Healesville, Australia – The Yarra Valley April 8-10, 2016 The Yarra is a wine-producing region in Australia. The cooler climate means delicious whites and light red wines and we sampled the offerings at sevaral different vineyards. The landscape here was beautiful with lovely vine-covered hills. Healdsville itself is an historic town which was small and …
Australia – Beechworth
Beechworth, Australia April 6-8, 2016 From Canberra we went the long way, that is, through the mountains toward Beechworth in order to take in the scenery and instead of taking the highway which would have knocked off a couple of hours. We did not regret the decision. We got to see a beatiful area of …
Canberra, Australia
Canberra – April 4-6, 2016 Several people, even those we met in Canberra, asked us why we were visiting the capital city. I answered that we wanted to see the capital of Australia. We were quite glad we did. Canberra is a designed city which was mostly built before WWII, but nothing happened for about …
Uluru, Australia
Uluru, Australia – April 1 – April 4, 2016 The red center, this is what Australians call this part of the country, and that is what it is, miles and miles and miles of red dirt and not much else. We took a three-hour flight from Sydney, having long dispensed with some aspirations to drive …
Australia – Hunter Valley & Blue Mountains
Hunter Valley and Blue Mountains, New South Wales, Australia – March 29-April 1, 2016 After five days in the city, altough wonderful, we were ready to head out to the hills. The first day we drove to the Hunter Valley and a city called Pokolbin, which is the epicenter of the Hunter Valley Wine …
Australia – Sydney
Sydney, Australia – March 24-29, 2016 Sydney is a big, beautiful, cosmopolitan city, with the emphasis on beautiful. With the stunning Sydney Harbor cutting through the middle of the city and the hilly streets, you are hard pressed to find an area without a stunning view. The harbor area stretches for miles on either …
Australia – Tasmania
Tasmania, Australia – March 18-24, 2016 We had been looking forward to our 6 nights in Tasmania and were not the least bit disappointed. We hopped around a bunch getting around the whole island, and easily could have spent two weeks or more appreciating this lovely place and the wonderful, friendly people. Although we …
Borobudur – Indonesia
Yogyakarta and Borobudur, March 16, 2016 The day before our flight to Australia, we took an all-day tour to Borobudur. On the island of Java. It is the site of a 10th century Buddhist Temple of massive proportion. Supposedly it is the largest Buddhist Temple in the world. It has, of course, been reduced …
Indonesia – Ubud
Ubud, Bali, Indonesia – March 10-17, 2016 Steve and I spend a lovely two or three nights in Ubud on our honeymoon trip in 2002. We got an amazing deal on a luxury resort because it was less than a month after the bombings and everyone cancelled their trips to Bali in fear. It was …
Malaysia – Kuala Lumpur
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia – March 8-10, 2016 Another big, glassy, beautifully modern Asian city (like Singapore, Hong Kong and Bangkok), Kuala Lumpur impresses even as you fly in. The city is surrounded in every direction with palm trees (harvested for palm oil), and it is an amazing sight to behold from the air. Very very …