well, this could possibly be the last posting i make for this trip.

we are flying air tahiti nui and don't know if they will be as "upscale" as Qantas in having a very nice club at the airport.

up this morning and having breakfast in the lounge. another gorgeous day here in auckland - bright blue sky - not a cloud in the sky.

forgot to mention there were two other couples that shared our tour yesterday on Waiheke Island - two of them were a married couple from the UK who were journalists for the Sun. The other couple were from Orange County California although he is a new zealander and has lived in the states for quite a few years.

hopefully our future travel plans will include this part of the world.

our plane trip today takes us to Fiji for a short layover and then on the LAX flying through the night so hopefully will get some sleep then.

it is hard to imagine in about another day and 1/2 i will be back to work and it will all be behind us.

Ciao!

end of day Tuesday.

we spent most of the day today on Waiheke Island. Just a 35 minute ferry ride from Auckland but a world away. This is like a get away place for the Aucklanders and some very pricey real estate for those with money.

It is a beautiful little island that has many wineries on it dating back about 20 years. We visited three of the wineries today during our tour and sampled their wines. Two were very small wineries - one owned by a couple from the US - the other one pretty sizeable. Primarily they have grapes to make red wines but are trying other types to see if they will also grow well here.

This little island has nice beaches, lots of good restaurants, art galleries and lots of accommodations. Has a population of 7000 permanent residents alot which work in auckland and commute everyday on the ferry. and over 20 wineries now. It is amazing how you can have wine to sell with only 10 acres of land. one of the wineries also has olive trees so sells olive oils as well.

also we saw cork trees today. I never gave any thought to how cork was made - just assumed it was a man made product. But alas - it is a natural product - like a coat that is removed from the tree and pressed into a mold to form corks and then a new layer forms on the tree again. a perpetual product.

We are having our evening snacks and drinks in the lounge and headed over to the casino shortly.

We will be leaving the hotel in the morning around 11 Am headed to the airport. Our plane departs tomorrow for the states at 2:30 PM from here to Fiji and then Los Angeles before our final destination of dallas. arriving home around 4 PM on Wednesday your time and hopefully will see Neil's smiling face picking us up.

i told ned today i cannot believe it is all over - where did this two weeks go? Took a year to plan and is over too quickly.

Has definitely been a trip of a lifetime and i hope someday to visit all these places again.

this is our tuesday morning about 7:30 AM. ned is still sleeping and i am at the crowne lounge having breakfast and checking emails.

today we are leaving from the harbor at 10 AM on a ferry to waiheke island. supposedly a place the Aucklanders go when they want to get away from Auckland.

a beautiful little island with wineries, olive groves, art galleries, beaches, etc.

so that will take us until the afternoon and then i'll post again.

last night we had our evening drinks and canapes at the hotel. ned had been wanting to eat dim sum one night and we didn't know when we were going to fit it in and last night the snacks were dim sum so he was pleased.

we went to the casino last night played the penny and 2 cent machines and had no luck. so came home about 9 PM and went to bed.

will update more.

auckland is a great city - nothing like sydney as far as beauty or things to do but very safe, clean and multi cultures here.

it is 8 Am Auckland time on Monday morning. Beautiful morning but chilly.

We are having breakfast at our hotel in the crown lounge - fresh fruits, chocolate croissants, salmon, etc.

Last night we left the hotel about 7:30 and walked about 2 blocks away to Sky City - the large casino/hotel/tower complex.

We spent a little while playing the 2 cent slot machines and then i went up to the Sky Tower. This is the tallest tower in the southern hemisphere so i had to take advantage of doing this while we are here. The views are spectacular 360 degrees around. It was a clear, beautiful night and i stayed until all the lights had come on. And yes Neil, i did stand on the clear glass floor but it was kind of freaky.

Came back to the hotel around 9 PM and called it an early evening.

