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We took a cab to the airport for the relatively short ride to the airport. We were asked to give ourselves an hour due to the unpredictability of city traffic, but made the trip in half that time. The flights were all smooth and event-free. The Sydney to LAX flight was mostly empty which allowed us to stretch out over three seats if we needed for a nap. Sheila watched movies and TV all the way over electing not to sleep despite my advice. Jay watched a lot of TV, but managed to sleep a little. I watched a few movies and also slept some. We had a long 5-hour layover in Los Angeles which we spent lounging and napping in the Delta Sky Club.

It has been a fantastic trip. Traveling with the kids is quite different than traveling alone. I really don't think I would have done as much if the kids weren't with me. Given the length of the trip, it is astonishing how much we accomplished in terms of sightseeing. There was not a single day we spent lounging around the hotel. Despite taking our swimsuits, we never got to use them. Every day was packed with activities relevant to the place we were visiting. Hopefully the blog has highlighted all the things we did over the 12 days we had in Christchurch, Queenstown, Sydney, and Melbourne. I saw and did more on this trip than I have in my previous two trips to the region. Overall, I would rate it as my most successful trips to Australia-New Zealand. Queenstown was one of the highlights. Not only did I manage to attend every conference session (except one, where I went on a walk with Ekant Veer, the conference organizer), but the kids got both a day of skiing and a Lord of the Rings tour done during that time, ensuring they were never bored. The people were exceptionally friendly in both countries and we all realized how much more there is to do if we had more time to spend in those countries.

I woke up at a respectable 7:30 AM on July 18 and am quite ready to head to work today. It will take a bit readjusting to the daily work schedule, but I think I'm ready ...

Taronga Zoo

Our last day in Sydney was reserved for the famed Taronga Zoo. The zoo has a beautiful location overlooking the harbour and we headed there at about 10 AM. Sheila was not happy that we missed the 9:35 ferry, but since we didn't have any other major plans for the day, it worked out just fine.

We spent the day walking around the zoo and getting better looks at all our favorite animals, reptiles, and birds - both Australian and otherwise. We saw giraffes, tigers, bears, tapirs, and more. We were glad we did the "animal encounters" at Healesville sanctuary not only because it was a lot cheaper there, but because it was a lot less crowded. Sheila still couldn't get enough of looking at the koalas. The platypus house at Taronga was better lighted than the one at Healesville, so Jay also was happy to get a better look at the platypus. We had a raging argument about the plural of platypus. The Healesville Sanctuary boards consistently used platypus as the plural of platypus (as in, "Platypus are nocturnal animals ...") and so we thought we had settled the matter and that the plural of platypus is platypus and not platypii or platypuses. But, there was ONE board at Taronga Zoo that referred to platypuses and so the discussion was reignited.

The kids took control of the cameras and took hundreds of pictures of the animals. They seemed to have a lot of fun. While I didn't think it was worth going all the way to Australia to see African animals, the kids insisted that we do every part of the zoo and we ended up wandering the zoo until about 4:30 PM.

We got back to the hotel, rested a bit and headed to our "gala vacation ending dinner." The Park Hyatt has an expensive in-house restaurant imaginatively called "The Dining Room." Given Sheila's desire to be a chef (and her following of MasterChef Australia), I decided it was worth splurging on one fancy dinner to end the trip on a high note. I ordered executive chef Andrew McKee's signature dish, tamarind and molasses glazed Blackmore Wagyu beef brisket, beetroot, horseradish. Sheila ordered the crisp roasted goose breast, parsnips, bread sauce. The food was classy, expensive, tiny in portion and absolutely delicious. Jay chose a pasta off the kid's menu. The food was all mouthwateringly amazing. We also had dessert, with Jay choosing dark chocolate fondant, fig marmalade, banyuls sorbet, Sheila going with hazelnut dacquoise, milk chocolate ganache, milk ice cream and my electing to try the chestnut and green apple cake with vanilla chantilly. Believe me, it tasted as good as it sounded.

