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Travel Notes |
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Tue Apr 9 08:28:22 2002 (nmcfarl) Book: Australia Rough Guide Location: Brandon So we met Brandon for 2 weeks here in austrialia. This is a little break between his last job with Openwave, formerly Software.com (where I worked with him) and his new job with a wireless company Wildseed . Brandon is a designer and Rachel and I know him through James of the Destinations.com crowd. He worked for Openwave because of the heavy DCOM infulence during the AtMobile days ( the ones even before Software.com name). Brandon chooses his restaraunts based on their looks, so we ate at some stylish places. Some of the choices where very cool, and one night we ended going out late one night to a jazz club and listening to some live music. It was good idea and one we never would thought of. He is also a bit of a driving enthusist, and thus the expensive rental cars. I must say that they where fun. I truly got into motoring about in the speedster. And it was motoring, not a driving the country nor getting from a to b. Much fun and I recomend it. ? Tue Apr 9 07:58:23 2002 (nmcfarl) Book: Australia Rough Guide Location: Victoria A quick rundown on our australia trip before we leave the southern hemishere and start our South-East Asia segment tonight at 1 am. On the first day we landed late ( mechanical difficulties on Air Vanuatu had us grounded for an hour in brisbane before we resumed service to Melbourne), but brandon was still waiting. As a side note the Austrialian quaritine office was both efficient and polite, a good experience. That night we went out to dinner on the fashionable south bank of the Yarra river which flows through melbourne. The dining district was bustling at 10pm on an unseasonably warm sunday night. This experience was so nice that we did it again 2 weeks later when brandon left. The next day was all errands and shopping in the end I got new glassess and contacts ( though that took like 3 trips down to St. Kilda a shopping district south of the CBD (central business district) annoying. But they are very good glasses. Rachel also got some very nice, very lux gucci sunglasses. Then we did less errands and more exploring of gardens (all of them excellent) museums ( a little dispointing, but in weird ways). That weekend Good Friday to Easter Monday ( a holiday some of the locals get, 'cause easter falls on sunday and they need to get some time off for it ( beyond good friday that is)), we rented sports cars. Brandon got a brand new red Mercedes benz SLK, we rented an old Porche convertible. Then we drove down the Great Ocean Road , Austrialias answer to the Pacific coast highway, up to the Grampians some very scenic mountains, and back to melbourne via the Gold Fields and Ballarat a very nice town. Then we finished off brandons time in the dandendongs a mountian range just outside of melbourne. We hiked and did the wine tour thing, we also ate well and finally got to self cater. We also went to a very very good zoo and saw all the weird local animals. After brandon took off on saturday we headed down to the Mornington peninsula, for two days of hikes in some amazing scenery. We saw emus in addition to the wallaby we'd seen when motoring, and the the sulfer crested cockatoos we saw in the dandendongs ( where we heard a cookaburra). But before we left Melbourne we stopped at a local park and used the coin operated gas barbques that are in all the parks around here. A very cool experience, and a must do for any austrialia trip. Today more chores and a bit of a canoe on the yarra. On the whole a very cool leg of our trip, fairly expensive but we got what we paid for and it was much fun. Tue Apr 9 07:23:07 2002 (rr) Book: Australia Rough Guide Location: melbourne Today we zoomed back and forth across Melbourne doing errands and I sorely missed the Porsche. We picked up contacts for Nathan, ate some gelato, replaced a lost travellers check, sent a box of stuff home (goodbye tent, we'll miss you), picked up our photos that have been burned to CD (coming to a web page near you soon!) and canoed down the Yarra River. All in a days work. Tonight we are planning on catching a movie (Royal Tenenbaums we think) and some dinner before our 1 am flight to Singapore. |
nmcfarl.org email us email Rachel email Nathan See the pictures. Palau Pictures Yap Pictures Hawaii Pictures Taiwan Pictures View the original itinerary
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