This morning we are catching the on/off bus this morning at Sky City at 9:45 and have several get off points we are doing today.

will post more later.

it is now 6:30 PM auckland time. we arrived auckland about 2:30 PM today; cleared customs and immigration in record time and got into a shuttle with 7 other people headed to our hotel.

it took over an hour to get to the hotel because they were having a santa clause parade today for the children and some of the roads were blocked and that included our hotel's main access. so we rode around in the shuttle for a good 30 minutes trying to figure out how to get close enough to the hotel to "deposit " us.

got checked in and we are in a very nice hotel - crowne plaza - and are on the club level where we get free breakfast, snacks, drinks and other snacks in the evening and free internet access. we decided it was worth paying the upcharge to have these things. we are on the 28th floor and looking out at the Sky Tower which is still much taller than us.
we are going over to the Sky Tower (tallest building in the southern hemisphere) this evening and i am going up to the top and then we are going to check out the restaurants over there and the casino. probably an early night this evening.

tomorrow is an on and off bus trip again around the city getting off at 4 or 5 stops. was cloudy when we landed today and rained on us coming from the airport but is beautiful weather now. and cool.

this is the city of sails because so many people own sailboats here. beautiful blue water. that's it for now. i will post again tomorrow after we have more to "chat" about.

today is our sunday morning. we checked out of our hotel about 7 AM and headed to the international terminal at the Sydney airport. we are currently in the Qantas club lounge waiting for our departure in about 90 minutes to Auckland.

Sydney is "socked in" this morning - raining, cold and very foggy. we are leaving just in the nick of time.

i would definitely come back to sydney. i just loved it and our hotel location was wonderful. it would be neat to live in a place where they offer various forms of transportation like the train and the ferries to get around.

auckland is supposed to be chillier than here but we are prepared with clothes for that.

our final night in sydney was great. found a little italian place to eat close to our hotel and food was wonderful. we walked around the harbor one last time before heading back to the hotel and an early night to bed about 9 PM. my knees could not take any more walking yesterday anyway.

i'll post again when we get to auckland. i got an email from our hotel a couple of days ago saying that the street our hotel is on is closed today from 2-4 for a Santa Claus parade so don't quite know how we are getting to the hotel yet but we will figure it out. from everything i have read, cabs are very expensive.

one more funny thing. we have been keeping all the receipts from everything we have done in australia where we were charged GST because we thought you could get that GST back. This morning when we went to the Tourist Refund Scheme office we were told you can only get the GST back if you bought things like jewelry or things other than hotels, rental cars and airline tickets. so that left us out.

ciao!!

today is our Saturday here in Sydney. woke up this morning to very gloomy skies and it rained until about 11:30 AM. But no worries mate, we got up at 7 AM, went to have breakfast at a cute little place called Bakers Oven here in the Rocks and headed over to the ferry terminal. Bought our round trip tickets to Darling Harbor. We started out at the Aquarium when it opened at 9 Am and it is a wonderful aquarium. We thoroughly enjoyed it.

we got there at the right time because as we were leaving there was quite a line to get in.

from the aquarium, we headed over to the Queen Victoria Building. This building is beautiful decorated in victorian motif and 5 or 6 floors. They are all decorated for christmas and their christmas tree must have spanned 5 of the 6 floors and was decorated with swarkowski (sp?) crystals. Beautiful. had a coffee a the QVB and bought some LUSH products and then headed back to the ferry landing. Caught the 1245 PM ferry back to our area at Circular Quay and then had a light lunch at the Museum of Contemporary Art.

Last night we went to the Rocks night market and it was a zoo- ned said they were expecting 25,000 people there and i believe they were all there. last night we saw everything imagineable in people. some people dressed for a costume party, and every kind of person dressed we saw there. we walked around for about 30 minutes - there was a live band, lots of food booths and lots of arts and crafts but we did not stay as there were too many people.

That ended yesterday.

right now we are in the room resting and will go back out shortly to do somemore sightseeing in our area and then are having dinner at 6:30 at an italian restaurant close by.

tomorrow morning early call to the airport - cab will be here at 7 Am and our flight to Auckland leaves at 9:30 AM. will post more tomorrow ehn we arrive auckland.