Blue Mountains

With the help of the concierge, we had figured out that the best bet to visit the Blue Mountains was to leave very early in the morning and get there on one of the first trains to the area. To make matters even better, we had discovered that Sunday was "Family FunDay" which allows a complete all-day pass with unlimited rides on all ferries, trains, and buses for only $2.50 each! We headed out at 6:25 in the morning, walked to the Circular Quay station, bought our passes for a grand total of $7.50 and boarded the train to Sydney Central station. From there, we caught an InterCity train for the 2-hour ride to Katoomba - the gateway city to the Blue Mountains.

We arrived in Katoomba by 9:20 AM and, as recommended, bought an all day pass on the Discovery Trolley as well as passes to all three of the main rides - the skyway, cable car, and the scenic railway. We had compared all the prices and found the best deal was this place that had an adult ticket price (including all three tickets) was $49 for adults and $28 for each of the kids. The lady at the counter asked if we had purchased a Family FunDay ticket to get there. I said yes, and she said that today, the adult ticket is then $39. I love unexpected discounts!

On the recommendation of the person at the counter, we took the express bus to the skyway, which is a large cable car that is strung right across the valley. She then told us to take the scenic railway to the valley floor before going for a walk around the valley and taking the cable car back up. We reached the skyway and were one of only three people waiting for the skyway. Once we were on and the skyway started heading out across the valley, the operator hits a button that changes the center part of the floor from opaque to transparent, so you can see down to the bottom of the valley. Fun!

Once we got across the valley to "Scenic World," we headed straight for the popular scenic railway. This is the world's steepest railway and is as much a ride as it is a transport down to the Jamison Valley. It is a rail car that goes down the valley at an amazing 52-degree incline. Quite a ride. We knew that these rides were the highlights of the Blue Mountains and since we were so early, we didn't really have to wait long in line and got straight on the first railway car down. It was a real fun ride that is as heart-stopping as a rollercoaster. We got down to the valley in a few minutes and decided to take the long walk along the outer boardwalk and take the cable car back up to the top. It was a great walk and we saw lots of interesting trees and even got a close-up look of a couple of beautiful lyrebirds - something we couldn't spot at the aviary at Healesville.

We took the cable car back up and then did several additional walks to get great views of Katoomba Falls, the Three Sisters (wind-eroded peaks) and more. The views were absolutely spectacular throughout the trip and it was great to see the looong lines waiting for the scenic railway and the cableway. At Sheila's insistence, we stopped at the Blue Mountain Chocolate Company for some chocolate cake and (for me) passion fruit mango cheesecake. We stopped at a bakery for a bite to eat (lunch) and then walked around the town of Katoomba, visiting some book stores and even a "circus store." We took the 3:26 train back that got us back to the hotel by 6:15 PM.

While deciding what to do for dinner, there was a knock on the door and a person presented us with a bottle of wine and a box of chocolates and said with a smile, "with the compliments of the hotel." Just as we were heading out to dinner, Sheila found that MasterChef Australia was starting on TV and decided she MUST watch it before dinner. So, I decided to drink my wine and update the blogs while she watches her show. It is now 8:45 PM and her show is still going on. It's going to be a late dinner, but I'm loving the 2010 Rolf Binder Barossa Valley Shiraz with some exceptional chocolate truffles. I guess I owe Stacey Johnson a special thanks for this treat.

By the time we headed out to dinner it was almost 9:30 PM and Sailor's Thai was closed. We settled for a small cafe and ordered garlic bread and a kangaroo burger that we shared. At least we got to all eat kangaroo before we left Australia!

