a wide variety of animals, especially birds. I have lots of pictures on our Shutterfly site.

I don't know if they do this with everyone, or only tours, but we all had to pass through the photo opportunity, where they took our pictures with a koala. You could not touch the koala, but they did hand you some leaves to feed it. My sisters avoided posing, but I went for it so I could feed the koala, and just never checked out the picture. I did get to feel it pulling the leaves from my hands, so that was kind of cool.

One thing Stephen pointed out was the new babies board, and he showed us an albino kangaroo, which he said was quite rare. I saw the joey, but then he stuck his little head back in before I could grab a photo, and never stuck it back out. I then saw a larger white one, which I thought might be the father, except he was kind of small. When he started trying to climb into the pouch of another kangaroo, I decided that was not right. In the end, I counted at least five white kangaroos. It may be rare in the wild, but it does seem to be a trait that gets passed on pretty easily.

The kangaroos there did not really respond to the chest scratching like at Bonorong, which was a little disappointing. They still took the food, but did not seem to care about the contact much. The emu were more amusing, because they were behind a fairly large fence. They would keep popping their heads up and pecking at the food we would put on the fence, so there was kind of a whack-a-mole vibe going on. I happened to get a shot of two heads up simultaneously, but it was usually one or the other.

There were many koala, but this one just looks so unkempt and seedy, I kept focusing on him. He was like the koala Gary Busey.

We had lunch here, and then drove to the island. It was the weekend of a big motorcycle race, so there were bikes everywhere, which was kind of cool. We did go by the track and see a few practice runs.

As I said, at the Nobbies we did not get a good look at the seals. We wandered around the visitors center, and it was also a rest stop where they offered us biscuits and tea. This was important, because there were a lot of sea gulls around, and you are not supposed to feed them, but they have never agreed to the rule. Anyway, two of the girls on our bus ran afoul of the gulls. One got near a nest, and saw the egg and was interested, but came under attack. Another went to help, but was carrying a biscuit. They had to make a speedy retreat. Now, with the pelican feeding, you would think it would remind me of Finding Nemo, and "Mine! Mine! Mine!", but visually, it reminded me more of The Birds. Suddenly, this moment was very much like the birds.

As you can see, two pictures are not from Maru. The surfer, well, I just thought he was attractive, but also I liked the image of him striding out of the surf. The penguin was the only penguin I could photograph there.

You see, no photography or videography is allowed at the Penguin Parade. The flashes are bad for their eyes, and if you tried just banning flash photography people would keep messing it up, whether intentionally or not. So, if you see a penguin anywhere else on the island, grab a picture then while it is fair game. This little guy was under a boardwalk at one of our stops.

What kind of a penguin is he? For a long time they have been called fairy penguins, but that name has gotten a little controversial. Little penguins and blue penguins also works, but I am afraid that my indecisiveness causes me to think of them as little blue fairy penguins. Big name for a small bird.

I do recommend seeing the parade. It is the number three attraction in Australia, after the Reef and the Rock (see, we got all the big ones). There are bleachers on the beach, and you go before dusk and the park rangers talk to you a bit, and as it gets darker they start coming ashore.

Being small, and vulnerable to predators, as it is time to come ashore they wait near the edge and then start crossing the sand in groups. It's amazing how dramatic it is. You wait and wait, and then you start seeing little groups coming into sight, and they are adorable. One got separated from its raft, and I was just watching and waiting for it to finally clear the little hill and make it safely back. It did. There was also one with a limp, and apparently the rangers do look out for injured birds, so it was probably fine as well.

Little penguins do not go out to see every day, but they do get more active at night regardless, so as you work your way back along the paths you see and hear penguins everywhere--more than you would have expected from the numbers coming ashore. You still can't take pictures, but even though they say no recording, I imagine a sound recorder would be okay, and might be worthwhile. They make a lot of noise.

We happened to be there while the short-tailed shearwaters (mutton birds) were there. These are migratory birds that come from the Aleutian Islands, and there were just thousands of them. That part of the night was really amazing.