Friday 6 PM Sydney time...

we departed Cairns yesterday about 1 PM on a brand new Airbus plane that had only flown 3 prior flights. beautiful plane. i saw Monster in Law with jennifer lopez and Jane Fonda...too funny. forgot to previously mention on the trip over i also saw Must Love Dogs and it too was very cute. also saw Charlie and the Chocolate factory but i never could get into that movie...just didn't look like johnnie depp...

arrived sydney about 5 PM yesterday and took the train from Sydney to the train station closest to our hotel. that was a new experience for me and fun. we arrived our hotel about 6 PM (it took forever to get our luggage) and checked in. It is not a luxury fancy hotel but very european looking - clean lines = no frills but very comfortable and usuable and the best thing it is in a wonderful location with walking to everything you could want. Slept like a log last night.

this morning woke up to very gloomy skies and rain. it rained until about 2 Pm and then finally cleared. didn't stop us at all. we ate breakfast at this cute little place - The Gumnut Cafe - across the street from Stafford Hotel and then headed to the visitors centre to catch the on/off bus. We boarded it at 9 :30 and just barely got home at 6 PM.

We rode it around one complete loop which took 2 hours with onboard commentary about everything and then we started departing the bus at various places we wanted to visit.

First off stop was the Opera House. I took the tour - ned opted not to - his loss. It was a fabulous tour. The Opera House is an amazing structure. We got to sit in and watch the Australian ballet company practice for about 10 minutes in the smaller of the venues. The main concert hall (the largest of the two) is just a work of art.

Departed the Opera House and back on the bus until we finally made it to the Fish Market. It, too, was an amazing place. Lots of seafood retailers and fresh fruit and flowers and fresh baked goods and liquor store. Ned and I bought a barramundi fish and chips basket - $8. each and had more food that we could eat. Also bought a couple of rolls from the bakery and a small bottle of wine for me and we ate outdoors. BY this time it was beautiful sunshine.

it was a very useful day - did not have to wait for the bus at any one stop more than about 10 minutes. After leaving the Fish market we went to the Star City which is the casino/hotel complex.

They had tons of penny slot machines and we played for about 30 minutes. i doubled my money and ned broke even so it was an eventful trip.

Got back on the bus and came back home.

don't know what we are doing for dinner tonight. didn't eat at the fish market until about 3:15 so still not hungry.

The area we are staying in is the Rocks and they are having the Rocks Night Market tonight with live entertainment and food and drink. We may try that instead of going to a restaurant since we are not very hungry.

Also forgot to mention after we got settled in last night, we caught the 8 PM harbor cruise around the harbor for 1.5 hours . Just about froze to death and finally had to go inside but it was a wonderful cruise to see all the lights especially the bridge at night and the opera house.

Today in the miserable rain and cold the bridge climbers were out in full force...

Tomorrow we are going to the aquarium and also the QVB building. Also going to manly beach if our time holds out and the weather is good.

Sydney has met all my expectations. wonderful city with great old architecture.

More to follow tomorrow after we resume our second and last full day in Sydney. Our plane departs Sunday morning at 9 :30 AM for Auckland.

Wednesday activities:
started day with Bob Morrison of Australian Luxury Tours on a day trip to the Daintree National Park and Daintree River and Cape Tribulation.

Saw wallabies on way up north out in a field eating. Also saw white cockatiels, other birds, Ulysses butterflies, lizards, and a dog named Mambo.

Our tour guide picked up another couple Colin and Geraldine from Silky Oaks, this luxury resort out in the middle of no where and we were on our way. Headed north to Thornton each. But first we stopped at the Daintree River and took a cruise on the river with our guide Bruce. It was just the four of us and Bruce and his sidekick. The boat was like a barge. Saw lots of egrets and one croc sunning herself on the bank. Bruce was very knowledgeable and after cruising for an hour we met up with Bob again and continued north.

After driving for a short while, we stopped at Thornton Beach for breakfast which consisted of muffins/coffee/tea and fresh pineapple. At a nice roadside table complete with a cloth tablecloth.

During the course of the day we drove through Daintree National Park and made several stops along the way and did walking tours through the rain forest. They haven't had rain for several months so everything was very dry. We were in search of the Cassowary bird all day but never saw any. They are endangered and the size of an emu.