Finally, at this point, I really would like to add a special note about the Park Hyatt in Sydney. I have stayed at a LOT of fancy hotels over the years, but never have I ever experienced uniformly exceptional service and felt as appreciated as during this stay at the Park Hyatt in Sydney. EVERY SINGLE employee I have encountered has gone out of their way to be friendly and helpful. While we were sitting in the lobby, waiting for the room to get ready, planning out Blue Mountains day, the server who brought us water engaged us in conversation (as did almost every single employee we have encountered) and when she discovered we were plamnning a Blue Mountains trip, she said there may be track work that prevents any trains from running to Katoomba. She offered to call the train service to check on the status of the line and came back later and told us that we were fine as the track work had been delayed. Interestingly, this morning, when we were heading to Katoomba, we asked a CityRail employee at the statioin which platform we needed to go to, he said he thought we were in trouble as there was track work and no trains to Katoomba that morning. Of course, he checked and then said we were fine. If there is ever anything I can do to praise, promote, or endorse the Park Hyatt Sydney and their employees, I will do it without ANY hesitation. And, this ISN'T the wine talking. Really, my Park Hyatt experience is one of the best hotel experiences I have ever had.

Back to Sydney

We woke up early in the morning to catch our flight back to Sydney. We had given ourselves about 45 minutes to get to the airport, but given that it was Saturday morning, there was no traffic and we got to the airport early. We checked in for our Virgin Australia flight and wandered around the airport and had some expensive airport food for breakfast. We got on the plane for the short flight to Sydney. On the flight, when the beverage cart came around, I asked for a Coke Zero and was offered a Pepsi Max instead. I gratefully accepted the small "half can" and took a sip. The kids asked for the same. Imagine my surprise when the attendant asked me for $9 for the beverages. Ouch! I sheepishly handed my credit card over. You would think that my Air New Zealand experience would have inured me to these surprises. I learn slow, I guess. And maybe I just had warped expectations given that the newspaper trumpeted the fact that Virgin Australia had just taken over Qantas in the rankings as Australia's favorite airline.

We got to Sydney and were about to take a cab when I decided to specifically ask about the "CityLink" train service and found there was a direct train from the airport terminal to Circular Quay and it cost about $16 for me and $11 for the kids (here, you buy one ticket for multiple kids under 15). I wish we had known about this earlier. It was very quick and very convenient. Future Sydney visitors - if your hotel is in the city and close to a train station, the CityLink is clearly the best option. The whole ride took less than 20 minutes and dropped us a few minutes from the Park Hyatt. When we got to the hotel, I asked if we could get a room facing the harbour again and was told that we could upgrade to a harbour room, which is a much larger room for an upgrade price of $405 a night. I politely declined. Then she paused and seemed to read something on her screen and told me that she could give us a harbour facing room on the first floor if I'd be okay with the first floor instead of the higher floor I had requested. I willingly agreed and was told the room would be available only early in the afternoon. The kids and I headed out to The Rocks area and found ourselves in the middle of an open-air fair. The weather was spectacular (in the low 70s) and we enjoyed walking around the fair, sampling foods (I genuinely felt a little sick after bravely insisting the hot sauce guy give me his hottest sauce and then swallowing the generous portion he poured on to a chip), and buying some souvenirs.

We came back to the hotel, rested a while and decided to take the ferry to Darling Harbour. We saw an ad saying they have fireworks on Saturday nights and thought it would give us an excuse to see the harbour. We took the ferry over and walked all over the beautiful board walk along the harbour. We found a food court and I tried an Oprto chicken burger with chilli sauce, Sheila chose an Oporto BLT, and Jay had an Iddly Sambaar at the Indian stall. The fireworks were much better than we expected and it was a great ending to the evening.

All Hail Don Bradman

Today was a more relaxed day. I got up early and decided I had to try and get work done despite the state of Internet access. So, I managed to connect using VPN and was able to get through a lot of my emails instead of just connecting and taking care of a few urgent ones. So, I let the kids sleep as I worked on the computer. They slept until almost 10:30 in the morning - the first day we didn't have packed with activities.

