Liz on Australia in 30 days

The cruise ship arrived in Sydney’s magnificent harbor at 6:30 AM on Nov. 30 and leave from Sydney on Dec. 28. The following is an outline of where we expect to stay in Australia. If you are an Affordable Travel Club member like my mother, Irmgard Miller (336) 694 4263 in Yanceyville, N.C. you may telephone her to get the phone # of the people we will be staying with. Be mindful of a big time zone difference.

Call Australia to discuss plans at 6 PM in Michigan which is 8 AM in Sydney.

We cannot express enough gratitude to ATC members who make the following outline possible. (I really don’t wave a wand or wiggle my nose.) Ray Volpatti a member of both Evergreen and ATC suggested we join ATC for more member choice in Australia. As I wrote in an earlier blog the gratuity for staying with an ATC member is $20 per night with an additional $10 is at the host’s discretion for an overseas visitor. ATC members have been so friendly, responsive and forthcoming with strategy that has helped to shape our trip plan. A private room for a couple in a centrally located hostel with a not private bathroom (bring your own towel) costs $84 per night. The 3-star hotel by the airport is $164.  

 We disembark with our luggage and find a telephone store right away to get Australian phone service, 0432073695, with maps but not navigation with turn-by-turn directions. It gives us internet for e-mail, Facebook and such. We look up Evergreen members Ray and Wendy Volpatti’s address in Five Dock. We call them and announce our arrival. We stay with Ray and Wendy for 2 nights and sight see in Sydney. On Dec. 2 we pick up a Thrifty rental car (no Enterprise here and Alamo does not allow a 1-way rental) and drive to a timeshare, The Moorings in Tomakin near Bateman’s Bay. Via car is the only way to get there.  Then Dec. 9/10 we spend 2 nights in Mallacotta with ATC (Affordable Travel Club) members named George and Pam Gibbons. Phil Dunstan suggests we visit a whaling museum in Eden, near Mallacotta that shows the incredible intelligence of whales.

On Dec. 11 and 12 we stay in Melbourne Metro Youth Hostel and look around Melbourne.  

We stay with Phil and Jean Dunstan on Philip Island from Dec. 13-15.. Philip Island is famous for a daily penguin parade and car racing.

We return the rental car in Melbourne on Dec 16 paying $100 premium for a one-way drop. Our lodging is the hostel again for that night.

Then we take The Overland train from Melbourne to Adelaide on Dec. 17 and stay 2 nights with ATC members Gary and Jill Ottens who make us an arrival dinner. They must wear halos! The Ottens will take us to the airport too. The weekly Ghan Train for Dec 18 is cancelled for operational reasons and the railroad refunded our booking.

On Dec. 19 we fly Qantas to Alice Springs and stay in a hostel until Dec. 23. Hopefully we will tour for a day at Uluru (Ayer’s Rock). 

Then we fly to Cairns to see The Great Barrier Reef from Dec 23- 27. Since it is Christmas and high season we have 2 reservations in Cairns; a hostel and a friendly private lady with 2 white lap dogs that I found on Couch Surfing.  Just in case the lady who is quite a traveler herself has a late request from her own family or friends, some back up for lodging is not a bad idea.

Then we return from Cairns to Sydney on Dec. 27 to stay in Airport Sydney International Inn. We fly out on Dec. 28 for Auckland, New Zealand.

If Qantas Airlines operates smoothly we are set for flights within Australia. We fly LAN airlines for a 5 hour flight to New Zealand. We never heard of LAN but Air Treks broker knows LAN.  

Examples of places we will not see in Australia abound; many sites in Sydney, the Blue Mountains, Tasmania, Darwin, Brisbane and the Gold Coast (cheap golf there we heard!), Perth and the entire west coast. I considered taking the ferry to Tasmania but that means missing lots of Melbourne. The bottom line is “easy does it”. Mike is like “the goose that lays golden eggs” because he goes along with this plan. Like the goose I do not want to pressure him to produce more and spoil the trip. We need plenty of down time to make the trip fun.  If our trip goes well we may return some future winter with stateside friends or family. By the definition of Southern Hemisphere a visit to Australia and New Zealand is a fantastic way to skip winter, like nothing that a winter’s stay in Arizona or Florida may offer. 

Our tour plan for New Zealand is still a work in progress. 2 weeks simply is not long enough to see such an amazing country. We are in New Zealand from Dec 28 thru Jan 12. A passenger on the ship told us we may be able to return an RV from for example Queenstown in the South Island to the North Island for $1 per day. That would be a deal! We also have some timeshare points that begin in 2012 with an incentive for last minute bookings. So New Zealand is a blank page so far. ATC members live in New Zealand but we want to see the fjords in Queenstown which is a real tourist destination. No easy access to ATC members in Queenstown than in a destination like Waikiki or Maui.   

We fly from Auckland to Singapore on Jan. 12. So far this flight is the longest flight in our trip at 11.5 hours. We visit Singapore for 4 days before we head to Bali. Our worldly cruise dinner companion Ivey assures us how inexpensive meals are in Singapore ($4). I will not need to pack lunches in Asia due to exceptionally low prices and freshness concerns. Asia may be so hot that we only go out early and late.  We are reassured that our Asian plan is sound by those who have preceded us.  A crew member from Bali assured us of nice lodging in Bali for $50 per night. But no football for Mike let alone English.

I recently dreamt that I was sending e-mails on my phone. That is how much I miss sending notes to family and friends. I felt guilt that I was not supposed to have my phone turned on.