We can't compete with Australia on convict origins, that is for sure.

Salton Sea might be a comparison, but Mono Lake would be more beautiful.

I asked about Kakadu and you seemed to dismiss that, so what does Lawn Hill have to offer that commends it in Feb/March?

Not interested in tropical beaches and reefs. Been there, done that. For far less expense.

lizF

No ! I did not have the scallop Tasmanian pie but I sure did have the beer.
The brewery is in Lauceston..wish I could have seen it.

The beer came in this green bottle and this is the one I always bought .

Yes ,I fully agree , every visitor to down Under should be made to eat Vegemite.

I am one of those that was washing his mouth out for a week.!!

oliverandharry:

You bet, the exchange rate is good and in our favour.

As of today April 17 the the exchange rate is as follows.

one US dollar = $1.37 Australian
= $1.67 New Zealand
One Canadian dollar = $1.19 Australian
= $1.40 New Zealand

So the currency exchange has turned more is our favour since last month.

I asked tour guides in both Tasmania and Australia and New Zealand, what the average salary was and how they could afford the higher prices for almost everything ,mainly their homes.

He said the average salary was between $42,000 to $55,000.00

As to how we can pay the prices for homes( again I am comparing apples to apples and city location to city location)( like a $300,000.00 here in my city is about $450, 000.00 in New Zealand in a similair location of the city !).
His answer to me was:

" We are good borrowers and the banks are nice to us."
Okay, that is a good enough answer for me.
Because at the same time the tour guide was asking me about my country and the cost of living there.

Yes,there sure is a lot of discussion about the coffee.

Gee , now all those who read this and then go to Tasmanian and Australia ,will have a coffee and say one of two things.

1. Hey , this coffee is okay,what the heck was Percy complaining about!!
or
2. My goodness,Percy was right this is terrible coffee.

Happy Coffee drinking to you all.

Percy

Percy, mate, you're still doing it!!!! It's NOT "Tasmania and Australia", and it's NOT "the country of Tasmania" - Tasmania IS part of Australia, a state, in fact. You can trust me on this, really.

As for the coffee, I hope to be visiting the countries of British Columbia, Alberta and Canada later this year and will make a point of investigating the Canadian variety. Until then, my guess is that you've been drinking standard American-style coffee which (with deepest apologies to my American friends) is a close relative of dishwater. Americans do many things very well, but except in New Orleans and those parts where you can find an espresso machine, coffee isn't one of them.

Mostly I pay AU$2.50-3.00 for a coffee. That includes tax, and tips are not expected. Have you taken that into account? And for that I get table service and a real cup. In McDonalds (and I think Starbucks? can't remember) you pick up your coffee at the counter and you get it in an unpleasant Styrofoam container. Not only that, but if you don't take it away you drink it in a most disagreeable, noisy environment packed with overweight couples and their noisy broods. Realy, there's no comparison.

While Australia has always had Jewish communities, for most of our history they were small and so didn't make anything like the impact that their American counterparts did. This may explain why bagels have started to come into vogue only in the last few years.

mlgb, I live in Canberra, and I have to agree that parts of California are quite similar to much of Australia - for example, only the occasional native conifer in the Sonoma wine country, and the fact that the eucalypts there are fewer, may tell you that you're not in the Barossa or Hunter Valleys. But then, many parts of the world are physically similar to many other parts. This doesn't affect my travel plans, because it's people and local cultures that really distinguish one place from another, and while Australians and Americans have much in common, they're distinctively different. Same goes for New Zealanders, who whatever they might tell you aren't much different from Australians, just a little more British perhaps.

I think the operative words might have been that parts of Australia reminded them of California. There were a couple of spots that ever so slightly reminded me of California, but truly, only ever so slightly.

In fact, there was one area we visited that reminded us a bit of the hill country of Texas as well (which was interesting because that the Texas Hill Country is also where John Newcombe built a home and still has a Tennis Ranch).

But really, they were just reminders, and it is natural for most people to want to make connections to what they know.

I think it could safely be said that Australia is unlike any other place on earth.

I also heard Kakadu was really cool, but I am also fascinated by the Kimberlies (sp?). Interestingly enough, I didn't find the Blue Mountains as fascinating as other people seem to. So, much depends on what interests you have and where you want to go. I'm pretty sure you could find something you had never seen before in Australia.