Once the kids got up and slowly got ready, it was almost time to head into town and return the rental car. We drove back to the car rental place and returned the car without incident. The car rental turned out to be one of the best decisions we made. I think I can safely say I saved hundreds of dollars renting and driving all over the place instead of doing the day coach trips for all three of us. After returning the car, we wandered around Queen Victoria Market again for a while. We spent quite a lot of time wandering around the market and finally decided we'd seen enough stalls selling cheap Chinese-made souvenirs, expensive local handicrafts, and cheesy "hard sell" toys and knick knacks. We felt we had done the market justice until we walked outside and found that we had barely covered half of the vast market.

We found a small, interesting-looking cafe called "Coconut House Malaysian Food" and decided to try our luck there. It was promising that when we went in, we were the only non-Malaysians in there. Eventually a couple of other non-malay-appearing people came in, but it was clear that this was a popular place among the Malay locals. The food was absolutely delicious and I would not be surprised to learn that this is actually a well-known Malaysian-Chinese food outlet.

We then just wandered around town, stopping in at numerous stores on Swanston Street. We stepped into a nice little Japanese mini mart that had interesting foods. We bought some peach Fanta and pineapple Fanta. The pineapple Fanta was fantastic and we all agreed that the peach Fanta tasted like cough medicine. We found a Target store and wandered around in there too, just for the heck of it.

As we headed back to the hotel, Jay and I decided to walk across the street and visit the Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG) while Sheila just headed back to the hotel room to update her blog. Unfortunately, the last tour was at 3:20 PM and it was almost 5 PM by this time. So, we satisfied ourselves by going into the gift shop and buying a mini cricket ball and a foam stress ball shaped like a cricket ball. They also had an incredibly cute "real" stitched cricket ball, but at $15, I just couldn't get myself to buy it even though it was incredibly cute. We then wandered around and I took photos of Jay by large sculptures of Don Bradman, Dennis Lillee, Shane Warne and other great Victoria cricketers.

When we got back to the hotel room, we invented the incredible game of "bed cricket" involving the mini cricket bat and the stress ball. We developed an elaborate set of rules that inevitably resulted in many loud arguments on whether the batsman was out or not. Since this was the first day of a game that will eventually become famous the world over, we had to keep developing rules as we played to deal with the different circumstances that came up.

At about 7:30 PM, Graeme and Karen picked us up for dinner. We went to the Union Hotel pub where we met with John, one of their friends. We enjoyed a couple of Tasmanian White Rabbit brews. I had both a White Rabbit White Ale and one Dark Ale. Of course I preferred the dark ale. I had Chicken Parmigiana for dinner that was good. Jay fell asleep early in the evening and then, after dinner, was kept awake by Graeme's amazing skills at coaster-flip-catch. I'd like to modestly say that I developed some basic skills in the art too. We got back fairly late and went to bed quickly since we had already done most of our packing before we left for dinner.

Healesville Sanctuary

We finally decided to stick to our plan of going to Healesville Sanctuary today. We woke up a little earlier and hoped to get there earlier and potentially even make it back a little after lunch. We headed out a bit before 8:30 am and were in Healesville a little before 10 am even though a good part of the route was on city streets on the "Maroondah Highway." Still, it was clear from the empty parking lot that we were one of the first people there.

The kids were free (it's a special "school holidays" promotion that is fortunately just running over about two weeks). Since I was offered a "concession" admission at Ballarat because the lady at the Gold Museum happened to see my University ID, I showed the lady the ID and asked if the U of M ID would get me a concession even though it was not Australian. She checked with someone and said "yes." I wish I had tried that earlier. The kids and I had also done some scoping out of their web site before we got to Healesville and had decided to purchase some "magic moments" tickets for $10 each (so $30 for the three of us for each of the "magic moments" encounters we wanted). Basically, these tickets give you closer access to the animals in a small group (only 5 people per group). We decided on these close encounters with wombats, koalas, and reptiles.

