New Zealand & Australia

April 16-30, 2010
I just got back from a business trip to New Zealand and Australia. Two weeks, 4 cities, a 3 day weekend and 22,588 miles in the air.

The first week was the quick part of the trip with a departure on Friday evening from Seattle and an arrival in Auckland on Sunday afternoon around 3:00... I missed Saturday altogether. Since I was pretty tired when I arrived I didn't do allot and with only two days there and two days in Melbourne (stop two on the trip) I didn't see a lot in either city. I did have a couple of good days at work in Auckland and had a great meal where I ate Ostrich for the first time.

Melbourne wasn't terribly interesting this trip since I was there on a Wednesday and Thursday. The only place I have seen kangaroos in the wild was in Melbourne on a previous trip, but we did not have time this trip to drive out to the spot where they hang out.

Since I had not been to Perth, on the west coast of Australia, on previous trips "down under" I was looking forward to this stop the most. I was not disappointed. Perth is an Oil and Gas town with almost everyone in town and practically every visitor having some connection to the industry. Our office there does a lot of business with several of the big oil and gas companies. So, I did not imagine such a beautiful city. The Swan River runs through it and has parks and running trails as well as some pretty nice homes along both sides. The sunrise above was taken from my hotel room window looking out across South Cove to the river beyond the bridge.

Friday was a work day, but on Saturday I took a 30 minute ferry ride to Rottnest Island. Rottnest was named for a marsupial called a Quokka which resembles a kangaroo and rat combination. They have a pouch, a rat like tail and stand about 20 inches tall. In 1696 Willem de Vlamingh mistook them for rats and named the island "Rottenest", Dutch for "rat nest". The island is 11KM long and the only transportation is bicycles so I "hired" a bike and off I went in search of cool scenery and quokkas. It is believed about 10,000 quokkas inhabit Rottnest Island. I saw 6.

As you'll see in the pictures there are some very nice beaches around the island. The water is crystal clear. I saw a 4' sand shark from one overlook, but it was moving away from me and I couldn't get a recognizable picture of it.

On Sunday I flew to Sydney. When I planned this trip I was unaware that Monday the 26th was going to be a public holiday called Anzac Day. Anzac Day is a national day of remembrance in Australia and New Zealand, and is commemorated by both countries on 25 April every year to honor members of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC) who fought at Gallipoli in Turkey during World War I. In fact, nobody at our offices in Australia knew it was going to be a holiday either since in the past they did not receive a day off if Anzac Day fell on the weekend. So on Monday a friend from work took me on a "bushwalk" from Spit Bridge to Manly. 12.5 KM of trail with spectacular views of Sydney Harbor. Then a 30 minute ferry ride back into Sydney. I spent 5 days in Sydney and had a very nice time. I also got a couple of nice pictures of the Opera House from a different angle than previous trips.

If you click on the sunrise picture you'll be taken to my Flickr site and can look at the rest of the pictures from this trip.