Bob identified and pointed out various plants/insects/bird/butterflies plus the age of some of the plants - mind boggling. This park is part of the World Heritage Organization (UNESCO) supported by the United Nations to preserve areas that might otherwise be destroyed. Then we headed north to Cape Tribulation.

This is the area where Captain Cook first set foot on australian soil. We were in a 4 WD vehicle now on a very rough road. This is actually where the rain forest touches the ocean and where the Daintree River feeds into the ocean. Beautiful wide sandy beaches but no one swimming because it is stinger season. Lots of backpackers - mostly young kids - in Daintree staying in places like hostels. This area reminds me of the north part of Kauai and the hippie look that the community has to it. Sometime in here we had lunch.

We drove to someone's property that had an entomological museaum - that is right - insects and butterflies. These people have an unbelieveable collection of both from all over the world in display cases. The Butterflies were beautiful. the insects were kreepy.

They have a picnic area made for visitors to the museum and this was our lunch spot. At each meal we had a tablecloth on the table and china plates and silverware and glasses to drink from. Beautiful setting in a shaded area overlooking a creek filled with fish and turtles while the birds and butterflies were overhead.

Meal consisted of homemade baked chickn, yummy bread, 4 or 5 kinds of salads and fresh and Pub Slush (lemonade) to drink. This was wehre we met Mambo the family dog. he is truly leading a charmed likfe at this plae.

A few more rain forest walks and we stopped for ice cream at the Daintree Ice Cream place. I had four scoops of ice cream - acacia nut, jack fruit, macadamia nut and one other kind i cannot remember from a fruit close to a persimmon.

Mid afternoon at this time we headed back to drop Colin and Geraldine off at Silky oaks and we arived back to trinty beach at 6 PM. This was the beat of our three tours because we had our very own personalzied tour guide for almost 12 hours.

Interesting note about colin and geraldine - london folks - she works for travelocity. Don't know his occupation but he loves going to thailand to fish at Phi Phi island and owns a boat there.

thats's it for now. this is thanksgiving day for us - not you yet - we are 16 hours ahead of you.

headed off for sydney in a few hours. our time at Trinity Beach has been magical.

good day, mates!!! will try and catch you up on the Bergs happenings.

Sunday evening we had dinner at a wonderful beach cafe - italian food. people eating there also had a dog like misty so we made small talk with them - they were canadian. one of the guys sitting at the next table asked us where we were from and i said dallas and he immeditely said, what do you think of george bush. i told him i would rather not comment. that concludes sunday.

monday we cruised out to the great barrier reef with Ocean Spirit. A first class operation indeed. We had four hours on the reef, some snorkeling time, some time in the submersible and some time taking a bird tour. the Michaelmus Cay which was where we went is home right now to 30,000 nestig birds so you can imagine the noise level of being up close with that many birds. my new snorkel mask was wonderful. i saw lots of beautiful fish and corals and sponges. Food was great on this huge catamaran and i would highly recommend this to anyone.

The cruise met my every expectation of planning for it for almost a year.

Today finds us in Kuranda. We took the train up this morning at 8 :45 Am and it was very cool and beautiful weather. We are now at an internet cafe and i am using a MAC to send these greetings to you. It is a little warm today but there is a breeze. we are killing time waiting to go to the skyrail station to take the gondola back down the mountain at 2 PM. We had lunch at a wonderful little place - BILLY'S - thanks Neil for the recommendatio. the batter dipped fish was wonderful. went to the koala park here in Kuranda and fulfilled another of my wishes for my trip. I am now the proud owner of a picture of me holding Chibby the 3 year old koala. It is adorable...We also visited the butterly park and the bird park and they were fantastic as well.

we are dining tonight at a little seaside cafe called Atlantis. We have had beautiful weather, no bugs, no stingers sighted on our great barrier reef cruise although i did wear my wet suit for protection had we seen any.

Tomorrow is one of our most adventurous tours. We are going on a 4 wheel drive tour to the daintree forest (rain forest) and cape tribulation - also on a boat. an all day tour. So we should see the best of what this part of Australia has to offer.