We started with the wombats. We were led through the wombat enclosure to a smaller area at the back where two young wombats were playing. We were given some food and allowed to feed the wombats and pet them. The ranger was fun, friendly, and very informative. We spent a good twenty minutes playing with one of the wombats (it was just the three of us who had signed up for the first encounter of the day) and really enjoyed interacting with the cuddly, friendly, and hungry wombat.

Our next close encounter (with the koala) was over an hour later and we spent the time walking around the park. It really is more of a wildlife park than a zoo. Most of the animals are in open areas with very few cages. There are ropes to mark the paths and different animals are in different zones, but on the whole, you get a sense of an open area. While walking through the "wetlands track," for example, we turned a corner and right there in the middle of the path was a kangaroo that stood and stared at us inquisitively before bounding off. In the large and open aviary, we had to watch out for the tiny birds on the ground to avoid squishing them. Sheila even accidentally kicked one of the birds when she turned around. We came face to face with a flock (?) of massive pelicans that were right there - nothing to prevent them from walking up to us and taking a big bite out of one of us. This made for a very different animal experience than one you would find at a zoo. Healesville also focuses exclusively on native Australian animals which made it a better bet for overseas visitors like us. I mean, who ants to go to Australia and see a zebra?

The koala encounter was different in that we weren't allowed to actually pet the koala. But, we could get as close as we wanted and practically go nose-to-nose with it. The koala simply slept on the branch of a tree a few inches away from us as we oohed and aahed over it. This time, there were three other people in our group. We initially politely took a few photos and moved away to make way for these people. But then, they just dominated the space and took photo after photo after photo. Even when they were done with the photos, they would not really move away from the koala to give us another shot at getting some more pictures next to the koala. We should have been a little more aggressive, but it probably was not worth it. They kept going until the ranger said that we could take a couple more pictures and had to go. Even then, those people insisted on going on and on without giving us another opportunity to really get close and go face-to-face with the koala. But, we did get plenty of shots and enjoyed our time being so close to the koala.

We then attended a spectacular bird show which had everything from ultra-colorful parrots to massive raptors flying right over our heads. It was quite a spectacular show and the crowds that packed the outdoor arena suggested that this is well known as being a "can't miss" event at the sanctuary.

Our "magic moment" with the reptiles was a little disappointing to me. We got to hold (mainly just the tail) of a python and that was about it. No real close encounters with the many venomous snakes or other reptiles of Australia. Since I had held snakes before, this was not much of an encounter and I would advise future sanctuary goers to skip that one. Even so, the kids had so much fun that we decided to go back and sign up for another magic moment (yes, at $30 a pop) with the kangaroos. We hoped that the kangaroo encounter would be more like the wombat encounter than the one with the reptiles. Since by then the earliest slot was for 3:45 pm, we used the time to grab lunch and thoroughly explore those parts of the park we hadn't yet gotten to see. We loved the "Land of Parrots" and even managed to get one to sit on our arms and eat out of our hand. Have I mentioned that the large open aviaries are amazing?

By this time, there was a steady light rain that had all but cleared out the park of visitors. Fortunately, the rain let up a little bit when we headed to our kangaroo encounter, but started again while we were in the middle of feeding and petting the red kangaroos. But no one seemed to notice. The ranger also seemed to be in a better mood now that the crowds had thinned and she was generous with her time and her willingness to give us food to feed the kangaroos. This really was a lot of fun and we spent quite a bit of time feeding the kangaroos and petting their soft fur. We were told to only feed the females as they were less aggressive than the males. It turned out to be well worth the additional money and the rain could not dampen our spirits as we headed out to the parking lot for our drive home.

We stopped by a laundrette in the evening as we were low on clothes and picked up some takeaway at a Vietnamese restaurant in the vicinity. We did the laundry, grabbed our dinner and headed back to the hotel to eat, watch some TV, do some "blog catching up" and then go to bed.