When it was over we made our way back to the bus, and Stephen got us pizza for dinner. It was okay, not great, but hey, he dropped us off a block in front of our hotel, so we did not have to spend an hour traveling at midnight, transferring between two trams. No, he had never heard of the Albany or Millswyn street either, but I still had the map, and fortunately, Millswyn connects to a pretty major road.

The next morning we left for New Zealand.

I should mention, although Melbourne was full of disappointments, there was a lot of really beautiful architecture. I didn't really get any photos, and again, I'm not sure I'd go back, but it's worth pointing out.

http://www.penguins.org.au/
http://www.marukoalapark.com.au/
http://harristravel.shutterfly.com/497
http://www.phillipislandcircuit.com.au/

Things go South

I once worked with someone from Florida, and we were talking once about whether it was considered to be part of the South or not. She said that northern Florida is very much Southern, but as you go further south, you start hitting retirees from New York, so the north is south, but the south is north.

We did not have good look with southern continental Australia. We did have a good time on various islands that were further south, and technically South Australia is a specific region, whereas when we were further east, we were in Victoria. Sorry if it gets a little confusing.

The point is, Tasmania could be considered far South, but it is an island, and it was beautiful, and we had a great time there. Kangaroo Island is in the region of South Australia, but is still an island, and despite some hardships there were good times. Phillip Island is in the state of Victoria, and is so close to the mainland that you go by bridge instead of needing a ferry, but still, it is an island, and that was a relatively good day. The points in between were full of disappointment.

From Tasmania we flew to Adelaide. Part of the problem may have been that we heard really good things about Adelaide, that it had a really nice feel, and we were told that we would love it. We did not love it.

It was crowded with mall rats and clubbers, and we were accosted by more inebriated people there than anywhere else on the trip. I know it was the weekend, but still. We were able to accomplish some important errands there, like getting on the internet to see that my transfer had gone through to Julie's account, allowing me to have cash again. I was able to buy a wallet and a new memory card, and new batteries for my glaucometer, all of which was very necessary, but we don't go on vacation to shop. Businesses that we thought looked interesting turned out to be closed when we got there. We had the opposite of good feelings.

Now, we did not worry about this too much, because we were only there Friday, and then we were leaving early Saturday morning for Kangaroo Island. (Most of the inebriated people were encountered while we were waiting for pickup, 6 AM Saturday morning, as they were coming away from dancing and cards. Some were outside the mall the previous day, but most of them were here. A pair of them tried hitting on my sisters.) Well, the bus did come, we went to the ferry, and that has already been explored.

When I wrote from the road, I mentioned that our tour group was a mini-United Nations, and that we had bonded quite a bit from our two days together. We all sat in nearby rows on the ferry back. The husband in the Taiwanese couple was in the front, and he looked back over us all and said "A team." (Which was pretty good for him. They did not speak much English. It did not matter for most of the trip, but it is why I can't tell you their names.) We did feel like a team.

It all fell apart when we got on the buses. They started dividing us up by which hotels and hostels we were going to, so that split us in half. Then the bus ended up being really crowded, and struggling for seats we ended up separating more. I should have sat with Victoria, but I was trying to at least be near my sisters, and that didn't work out either. I didn't see her again.

Since I did not end up near my sisters, I did not know that towards the end of the ride, Maria needed to visit the bathroom twice, and was actually getting quite sick. We got dumped at the hostel and checked in there around eleven, and we were supposed to be at the pickup point for the next leg of the journey at 6 AM the next day. Maria was sick as a dog, and the next three days were going to consist of long bus rides and long hikes. It was not looking good.

This is why at midnight, Julie and I were searching airfare and hotel rates, trying to see what alternatives were workable to get us out of Adelaide if we could not manage the scheduled tour. Unfortunately, the hotel we had already booked in Melbourne for the end of the tour did not have availability, and booking anything for the next day is difficult, but we finally arranged a flight to Melbourne and a hotel.

I went to the tour and let them know we wouldn't be coming, which they appreciated, but it was too late to refund, and that's what I had expected. She did say if we had travel insurance they should cover it, but we didn't. Maria woke up feeling a little better, but Julie was not feeling great. Handling a short trip to the airport and a short flight did seem possible though, so we thought it would just be extra time in Melbourne. Not exactly.