One other item i will mention. Taking the bus into town yesterday to catch Ocean Spirit the guide told us about all the Queenslander houses built in the 40s being torn down now for new condos. These homes look like houses on stilts with lots of shuttered windows. They were built to last for ever. Recently the condo people paid 1.5 million AUS dollars for one just to have the property.

I'm signing off for now. will post again wednesday or thursday morning.

today finds us sightseeing in Cairns. We took the city bus from Trinity Beach to Cairns which was about a 45 minute ride but we went through lots of neighborhoods and got to see how these people live. pretty nice. the plants and trees are beautiful.

downtown cairns is kind of eclectic - there is an area with a boardwalk where all the boats dock and some restaurants and a shopping mall. then there are all the downtown streets selling everything imagineable. only thing we bought was a hat for ned. surprisingly, the souvenirs are cheap.

Back from our bus trip we are at the corner store using the computer and getting ice cream. we are having dinner tonight at the italian place here in Trinity Beach.

The manager of our accommodations at Sea Change upgraded us (i'm sure there was a reason why) to a three bedroom apartment so needless to say, we have tons of room. we walked to the grocery store yesterday which was about a 20 minute walk to buy groceries and then the grocer drove us back home. I swam in the pool for a little while yesterday but it was after the sun had gone down.

Ned had an accident yesterday which he said i could repeat here in the blog. The way the apartment complex is set up there are lots of little water hole areas and ned fell into one of them yesterday. he wasn't watching where he was walking. So he pulled himself out (it wasn't deep) and we went back upstairs and cleaned up his boo boos and he changed his wet clothes. He felt so stupid that he wasn't watching where he was walking.

Tomorrow we go on the Ocean Spirit cruise for the full day. So you probably won't hear anything from me tomorrow.

Yesterday there were lots of people having picnics on the beach and they have a huge swimmers net out in front of our place to keep the stingers away from the swimmers. warning signs every where warning people to stay out of the water.

We love this place. Such a beautiful setting. It is warm and humid but not unbearable.

I'm signing off for now but will catch up again with the blog on tuesday probably.

Cheers>>>

Day 1

our flight from Los Angeles to Sydney was great. We flew in a jumbo top 747 Longreach plane and we were in the upper deck right behind the pilots. Had tons of room and our seats actually reclined to full lay down position although they were still pretty narrow. I must have had some sleep on the plane as i wasn't just dead tired. i know ned took several naps. the food was plentiful and incredible. business class service was great. arrived sydney about 10:30 PM their time. They are 17 hours ahead of dallas time. Our bags arrived (hurrah) and we headed to our first night's hotel - the holiday inn at the airport. got all checked in and we were in our room by 11 PM. We did clear customs and immigration in the Sydney airport and that was a breeze - no lines. Ours was the only flight coming in that late at night.

Got a few hours sleep and are now in the Qantas club lounge waiting for our 945 AM flight to Cairns. It is overcast here in Sydney and in the 50s.

So far everyone has been super nice. We found out this morning that we want "flat white" coffee when we want coffee with cream...We should arrive Cairns at noon today and be met by someone from our Seachange Apartment staff for transfer to our hotel.

Here is our itinerary for the next several days in case you wonder where we are on a given day:

In Trinity Beach (north of cairns) until Thursday noon.

Thursday fly back to Sydney and stay there until morning on November 27.

November 27 AM fly to Auckland and stay until Wednesday, November 30 and then fly home.

i'll update more as our trip continues.

the bottom line of this posting is if you can possibly afford it GO BUSINESS CLASS. being upstairs in the plane there were only 16 seats and 3 flight attendants serving us constantly. There was no noise, good food and plenty of space for us and our stuff.

we are currently in the Qantas club at the LAX Airport - very nice - free food and beverages and internet and TV. A nice way to pass the time. we are able to board the plane in about 1.5 hours.

flight out here was very good - even a good breakfast.

i'll post again when i have a chance. beautiful weather here in LA but the smog was very prevalent as we flew in.

we are at the airport plane takes offf in one hour. we are in first class to los angeles and then business on to sydney. neil took us to the airport. a very busy place this morning. will post more when we either get to sydney or cairns.

Well, I am closing in on my departure to Australia/New Zealand. I will be updating the blog hopefully every couple of days of our travels.