December 16 - December 19

Houston to San Francisco
Continental 1566
Departs Sunday, Dec. 14 - 3:20 PM
Arrives Sunday, Dec. 14 - 5:32 PM

San Francisco to Sydney
Qantas 74
Departs Sunday, Dec 14 - 10:30 PM
Arrives Tuesday, Dec 16 - 8:00 AM

Sydney to Melbourne
Qantas 427
Departs Tuesday, Dec. 16 - 11:00 AM
Arrives Tuesday, Dec. 16 - 12:30 PM

Melbourne to Launceston
Jetstar 739
Departs Tuesday, Dec. 16 - 2:25 PM
Arrives Tuesday, Dec. 16 - 3:25 PM

Drive to Freycinet

Things to see and do:

Wineglass Bay Hike
Freycinet National Park
Freycinet Paddle

Hotel: Freycinet Lodge

Tuesday, December 16

Five airports (Houston, San Francisco, Sydney, Melbourne, Launceston), four flights, a rental car and a mere 39 hours, and we've arrived! I think we were both just ready to stop moving.

We managed to get showers at the Qantas lounge in Sydney which was a big help. Before that, we had to collect our bags to go through customs and that part of the airport was really hot. In Melbourne, we had to collect our bags again and recheck them onto the Qantas low-cost airline that we were flying to Tasmania (we're not sure why they couldn't check them through all the way - the flights were all purchased through Qantas). When we got to Launceston (the locals call it "Lonnie") in Tasmania, we experienced our first self-serve baggage claim. They brought the bags out on the luggage carts but there is no belt to put them on in the airport so basically everyone just runs out and gets their bags off the carts themselves. The picture doesn't do justice to the free-for-all that happened. It was basically an airport right out of the 70s. There was no security to speak of and short of walking out on the tarmac, anyone could roam about freely. Entire families (in a few cases 3 generations) were there to greet their arrivals. It as a zoo!

We got our rental car (a Nissan Tiida) and were off to town to find a Target to buy a local phone SIM card (we bought a quad-band unlocked GSM phone off of Harwin Drive in Houston before we left) and to get some groceries (we also found our favorite snack food that we had back in New Zealand - PODS - yummmmmmm!) . After our shopping spree, we were on the road to Freycinet (pronounced fray-sin-ay). This was just over a 2 hour drive but by this time, it seemed much, much longer. On the way, we saw our first koala - unfortunately, dead on the road.

We pulled into town just after 8PM. Unfortunately, most of the restaurants seemed to close at 8PM. That goes well with other food-travel difficulties that we've had in previous trips to New Zealand (where the only place to eat on New Years was a pizza place that ran out of cheese!) and Chicago (where we couldn't find any place open on the Fourth of July). We were able to get something at the hotel and after that just crashed.

Wednesday, December 17

Wednesday was a really easy day for us. After we woke up, we ate breakfast (Travis even ate the baked beans). In spite of the beans, breakfast was really tasty. After that, we went and bought a park permit (our hotel is inside Freycinet National Park but the ranger station was closed when we arrived).

Travis noticed that there is a penguin rookery in the next town north of ours that does tours each night. We booked the 9PM tour and then headed back into town for lunch at the bakery (very tasty pot pies!). We also booked a kayaking trip for Thursday before heading back to the hotel for an easy afternoon.

About 6PM, we headed north to Bicheno for dinner and our penguin tour (Fairy Penguins to be exact). Our choices for dinner were pretty limited but we did find a small cafe that was still open (clearly we're a bit spoiled living in Houston). They actually had evening entertainment which consisted of a local student who played the cello. He was really quite good, but he apparently was having instrument problems and got frustrated and quit early. We thought that was quite the treat!

The penguin tour was pretty cool. These folks have been running the "David Attenborough like experience" (as described in the fliers - yep - we didn't know what that was either) for 18 years. This penguin parcel (that's the name of a group on land - in the water they're called a raft) has grown to about 600 from the 40 they originally had. We got to see the adult penguins returning from the sea full of fish for their young. The penguins clearly were not scared of us. Apparently, these penguins use the same nest for their entire lives (passed down from generation to generation) and even use the same path walking out of the water each time. Our pictures are a little iffy. They are scared of sudden movements and flash photography, so we could only take pictures when the guide had on their flashlights ("torches" to the Aussies). Needless to say this was easier said than done. As soon as we had a picture set-up, the guide would move his torch. Grrrrrrr!

