Birthday Holiday
Jan 31st, 2006 by admin
Colette & I went to Sydney and Melbourne for a 5 day holiday. It actually was 6 days but 1 day was work for me (in Sydney) while Colette got to enjoy drinking wine in Darling Harbour.
Monday night we were getting ready for our trip when we heard a crash on the front screen door. We thought maybe someone was coming in, but when we looked out no one was there! Then after a few seconds we noticed a cat shape stuck to the door! It seems our local friendly cat decided to play Garfield and jumped up against our door and stuck. He left shortly but Colette & I just howled. Weird.
We decided to drive between Sydney and Melbourne to see a little of Australia and to take the opportunity to swing by Canberra, the national capital (which was designed by an American). Learn more here.
The Parliament House has a grass roof and you’re allowed to walk around on it. The tour guide says it’s so that Parliament is not treated as “above the people”. I personally think it’s great idea to be able to stomp on politicians’ heads.
Around Canberra is a whole lot of nothing! Much like the rest of Australia. It looked a lot like Montana or Wyoming – hills covered with brown grass.
We were only in Canberra for a few hours and drove another 3 hours onto Albury to spend the night. The next day we drove onto Melbourne and successfully navigated our way to the hotel. Of course, it took 4 trips around the block to find a parking spot – the hotel had none.
We had dinner that night on the Colonial Tramcar Restaurant. It was very nice – a trip around the city in an old gussied-up tram with a nice meal. Unfortunately, it was quite hot and the little A/C unit wasn’t keeping up. Fortunately, booze was included. Gotta love Australia!
Friday we took a tour up to the Yarra valley and visited some wineries. It was a nice day.
Saturday we spent running around the city. They have some serious shopping centers downtown! Myers (similar to Macy’s) covered something like 3 blocks. We had lunch in St Kilda and dinner at an Italian restaurant in the Italian part of town (loads of Italian restaurants).
Sunday morning was spent at the Aquarium before flying back home that afternoon.