Wanderung 20

Australian Walkabout

May - June 2009

Epilog

Bob:

So what were the lessons learned from Wanderung 20? Australia's a great place to visit with fascinating scenery, exotic animals, and wonderfully friendly people, so go while the air fares are low! But please consider taking LOTS of time if you want to "see it all". We traveled liesurely for about 5 weeks and saw roughly 1/3 of the country. It is huge like the U.S., so driving from Point A to Point B can be awfully far and take quite a long time as you may jolly well be driving on (the wrong side of) a two-lane highway for many hundreds of miles.

Choosing between driving a rental car and using the rail/bus pass like we did for most of our stay is tough. The train/bus system is cheap, timely, and efficient and you get wonderul, low-stess views of the countryside as it flows by, but the public transportation network doesn't go everywhere and you have to adhere to its schedule rather than travel at a pace you might prefer. Renting a car is a bit of folderol and driving on the left side of the road is quite exciting (where "exciting" = "bad") so the driver must attend to business rather than rubberneck, but you get the flexibility to get to more places and travel at your own place. Although we can't resolve that issue for the Gentle Reader, we can at least give you some guidance on how to see some of the cities we visited.

Uncle Bob's Guide to Visiting Sydney:

  1. Rent a hotel somewhere in the Central Business District of Sydney
  2. Do the Sydney Volksmarch to get acquainted with the basic layout of the city and its major attractions.
  3. If you get a nice day, walk across the Harbour Bridge for great views of the huge harbour, take a ferry boat across the harbor, etc.
  4. If you get a rainy day, see the Maritime Museum, the New South Wales gallery of art, etc.
  5. On one extra day take a bus or a rental car and tour the Northern Beaches on the peninsula facing the Pacific Ocean.

Uncle Bob's Guide to Visiting Broken Hill:

  1. Take the night bus out to Broken Hill from Dubbo on a Saturday night. You will arrive quite late at night, so make sure you have a room reserved.
  2. Spend Sunday taking the big, all-day tour of Broken Hill and surrounding attractions (old mining towns, art galleries, Sculpture Symposium, etc.)
  3. Spend Monday visiting the different museums and Miner's Memorial in Broken Hill
  4. Optional: rent a car and drive around the surrouding area of the Outback.
  5. Take the train from Broken Hill back to Sydney on Tuesday, which is the ONLY DAY OF THE WEEK THAT TRAIN RUNS!

Uncle Bob's Guide to Visiting Melbourne:

  1. Rent a hotel room somewhere in the Central Business District of Melbourne (Formule 1 was cheap and clean)
  2. Walk the Melbourne Volksmarch and then relax and take the tourist bus circuit around the periphery of the Central Business District. While enjoying the city, mark the sights you want to see in more detail.
  3. Walk and take the Circle Route tourist trolley to get to the sights you want to see for the next day or two
  4. Rent a car and take a driving trip West along the coast to the 12 Apostles and back to Melbourne
  5. Use the same rental car and drive East along the coast and circle back through the coastal mountain range.

Uncle Bob's Guide to Visiting Canberra:

  1. Rent a hotel room anywhere in the Canberra area, but be very careful to get specific directions on how to drive there and locate it using Google Maps, etc.
  2. Rent a car to be picked up near the bus station or near the train station, depending on how you arrive.
  3. Drive to find your hotel in one of the suburbs that make up Canberra. Drive around to locate nearby cafes or grocery stores for food.
  4. Drive into the central government area, park underneath Parliament, and walk around the government area of the city. Don't forget to visit and spend time in the ANZAC memorial cum museum.
  5. Drive to the Australian National Museum and spend the whole day learning about Australian history and culture. If you have any spare time, walk around the artificial lakes in the heart of the city.
  6. Take a picnic lunch and spend the day driving South and around some of the parklands that border Canberra. The Australian Alps region lies a bit further to the South, but I don't know if that can be done in a one-day drive as we didn't get there.

Uncle Bob's Guide to Visiting Brisbane:

  1. Rent a hotel room in the Central Business District of Brisbane
  2. Spend a day walking over to the Brisbane River and cross to the South Bank promenade, visiting the museums, art galleries, or state library on that side. If you like nautical things, make sure to include the Queensland Maritime Museum.
  3. Spend a day walking the North Bank promenade and visiting the botanical gardens. Return via the central business district and see City Hall, etc.
  4. Rent a car and spend a day driving West of Brisbane. If you want to visit the railroad museum, I would suggest first driving southwest to Ipswich so that you can take both of the tours of the back areas of the museum shops. From Ipswich I would suggest you drive North into the mountainous area and see some nice park areas there before turning East to return to downtwon Brisbane.

So put Australia on your "go to" list (in my case, it's a "bucket list"!) and make a liesurely visit to see the beautiful landscapes, the exotic flora and fauna, and above all the wonderfully friendly and outgoing people.

Copyright 2009 by R. W. Holt and E. M. Holt
Index
Prolog Map of Australian Walkabout Epilog

May 2009
Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat
1 2
3 4 5 6 7 8 9
10 11 12 13 14 15 16
17 18 19 20 21 22 23
24 25 26 27 28 29 30
31
June 2009
Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat
1 2 3 4 5 6
7 8 9 10 11 12 13
14 15 16 17 18 19 20
21 22 23 24 25 26 27
28 29 30

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