After a pretty late drive back to the lodge, we crashed hard for the night.

Thursday, December 18

We got up too early (6:45AM - which isn't fair when you're on vacation) so we could make our 8:30 am kayak tour. It looked pretty cloudy early on but ended up being a "fine" day. There were eleven in our group plus 4 guides. We were probably on the water for 2.5 hours and paddled all over the Coles Bay/Freycinet area. While we didn't see a ton of wildlife, the weather and sea were great and we had a really nice time.

We finished up about lunch time and had lunch at a pub in town. Travis got to try out the phone to complete the final payment for our 2nd Sydney accommodation and make dinner reservations at a local seafood restaurant.

After lunch, we changed clothes and headed off to do a couple of hikes. The first was a short walk around the Cape Tourville lighthouse which had excellent views along the coast - including towards Wineglass Bay.

The second hike was a bit more challenging. This one took us up to Wineglass Bay Lookout. The lookout has a great view of Wineglass Bay. There seems to be some dispute about how it got its name. Some believe that it was called wineglass bay because it's vaguely wineglass shaped. Others believe that it has to do with the fact that whalers used to bring their catch and slaughter it in the bay turning the sand and bay red. The hike brought back memories of the Tongoriro Crossing (the "best" one-day hike in all of New Zealand - Travis vividly remembers the not-so-friendly trek down from the Devil's Staircase). In truth, it wasn't bad - just 1.5 hours. Doug sprained his ankle about 10 days ago. It held up well - but was pretty swollen by the time we finished.

For some reason, we're now seeing kangaroos everywhere. We hadn't seen one for the first two days but since we went on the hike, they're all over the place. We also saw something that resembles a hedgehog - although perhaps a bit bigger.

Unusual and interesting travel items over the past three days:

• On exit row seats on Australian airlines, you can't put anything under the seat in front of you.

• In Tasmania, most of the towns have a "small town" feel. Stores close at 5:00 and restaurants close at 8:00 (can you imagine such a thing in Houston???).

• Food on the low-cost flight was horrendously expensive. Despite that, a bunch of folks bought food for the 1 hour flight (maybe they all knew the restaurants closed at 8PM).

• We got "pyjamas" designed by Morrissey on our Qantas flight.

• On JetStar (the low cost airline), their tickets are basically just cash register receipts.

• We won't admit to being tech-geeks, but we do travel with noise canceling headsets, iPods, iGo universal chargers, 4 cellphones, 2 laptops, 2 - 10 Mega-pixel cameras (one of which is waterproof), an FM modulator, etc. (you get the picture), however somehow we were both able to leave Houston without a data cable for our cameras. We both thought our cameras took a standard mini-USB, but that's clearly not what's needed. We'll have to stop back in Lonnie on Friday on our way to Cradle Mountain and make another Target run.

• At night, there are lots of animals on the roads. They change the speed limit to 65k/hr and the warning sign looks like a huge kangaroo picking up a car. (Travis will just call out "marsupial" when one is spotted at night so he doesn't actually have to identify the actual animal).

• They have birds that sound like sheep.

• The Freycinet Lodge has neither TVs nor telephones. They say that if you need to watch TV, you just need to open your window blinds. With that concept, we have a 120" flat screen high definition TV at our disposal.

• Travis temporarily broke the new cellphone. It ended up doing a series of self-reboots and finally became alive again. Wheh!!!

• We encountered our first over-weight luggage fee. The bargain basement JetStar airline (the flight to Tasmania) only allows for 20kg free per person. We got hit with a 3kg overage at $10/kg. Oh well. We're wondering how many more we'll encounter.

• Tasmania is named after the Dutch explorer Abel Tasman. There are lots of things in New Zealand named after him too.