Sovereign Hill, Ballarat

The big plan today was to head to Ballarat and the Sovereign Hill "park."  As several people told us, Ballarat is where a lot of Victoria actually happened. It was the biggest city during the gold rush period and huge amounts of gold were mined there. Sovereign Hill is a recreated gold rush town and is extremely well done. The whole town seems to be a working town and the little details in the homes and streets to maintain the period authenticity is quite amazing. The technology is quite well hidden and the place has a working foundry, carriage shop, bakery, confectionery, grocers, apothecary, blacksmiths, school, and more.


We drove there at about 10 in the morning and got there at about 11:30. After exploring the "Gold Museum," we entered the town and were instantly transported to 19th century Australia. We tried our hand at gold panning and were initially frustrated in our efforts. Just as we were about to give up and move on, we ran into one of the "settlers" in the town and asked him for some tips. In a loud voice, he offered to do a demonstration. He even promised that there is some gold in every pan if it's done right. He actually explained things quite well and that inspired us to go back to some gold panning. In the very first pan after the demo, both Sheila and I found several flecks of gold, which was real exciting. That motivated us to try again and pretty soon we had to buy a little bottle to store the gold flecks we were finding in our pans. Of course, I'm quite sure we spent ten times more money on the little bottle than on all the tiny gold flecks we found in our pans. Still, it was more exciting to come home with a bottle with our few specks of gold that we panned rather than the bottle filled with gold leaf that anyone can buy at the gift shop there.

We were planning to spend half the day at Sovereign Hill and then hopefully head to Ballarat Wildlife Park. But we were all having so much fun that we ended up spending the entire day there. We did a mine tour, ate at the hotel, watched real gold being refined and poured into an ingot, and even wrote with nibbed pens and an inkwell at the school. It really is a fun place with non-stop hands-on activities and it kept us all entertained. By the time we were kicked out (yes, really, they found us back at the gold panning stream and had to tell us to leave as the park had closed), it was far too late to go anywhere else and we just drove back to Melbourne.

I had set up an appointment to have dinner with Graeme Lemin, a friend of mine from many years ago. We met on an online Beatles-related message board in 1993 or 1994 (yes, this was all pre-WWW) and have remained in infrequent contact since then. I last stayed at his place before the Split Enz concert in 2006, documented here. After some driving around, we found parking on a great restaurant-filled street and walked down the street looking for a place to eat. The business is very competitive and at the front of each restaurant is someone desperately trying to pull you in. We were accosted by an Italian man who proceeded to tell us why his restaurant is the only one worth eating at and that everyone else was fake Italian. Then, hoping to entice me, he explained that his chef was Indian and had been trained by him. He kept up his patter for a while and insisted that everyone else on the street except for him was a "spruiker." Another lady told us her mom was the chef and that she would give us either 2 drinks each for free or take 25% off our bill. After listening to several such pitches, we settled on the one who offered the free drinks and I enjoyed my Rigatoni Pesto and a James Squire Ale and Pure Blonde. I was almost laughed out of the restaurant (no one was more mocking then Graeme) when I asked for a glass. Apparently, real Australian men drink beer only out of a bottle. Our great evening out lasted until after 11 PM and we went to bed soon after reaching home.

Phillip Island

I decided to go for a run this morning as the kids were slowly waking up in the morning. I headed out and ran along the Yarra river and back along Flinders Street alongside the beautiful railway station building. I even made a full circle around the Melbourne Cricket Ground along the larger-than-life sculptures of Dennis Lillee, Don Bradman, Shane Warne and others. I ran for 30 minutes in a constant drizzle and estimate I did about 4 miles.

After spending time going over all the Gray Line brochures last night to plan our trips to Phillip Island, Sovereign Hill, and Healesville, we realized that the coach trips to each of these venues would be over $300 for the three of us, even with the kids at half price. We then decided that given my increased confidence about driving on the left and even in city traffic,  the best bet would be to rent a car here and drive to these places and just cover the entrance fees ourselves. Plus, we would have the freedom to spend as much time as we wanted in each place.