OliverandHarry, I am 99% sure that Wendy, the Wonderwoman, at Matilda's of Ranelagh said it was Little Bondi but just check with Pam if Wendy is not there at the time. You can also get fresh oysters and other seafood there as well. Also ask them about the seafood place that is tied up at the river which I had not noticed before. If I hear from Pam I will ask her to ask Wendy to give me the exact location of that kiosk as Wendy will be away in Europe sometime in May I think so you may miss her. She also makes the best jam in the Huon Valley by the way.
Shows you just how behind the times I am, I thought the average salary in Australia was about $70K, it is different in Tasmania as house costs are far less than the mainland and NZ in Tassie.
I had a neighbour who was from Maryland and the same old hum drum comparisons were always being talked about. There are many hidden costs in the USA i.e. Local Government taxes which to us were startling, not to mention State taxes and several other taxes hidden as something else most of the time. My neighbour is an Attorney and he said that overall the difference was very little really that where one had higher costs on some things the other had cheaper and v.v.
Sydney's house prices are staggering to the rest of us in Australia and Tasmania's are the cheapest. As a comparison when I was last in LA most of the suburbs looked like there were Housing Commission houses everywhere and the only place I thought that resembled homes that we have here in and around the Gold Coast for example was in Beverley Hills. One cost for example we do not have as much as in the US is the cost of University - so far we don't need to mortgage our homes to get our kids though it but I am sure that the boffins are working on that.
This brings me to answer MLGB, you asked me to quantify why I brushed off Kakadu, well when I suggested other places you have either "been there, done that at a far cheaper price" or its too much like home so I suggest that you do your homework, tell people what you like so they don't bore you to death suggesting places that you would hate and then ask your questions.

Average earnings for full-time employed adults in Nov 2005 were $56K. The OECD claimes house prices in Australia are 50% over-valued in relation to rental incomes, the result of a long boom fed by investors with easy access to cheap finance. Prices have risen from a historical 5-6x average annual income to 8-9x. No doubt an inevitable increase in interest rates will result in a correction - uncomfortable for some, welcome for others. It's been reported that the US property boom is also set to bust.

For what it's worth, a recent survey ranked Australians as the happiest people in the world.

Hi Neil_Oz

Hi mate!!

Yes I trust you and I know that Tasmania is part of Australia.

But for the sake of the report I kind of placed it as a separate little place below Australia.

But the currency is the same as Australia..and my tour guide explained all the political connection to Australia.

We do not get our coffee here in a styrofoam container.. I have not seen one of those in years at any coffee place.

Maybe because it is so environmentally unfriendly touse styrofoam.

I guess food and drinks are such a personal preference thing.

Some people swear by Starbucks...other cannot stand the place....go figure.!!

Our biggest coffee chain in Canada is Tim Hortons.You pass any Tim Hortons and there is a line up always.....
yet many other just dislike Tim Horton's coffee, and would not dream of ever going there. !!!


Glad you are coming to visit Canada and British Columbia.
I know you have a friend in Victoria which is a nice place with a lot of British style influence...

I hope your friends take you for High Tea at the lovely Empress Hotel .
And insist that they take you to the Rogers Chocolate shop.

It is a place " To die for" ,for chocolates. It is a small place and is the same as it was over 100 years ago.

Every US President that has ever come to Victoria has gone to Rogers.

Also , go to Tim Hortons with your friends....you cannot miss it ,because they seem to be on every second corner.

I am in the next province over...in Alberta.

Love your comments mate !
Percy

Thanks, Percy - I'm making notes furiously. The Empress and Rogers it is.

Australians were mostly tea drinkers until the arrival of large numbers of Italian immigrants arrived after WW2 and beginning in the 1950s gradually introduced espresso, which is now pretty much synonomous with coffee. Italian-style coffee is strong stuff, and (although no doubt people will argue that it's better in Italy) that's what you'll find in almost very suburb and town in Australia. Home espresso machines are also popular.

I don't have anything against Starbucks' coffee as such. In fact we were always glad to find a Starbucks in China, coffee of any kind (and often, clean toilets) being hard to find there. But the chain itself is seen by some Australians as just another example of cultural imperialism like McDonalds and KFC, and moreover not adding any value over and above the thousands of small cafes where you can get a decent coffee (well, we think it's decent anyway).

You may have noticed that Tasmanians refer to the big island to the north as "the mainland". We have a habit of forgetting to include Tasmania in the map of Australia, which probably contributes to the confusion.

We're planning to drive as far as Calgary. The fact that the currency there is the same as Canada's will be convenient.

