Australia-New Zealand-Hong Kong Trip Summary

We finally made it to Australia.  About 20 hours of travel but finally arrived in Sydney.

There is so much to see and do in Australia.  Another trip or two or three is definitely in order.  If only it wasn't so dang far away.  Starting in Sydney was brilliant.  Sydney is a modern, very gay friendly, European-ish city with a hip Asian vibe.  Loved it!

I really enjoyed the Blue Mountains and, of course, no visit Down Under is complete without seeing a Koala.  Marcus is now working in Sydney so it was good to catch up with him over dinner.



Most people take photos the Sydney Opera House but few actually go inside.  We were lucky to have tickets to the premier performance of Spartacus.

The performance was absolutely brilliant.

Here's the commercial from the Australian Ballet that I found out on YouTube.

©The Australian Ballet

From Sydney, it's possible to do a day trip to Canberra to see the capital.  In a perfect world, I would have preferred one full day there but when cramped for time then the four or five hours there on tour is enough.

Then it was on to Queensland to visit Cairns.  Nice little town but I could have done without the bats.  The best parts though of visiting Cairns were going to the rainforest in Kuranda and seeing the Great Barrier Reef.

The final stop in Australia was Melbourne in Victoria.  Melbourne definitely has a European feel to it.  One of the coolest things was the taxi ride from the airport to the hotel and seeing kangaroos going full blast in the wild.

The Great Ocean Road is a must do activity in Melbourne.  The Miss Fischer's Tour was interesting but probably only for fans of the show.

Cristine moved to Adelaide almost two years ago.  Since I flew to Australia she flew to Melbourne for a weekend and it was fun to catch up.

Australia was awesome!  I can't wait for next time, well except for the long flight there.

Then it was off to Kiwiland.  Back in Wellington for a couple of days with Natalie and her family.  Fortunately there was no earthquake this time.

Then it was off to Hong Kong via Sydney.  Natalie was on her way back to Vanuatu and we happened to be on the same flight.  Yeah!

It was fun being back in Hong Kong even just for a couple of days. One of the biggest highlights was lunch at Tim Ho Wan.  I still have yet to see the Bruce Lee statue but I did have an interesting Thanksgiving dinner.

Another great adventure but I wasn't ready to give up the 24℃ (75℉) in Hong Kong for the 4℃ (39℉) in Brno.  Now to start getting ready for the 10th anniversary Czechsgiving fiesta.  How has it already been 10 years?