So, we headed out in the morning with a plan to eventually rent a car and go to Phillip Island. We took the City Circle Tram (free tram) to Queen Victoria Market, which is a large pavilion filled with thousands of stalls hawking souvenirs, knick knacks, fruits & vegetables, meats, and more. By the time we got there, it was already 11:30 AM due to a late start combined with a bunch of broken down trams which left us waiting at the tram station for 25 minutes. Still, we skimmed the outskirts of the market and promised to come back there to browse at a more leisurely pace. Then, we stopped at the food court and purchased some food (I chose a roasted vegetable pizza while Sheila had a chunky beef pie. Jay decided he wanted mini pancakes with ice cream). It was all quite delicious. I am becoming convinced that the Aussie/NZ folks have figured out some secret to great baking that they are hiding from North Americans. Even the crust of the pizza was more delicious than I've ever experienced.

We then walked to the car rental place and rented a Hyundai Accent from Europcar and drove out to Phillip Island. It was a fairly pleasant drive with some beautiful views of the bay. We got to the "penguin parade" in time and sat down on the bleachers waiting for the penguins to show. Finally, the first batch arrived at about 5:50 PM. The penguins are even smaller than I remember from our trip in 2000 and extremely cute. Unfortunately, no photography of any kind is allowed there. So, you'll have to settle for the painted murals on the wall of the welcome center. After the penguins came on to the beach and waddled past us, we went on the boardwalk back to the welcome center and got great close-up views of many of the birds. We even managed to catch a couple of the penguins mating (even though, as the ranger told us, it isn't really mating season). It was a lot of fun and we spent a couple of hours with the penguins.

We got back to the hotel at about 10:30 PM and the kids went straight to bed. Jay slept almost all the way back from Phillip Island and Sheila dozed off during part of the drive. Overall, another busy, event-filled day. And tomorrow, we head to Sovereign Hill!

Melbourne

We got up this morning all excited to head back up the hill for our paragliding. We had been told to call at about 9:20 AM since paragliding is weather dependent. When we called at 9:30, we were told that the clouds were still around and that we should plan on reporting to the top at about 10:30 AM instead of 10. We finished our packing, checked out of the hotel, and drove to the city centre where we walked around a bit and grabbed some breakfast at a local bakery. For some reason the baked goods we have tasted in New Zealand are fantastic. Almost all the bread is perfect - crispy on the outside and unbelievably soft on the inside. So, even dinner rolls seem to taste better here.

When we reported to our paragliding spot at the top of the mountain, we were told to wait in the cafe for 15-20 minutes for the weather to clear. 20 minutes later, we were told to wait another 20 minutes. When this happened a third time, at about 11:30 AM, we decided to call it quits and head back down. We sadly cancelled our paragliding plans. Of course, almost as soon as we got back down, the air around the mountain seemed to magically clear and by 12 noon, the entire mountain area had blue skies and bright sun. By then it was too late.

Waiting to see if we can get on the plane.

We headed to the airport, returned the rental car, and went to the check-in counter. The automated check-in would not work and so we had to stand at the counter and wait to be helped. I had booked the flights on Virgin Australia, but these segments were operated by Air New Zealand on a code share agreement. Of course, as Virgin Australia customers, we were the low priority people and were told that due to "weight restrictions on the aircraft," we could not be issued boarding passes until they knew that the weight would be okay. I kept checking back at the counter and it was only about 2:30 PM (our flight was at 2:55) that we were cleared and given our boarding passes. It was a bit nerve wracking to wait in the security line, but the gates were all very close by and we managed to get on the flight without too much trouble.

I was sleepy and fell asleep soon after take off. I woke when the beverage cart came around. When I asked for a Coke Zero, I was told that fizzy drinks were extra and had to be ordered through the on-screen ordering system on the back of the seats. Only water, tea, and coffee were free. And this is on their international flight. I pity poor domestic Air NZ customers.

Great views from the sky ...