Well, it's not really a surprise when the main airport for a city is not in the middle of the city. However, we did not realize exactly how bad the urban sprawl of Melbourne was, and not knowing the geography, we ended up at a hotel that was quite close to the airport, and close to absolutely nothing else. This led to several problems.

The first issue was that the cabbie launched into a huge lecture at us for wasting his time, and that we should have told him where it was sooner, I guess so he could have decided to not take us. The funny thing was that I had specific the name of the hotel and the street (Best Western on Ardlie) when I first gave him the location, but he was not listening at all. The upside of being lectured on taking a short cab ride is that it is a short cab ride, but we were nonetheless a little irritated. I was watching the meter and thinking about how I was not going to tip him. It ended up on $14.00 and he looked at me without blinking an eye and said $16.00, but maybe it was the airport surcharge. I gave him the exact amount. I thought about telling him that if he had not been a jerk he would have gotten a good tip (which would be true, we are excellent tippers), but I just wanted him gone.

So, now we checked in and received our second lecture of the day on how horrible it is to book through Travelocity, because it always messes everything up and (the desk clerk) always needs to end up talking to them on the phone to get it billed right. I have been booking through Travelocity for several years, and that has never been a problem, and I did ask at the desk later, and they did not actually have an issue billing it, so I feel like maybe the real problem was her, but okay.

The next issue is that being in the middle of nowhere, no one would deliver to us. Well, actually none of the places we called even knew where we were. There was a restaurant attached to the hotel, but it was really overpriced. Julie and I tried walking to find something, and we found a grocery store with not much, a restaurant that was closed Mondays, and restaurant that was closed permanently, and a pub with no take-out. We also found a bakery, but none of the fare was practical. Eventually, we were able to get a hold of Dominos. Those people deliver anywhere, though I was really sick of them by then.

Things were starting to where us down, and I started getting persistent queries about changing the tickets and going home early. I was resisting, but I understood where it was coming from.

There was one thing that the hotel really had going for it, and that was a shuttle to the mall. We decided we would spend the next day at the mall. The day after that we could head to our real hotel, and things would be better then for sure.

Actually, the mall was the best thing that happened to us on the southern mainland (well, Maru wasn't bad, but that kind of goes with Phillip Island.) We wandered around different stores. We had a food court where we could have some variety of inexpensive food. We had material for reading and writing so we could use our time somewhat productively, and when the time still seemed to drag a bit, we went to see a movie. "The House Bunny" was better than I expected. You kind of have to take it as a fairy tale where Hef is not a disgusting old man, but they do set it up that way with the opening narration. Anyway, that worked out, and we had an okay day without having to hike anywhere.

We were not sure what would be the best way to get to our other hotel, so I discussed it at length with a different desk clerk, a nice one. We had initially been looking at the train, but we were worried about proximity to the actual hotel from the station, and she had never heard of the Albany, where we were going, or the street where it was on. She looked up the address and photocopied the map, which ended up being very helpful, because no one had ever heard of the Albany.

Worried about that, we decided to go back to the airport instead, and take the hotel shuttle. They had never heard of it, so would not let us have door-to-door service, just a drop off in their main neighborhood. Okay, we would take another cab. That driver had also never heard of the Albany or Millswyn Street, but with the map and his GPS we made it, and he had no complaints about the trip being short. We did not end up being at all near the train station, so we probably made the right call, though we felt like we were just throwing money away.

I'm afraid the Albany was kind of a dive. They had a rock and roll theme going on, with classic 70's photography of musicians, including the stones from a time when Keith Richards did not look old and dessicated (I was not born yet), so maybe it was appropriate to be a dive. The bathroom was nasty, the room was narrow, and the elevator could not be trusted. The staff was nice though, and I heard one guest arranging a return trip, so maybe it was just us.

Anyway, we still had an extra day (we should have been on the last leg of the Great Ocean Road tour), so we had been told that the Victoria Market was the place for souvenirs. We had held off on buying things because of the luggage limit for the Great Ocean Road tour, which of course we had missed anyway, so, okay, we would make up for it here. The next day was another all-day tour, and then we took off for New Zealand the following day, so this was pretty much our last chance.