Must chime in here with my 'two bobs' worth. I was born in Tassie, raised in Victoria and live in Queensland. I found your report so far to be really interesting. We have only recently returned from a 6 week trip to the US and Europe. So on the coffee thing, (sorry if this feels like a hijacking of your thread, but i find in really interesting). We drank Starbucks exclusivley in the states, only because it was great value for money and we always knew what we would be getting. Reasonably strong drinkable coffee. In London we did the same, Paris we found really hard. Not sure if it was a language thing or not. But we could only get what we know as "short Black', which we don't mind as long as we can have a little jug of milk on the side. But this seemed too much trouble in Paris.

But Rome..........ah Rome the best coffee EVER!! Didn't have a bad one the whole time there.

Now in Australia, we've found that in Melbourne they know how to make coffee. I guess its the Italian/Greek influence. Brisbane we always ask for a double shot. But when traveling outside of major cities we've always found it safer to just go and get a McDonalds brewed coffee. And if they have McCafe attached, bonus.

As far as the cost, yep we pay between $2.50 & $3.00 but I'm sure if you do the conversion its much the same.

We believe that when ever we travel overseas, you must try the local coffee, food etc and just work out what suits you. In the States we really do have trouble, as everything seems so sweet and over seasoned. In Europe we pretty much loved every thing we ate.

Just one more little note, please don't compare coffee with that horrible instant variety, Nescafe. YUK. I'm sure you must have instant coffee in the States?
Sorry again for the hijacking.

No problem about the hijacking aussiedreamer!

You comments are very interesting.

Right now there is a research project being done on Starbucks Coffe.

It is written up in our local newspaper this morning.

The fellow doing the research is from England and he is atTemple Univeristy in Philadelphia.!

Here are some of his comments.
I am quoting now.

1.It is Italian coffee in an American package...that has spread rapidly around the world.
2.Founded in Seattle in 1971
3.Has 11,000 outlets in 37 Countries.
4.Has become entranched in people's daily lives.

5.He drinks 2-3 cups of coffee per day.
6. He visits 5-6 Starbuck each day in doing his research.
7. Starbuck is female friendly ( hmmm!)and the crowd is usually the younger set and up to the middle aged man working on a laptop.
You will not find many older people here.( hmm he does not say how older is older)

end of his comments.

I found it interesting that he made no mention about the flavour of the coffee.. but rather who goes there and why they go there.

I agree with you ,I have no idea why top notch hotels put out Nescafe packages for their guest !!

We rectified the strong coffee problem that we had down under... we just drank tea!!

Neil_Oz

You tell your fiends in Victoria that:

They have to take you to:

1. Tea at the Empress..this has to be booked( sometimes months in advance)

2.Rogers Chocolate Shop on Government Street.

3. Tim Hortons for coffee.

There is a nice harbour in downtown Victoria , something like the harbour in Hobart Tasmania.

Gee you are coming to Calgary.. I am just down the road in Edmonton( Capital of Alberta ).

Percy

The Starbucks phenomenon is interesting. I can understand their success in the US, where otherwise (IMO) it's hard to find a good coffee. Why anyone would enter one in places like Italy and France is less clear - but then, you'd have to wonder why middle-class Chinese families patronise McDonalds.

It must be partly the power of habit - customers kow pretty much in advance what to expect, which takes away the need to make choices. Being presented with too many options has been shown to cause stress. In that respect we were much better off when we had a choice of only a few ice cream flavourings, for instance.

Also, the assembly-line, serve-yourself model of the large American franchise chains, their convenience, blandness and near-monopoly of highway locations, are all factors.

I'm not sure how far the choice theory gets us with Starbucks, though, as they actually multiplied the coffee-drinker's choices.

During Feb./March we were on a three week tour of AU/NZ, just the smallest introduction, but we LOVED them both. The Australians were just so unbelievably friendly, talkative. I am a very talkative person and they could beat me out anytime, but they were all absolutely terrific. We loved seeing Hobart and surrounding areas, especially the animals, Tasmanian Devils, gosh, are they mean!!! Really very interesting animals. I would love to go to Tasmania for an extended length of time. After being in NZ, we noticed how you didn't hear/see anything about AU and in AU, didn't hear anything about NZ, is there a huge competition? To all of you from both these countries, congratulations for getting to live there, it seems like a great way of life without alot of the hustle/bustle that we see in our area, Phoenix, Arizona.

