The pictures are posted in the new "Summer 2012" gallery. Now for a bit about the trip to Australia:
Plane Trip There
The trip to Australia went very well. We flew on Air Canada, they fly Toronto->Vancouver->Sydney. But the best part is that it's the same plane the whole way, so you don't have to recheck your bags or any other foolishness in Vancouver. The in-seat entertainment systems are an absolute must on a trip this long, and our new-ish Boeing 777 had them. After dinner and a few glasses of wine - free once you're over the Pacific - Erin and I took some sleeping pills and woke up about 1.5 hours out of Sydney.
Sydney (Days 1-3)
Ahh Sydney. Still the most beautiful city I've ever seen. The whole time I was there I had to keep reminding myself that this is a real place where people actually live and work, not some Disneyesque fantasy land. We stayed at the Glenferrie Lodge in Kirribilli again. Once again, Kirribilli is like someone was about to start construction and said "wait, we should probably ask Ted what the perfect place to live would be like". Though of course, being so close to the city center and on the water means that I could never actually afford to live there.
The first day was a bit cloudy and rainy, so we didn't do much, just ambled around then went to a pub in "The Rocks" (an old neighbourhood right near the opera house) for dinner. Probably one of the most interesting things about the first two days was that the Queen Mary 2 was in parked in the harbour. It was amazing to see it up close, it's magnificent. Massive and incredibly beautiful, like someone took a modern high end condo building, turned it on its side and put a hull under it. Mostly though it's just a big machine, which guys start become excited about at around age 2.
The second day had clear sunny skies, so we went to Bondi Beach. It's a great beach and a nice little area for having lunch and just generally hanging out. The water was surprisingly cool, so we didn't really swim just lay around on the beach. The surf was huge, and it was fun to watch people surfing, or trying to anyway. Also in the afternoon high school girls show up and sunbathe topless. We rounded out the day by taking the ferry (that's how we get to our hotel, a ferry across the sparkling harbor... *sigh*) to a random stop and walking to a more local area. Kind of like if you were in Toronto and went to The Junction instead of just sticking around the CBD. Turned out to be a great decision as we had a lovely dinner, and I just don't like areas mobbed with tourists.
Day three was a long jog across the bridge, through the botanical gardens and back. This was followed up with a picnic in the park that's directly across the harbor from the famous opera house. We brought a bottle of our favorite sparkling wine (http://www.hinterlandwine.com/ scroll through the pictures on the front page and see if you recognize any) and had some good local cheeses and meats. We walked around the city in the afternoon, and had some huge cocktails at The Argyle. That night we tried to have dinner in the Kings Cross neighborhood, but couldn't find anywhere we liked, so we ended up at The Rocks again.
On the final day we just hung around Kirribilli and then jumped on the plane to...
Adelaide (All The Other Days)
Instead of breaking this one down day by day (which would take too long) I'll just describe some of the stuff we did.
We rented a Holden Commodore SV6, you might know it as the Pontiac G8 - but it's built in Australia for Australians and is awesome. Big, four doors, rear wheel drive - sweet. I loved it, though I was unable to rent the Commodore HSV Clubsport with a manual. That one costs quite a bit of money though, and would be akin to renting a BMW M5 here - which doesn't really exist. The SV6 is still pretty good though, and Adelaide is surrounded by hills with all kinds of fast windy roads which makes a halfway decent car an absolute necessity. We stayed with Erin's friend from med school Grant. He has a house in one of the Adelaide suburbs (which are way better than ours by the way, the houses are unique and there's actual parks and native trees - not drainage ditches and saplings) and we stayed in the guest room. We went to the following beaches:
- Victor Harbor (area): About 1.5hr drive out of Adelaide - in the pictures it's the one with the rocks - gorgeous and mostly empty.
- Norlunga (area): Much closer to the city, but still beautiful - in the pictures it's the one with the river.
- Brighton: The closest beach to Grant. Nice, you could actually buy a house and live here - no high rises or other garbage and a nice little main street.
Most of the wine produced in Australia comes from the wine regions around Adelaide. There are still some vineyards right in the city - some of the most prestigious in fact. Anyway we visited:
- Adelaide Hills: Very close, great white wines. Great wines all around actually - most of our favorite wineries are to be found here: Nepenthe, Shaw & Smith, The Lane.
- Barossa Valley: About 1.5hrs out of Adelaide. This is a huge region with huge vineyards - they make the Ontario wine industry look like a little fart by comparison. Famous for its Shiraz. Though we hardly liked any of it. If you pay under $40 you basically have to cellar it for 5-10 years before it's good. Otherwise you should be paying more than $60 per bottle, which is a bit too rich for our blood.
- McLaren Vale: Between the other two in distance from the city. Very picturesque, my favorites were D'Arrenburg and Black Sheep.
Grant had a BBQ so we cooked most of our meals at his place. I insisted we eat Kangaroo as much as possible - so most of our meals revolved around it. We also drank a lot of wine - all of it good. Grant opened up a few choice bottles along with the ones we would bring back from our winery visits. Life really doesn't get much better than this... seriously it doesn't.
We went to the wedding of Erin's friend Lisa while we were there too. They had it at The Lane vineyard, which was stunning. Erin had a hot new dress, but I just reused what I wore to our wedding, hey why not. The food was probably the best of any wedding I've been to. With the exception of ours of course. Two days later we flew back, and I'm just now (two weeks on) getting my sleep schedule re-adjusted.