We asked for directions, and followed them, in the process learning how to get tram and bus tickets and ride them. I should mention that in many cases this has you standing in the middle of the road on a very narrow strip, and that Melbourne seemed to be the place where we were most likely to die. We didn't though. We managed to find our way there, constantly referring to the map, and as we arrived we learned in was closed Wednesdays. I guess we did feel that it would have been nice for the staff to mention this while they were giving directions. We ended up just going into a regular souvenir shop one block away from the train station, where we probably overpaid.

The other indignity of Melbourne was that we selected the Albany because when we were booking it listed laundry among the amenities, and I had calculated that we would need to do laundry here. We could have done it at the Best Western, but that would have thrown off the number of days before the next chance, plus it was three dollars a load, so we waited. The Albany used to have laundry, but they closed down the room. So we ended up toting a very heavy bag many streets away to a laundromat where it was four dollars a load. Curses.

We did find a nice restaurant there. While the loads were going we were looking for dinner, and most of the restaurants were really pricey, but we found one, Piazza Navona, that was affordable, and the pizza ended up being really good. So, if you are ever in South Yarra, Melbourne, consider it. It is near the corner of Toorak and Punt.

As you can see, the pictures we have of this stage of the trip are very boring. There is a newspaper office that you can see from the Best Western (notice the rolled up newspaper sculpture standing next to it), a plastic Oregon Christmas tree (of which I do not see the point) in their equivalent of Wal-mart, the plane shot (which I could have taken anywhere), and the pig statues from Adelaide.

We were gone for a month, so it's reasonable to expect that there would be some snags, but it was getting irritating.

The Pelican Feeding at Kangaroo Island

Whatever we did on our second day on Pelican Island, it all needed to result in our arriving at Kingscote Wharf before 5. The reason for this is that the pelicans are fed precisely at that time, and you want to get there a bit in advance so you can get good seats.

My mention of seats should not imply bleachers. There are rocks that you can sit on, and the birds make free use of these rocks as well. You will notice some white splatters. You can sit on the rocks or stand in the area right behind them, but if you are not squeamish, go for the rocks. I actually got brushed with wings.

I am sure there are people who will be against the practice, but the pelican man, John, takes a cooler full of fish and tosses it to the birds at 5 every day, rain or shine, tourist season or no. This means that the birds are there every day at five. So, yes, he is feeding wildlife, but the amount that they get is not large enough that they are losing the ability to hunt and fish on their own. I found the experience amazing, and I think the pelicans are coming out okay. If you go to Kangaroo Island, I definitely recommend attending a feeding.

I know we have pelicans in the U.S., including in Texas, but I have only ever seen them wild when out of the country: brown pelicans in Mexico, then Australian pelicans here. Notice the yellow patches around the eye.

John was a wonderful showman. He taught us lots about pelicans with a very droll delivery style, as well as demonstrating different behaviors based on where he threw the fish. So, we got to see a landing disrupted, and sea gulls being chased by pelicans, as well as random squabbling.

Check out the throat in the bottom picture. This bird got a large clump of fish headed down the wrong way, and couldn't swallow. He kept sending it back up to his pouch and trying again. What he really needed to do was actually send it outside and start over, but there was no way he was going to do it there, surrounded by competition. Even opening his bill a little would be an invitation to another bird to try seizing it forcefully. Eventually he had to leave the area. Gross perhaps, but pelicans are not big on table manners.

Obviously, one had to think about Finding Nemo there, only instead of many gulls and one pelican, the gulls were outnumbered and outclassed. Also, no cute little clownfish in the cooler, which was just as well.

I know I haven't conveyed how fun it was, but trust me, it was. The birds are cool, and John really sold the experience. He does ask for a contribution of $3.00 AUD per person, but I think it's well worth it. (It is voluntary, but you'd have to be a bit of a grinch not to do it.)

As always, more pictures at http://harristravel.shutterfly.com/. The Kangaroo Island pictures are in the Southern Australia section.