Hi Percy, I didn't realize you were from Ca. and Alberta for that matter! I lived in Edmonton for two years way back when and worked in the Pension plan devision of the U of Alberta, number crunching for the Academics pay increases till I got out of there into a job with a housing developement Company.
One thing I would like to know though is do you still have that stupid idea of having to get a new mortgage every five years? That was an unbelievably costly exercise because the mortgage % rate was sold onto any buyer and if you had the misfortune to have a high mortgage % you had a hard time selling your house, at the time I was there % rates were up to 14%.
You talk about costs in Australia V North America - well one of the hidden costs ( taxes) we don't pay is School Tax which I thought was a bit off when I lived there for those people who didn't have children. Another added cost that we don't need to compute into our lives is the heating factor both house heating and car heating where you MUST have a plug in heater when you park your car o/w it won't go when you leave work to go home, that was very costly. When I lived in Ca some of the Eastern Provence residence were paying as much per month for their heating as they were for their mortgage!
Another hidden cost of living in Ca. was the fact that you had to pay a few other items to the Government as well as tax, I think for one thing didn't they put a charge on you for sickness and unemployment benefits?
Anyway it all comes out in the wash I think. Last time I was in Canada it seemed pretty much the same as here in terms of prices, costs etc with the exception of Vancouver and here, Sydney.
Each country in the World has their down side for living in in some way and each has its upsides and although we speak the same/ similiar language our countries are vastly different in culture therefore making a visit all that much more interesting.
I have never been able to get a good Caesar salad since leaving Edmonton - Mayfair Inn made the best, nor have I ever enjoyed spaghetti as much as the Spaghetti House there. Also I miss eating some of the lovely Ukranian dishes that I used to get there. Someone here tried to make Per-oshkies ( phonetic spelling ) which were nothing like the lovely ones I used to eat...... darn!

desertduds, if there's any competition I think it's more in the Kiwis' minds than Australians', and on both sides it seems to be focused on (to me) obscure sporting contests. That's how it struck me in NZ anyway. I thought Australia got more press in NZ than the reverse, which given the respective sizes of the two countries makes sense. I mean, how much time do Americans spend thinking about Canada?

Thanks for the kind words, anyway. We owe our good luck to the revolt of the American colonies and other factors that motivated the British government to establish a new penal colony in the South Seas. When the First Fleet set sail in 1787 many Britons expected never to hear from them again, expecting that they'd be eaten by cannibals (or possibly eat each other). Luckily they underestimated that motley crew.

Women's Netball, Neil? NZ licked us in recent Commonwealth Games and I was glad to see it; all that gold for Australia getting embarrassing.

Hi Everybody:

lizF:

Well,nice to talk to a former Edmontonian.

You know the housing Boom here is like almost every place else in North America... crazy!!

Sorry I cannot help you with mortage information,as the 3 house I had in my lifetime ,I paid cash each time..therefore I never had a mortgage.

I know that in Canada the only thing that is not taxed is the profit you make on your home when you sell it.(Your Principle dwelling).

I think you only need 5% down and then to be able to qualify for a mortgage.
This is both go and bad...because people who pay only 5 %, run into trouble later with such a heavy mortgage.

I agree, the Mayfield Inn makes a good Ceasar Salad.

You are asking about the Ukrainian Perogies.... Guess what!?
The famous Perogy House burned down in Edmonton just over a year ago.

Hey,desertbuds:

I liked the Tasmanian Devil,even though some were too busy devouring chunks of a Wombat to give me the time fo day !!

I agree you New Zealand and Australian people are lucky to live where they do and enjoy the climate and life style they have there.

Yes Neil_Oz:

Yes I am sure the American talk very little about us ,where as we talk a lot about them.

But we get along just fine.

You know I felt there was a lot of competiton between New Zealand and Australia.

I was in the Casino bar in the Auckland Sky Tower and Hotel( where I stayed)....and I had a beer and watched on TV, the New Zealand ladies basketball team defeat the Australain ladies. for the Gold Medal!!

If I rememebr the score I think the final was about 57 to 52...or something close to this.

But boy, the New Zealanders were absolutely thrilled... and yes I agree it was getting embarrasing seeing Australia win all those medals.

I did not watch any of the Commonwealth Games while I was down there as I was always busy touring and sightseeing.

But I did ask my very knowledgeable Tour Guide,how come you built the Sky Tower so high .?

He said :
" Because we knew we could and we wanted it to be higher than Sydneys .!"

Ahh,isn't New Zealand and Australia grand.

Good Night everybody and no more coffee talks !!

Percy