We took a shuttle from the airport to the city, but will probably just take a cab to the airport on Friday. it isn't that much more expensive and definitely less effortful. Our hotel is the Hilton on the Park, right by Fitzroy Gardens and across the street from the Melbourne Cricket Ground. The room is relatively small and I had to ask for a rollaway bed to be brought in as the two twin beds in the room were way too small to hold the three of us. Not very impressive. Again, the Internet deals suck. For $30 per day, I am only allowed a single device. So, no iPad, iPod, smartphone, or anything. Just the laptop. Silly.

After resting a little bit, we walked towards the Flinders Street station and settled at the "Desi Dhaba" for dinner. The decor of the place was fantastic with signs like "HORN OK PLEASE" and "AA GANPAT, CHAL DAARU LE AA" on the walls. Very unique and dhaba-like setting. The food was relatively inexpensive (our meal cost us about $50, which is CHEAP by Australia standards) and was really excellent. I let the kids pick the items - butter chicken and chilli garlic chicken were selected, along with lots of garlic naan, a small amount of rice and yogurt - and it worked out well.

We walked back to the hotel, checked on trips to Ballarat, Healesville, and Phillip Island with the concierge and finally just decided to rent a car and head to these places ourselves. I'm quite confident of driving on the wrong side now and the drive there and back should be an adventure in itself. Let's see how it goes. The three places are all in different directions (one is south, one east, and the other west.)

The plan is to pick up the rental car at noon tomorrow, go to Phillip Island and then do Sovereign Hill (Ballarat) and Healesville Sanctuary over the following two days. Quite a busy schedule, as several people have pointed out.

Going Off The (L)Edge

The conference had organized an excursion to the "Skyline" area above the city of Queenstown for lunch today. This is an area that is in the mountains above the city and contains a restaurant, luge, bungy jumping (yes, that's the way they spell it here), paragliding, and more. Even the gondola ride up to the top is exhilarating as it involves one of the steepest gondola climbs in the world.

We got to the top at about 11 AM and found our way to the luge track to buy some tickets. We bought a "5-pack" and I agreed that I would ride once and the kids would ride twice each. They require the first ride to be down the "scenic track" before they let you tackle the "advanced course." It was a lot of fun and I managed to get pictures of the kids as they made their way down the second time. When we went to lunch, Ekant (one of the conference chairs) handed each of us tickets for two more rides. So we got a lot of luging in during the course of the day.

The lunch buffet was incredible. I focused on the seafood and had queen scallops, mussels, hoki with salmon mousse, half a salmon steak, and a variety of other items before jumping to the dessert table and gorging myself on several desserts. I'll need to do a ton of running to work all of this off!

After lunch and another ride down the luge, we headed to the bungy platform for our scheduled jump. For some reason, I never got nervous. I kept waiting to get nervous but I never did. Not sure if that's a good sign or a bad one. Sheila went first (not by choice - they picked the order) and I told her to jump off the platform like a dive. Instead she basically stepped off the platform. That made me even more determined to run and launch myself off the platform as strongly as I could. From the picture, you can tell that I did! It was quite a fun experience, but way too short compared to the sky dive I did last year. It's definitely something I would be game to do again.

Since Jay was deemed too light to do either the jump or the swing, he wanted to try paragliding. They have a spectacular paragliding run off the mountain and so we booked tickets for a paraglide tomorrow morning. If the weather holds, we should be able to add that to our list of expensive extreme activities during this trip. Still, if the kids remember these experiences for a few years, it will be worth it. Convincing consumer research demonstrates that we feel happier with money spent on experiences rather than things. So, that's my justification and I'm sticking to it.

I wish I could share more pictures of the city taken from the top. The views are so incredible that none of these pictures do it justice. The expanse of the city, the lake and the towering mountains all around the city make you want to sigh every time you look around. If anyone visiting New Zealand wants to know whether it is worth traveling down here or not, let me assure you that it is. And I don't get any commission from the NZ Tourism Bureau for saying that.