Hey Alan,
what time Monday will you be at Clontarf reserve?

Hi, johnj_au!

Maybe about 10:30 a.m., all going well. Why? Will you be nearby?

Alan

I'm in Melbourne on Monday - time to terrorize those southerners!

I'm in Sydney the rest of the week - to catch up with AD & Co.

Michi - have a great trip. Email me for a cuppa when you get back to Sydney - [email protected]

AD - great sounding trip - visiting some of my favourite places. My feet are itching alrady - and all I have in view is Melbourne

Alan, thanks for the invite - I'd love to meet up, but we're stuck in Canberra this Easter. This is the time when your interstate relatives decide they need to see the autumn leaves, or the latest exhibition at the National Gallery, or just see a good case for a cheap weekend away, so I'll be doing my best imitation of a tour guide. It's not a bad thing, because otherwise I'd probably never get around to seeing "The Edwardians" exhibition, the gallery being all of 8 minutes' drive away.....

As former Hawkesbury and Blue Mountains residents, not to mention habitues of Ashwoods, we have to catch up. Keep me posted on those walks - I'd love to puff my way along the Spit Bridge-Manly track, as long as you can guarantee me a beer as the reward.

AndrewDavid, I'm really quite hurt that you opted to dispense with the national capital in favour of more frivolous venues like Sydney, but I'm sure you'll have a good time anyway. Now I'll have to let our prime minister out of the hessian bag in the garage. I know he's going to be pretty unhappy about this. He was hoping to visit Baghdad this weekend to cheer on our soldiers. (Not.)

Alan,
I will be in that area on monday am..I will keep an eye out.

Alan, Is there any chance of us crossing paths w/ you?
Please see our above itinerarey
a few posts up on this venerable thread.
Thanks again for all your help. Let us reciprocate if you head toward New Mexico.
good luck on the Easter Egg Hunt
AndrewDavid

I will let you know how the Blue Mountain trip turns out.

We arrived in Hobart yesterday afternoon after a trip to and down the east coast. Our interest was in Pt. Arthur and it turned out to be a beautiful place -- too beautiful -- and found it hard to even imagine what went on there. The spiel from an articulate guide (I know it's not her doing) was a "sanitized" version of the reality I'm sure which I found difficult to relate to. I'm sure there were some good things but it sounded more like a reform school as I know it. Maybe it was and |I have been misled. The days have been gorgeous and warm for the most part -- how lucky can we be?

Hobart is lovely and our hotel is right across from the harbour. visited the salamanca market this morning and was impressed and loved the south american band. their music is so catching that even at my age i feel like dancing. We are here for three days and enjoying it after the 4-day APT tour which helped get us everyplace in short order.

i'm going to use lower case from now on since i'm having trouble with this keyboard.

andrew david, have a good trip. you'll need some warm clothing for early morning and late afternoon evening in tasmania. we have light jackets, sweater and long sleeve shirts and we are not too warm at certain times of the day. most australians are into what we know as fall clothing - long pants, jackets, light fleeces/sweaters, long sleeves. it was a heck of a lot to pack but even the gloves came in handy last night. now all these go to the bottom of the suitcase.

oh yes, we got fogged in at the airport on way to launceston and missed the first part of the tour but there in time for bed.

i've been looking at your schedule andrew and i'm sure you're trying to avoid me. you are never in the right place at the right time, but now that i have your description i'll keep looking for you just in case. as for me, look for a svelte petite canadian of japanese ancestry, 71 years of age but looking more like 60, with salt and pepper hair. if it's after 4:00 pm i'll be limping.

margo i will try to meet up wth you and now that you have my description you'll have no trouble finding me. we will be in sydney on the 19th pm, have the bridge climb that evening, blue mountin day trip and one day of sightseeing. we will be at the new menzies on carrington. can you let me know on this thread when you are available and what suits you or leave a message at the new menzies where wecan be reached on april 19-22 (leaving on 23). if evening suits you that would be good. name is: kobayashi, t. w.

as for st. bede's i love small information churches. in this one the priest had to do everything except the readings himself. he dressed himself, fetched the wine and cheese (i mean communion wafers) and so on. had assistance in giving out communion. i loved it!

ashwoods. i thought i mentioned previously. we went there and it resembled almost to the books available the same layout and ambience of our own used bookstores.

i'm so glad we only took the tour for four days because they keep you going all day long and with one night stops there is not time to see anything about where one is staying.

today had vegemite at breakfast. i understand it's an acquired taste but i won't be in australia long enough.

oh i'd love to join that walk with all those children! too bad.

all for now. michi.

I've noticed that Vegemite is something that either puzzles, disgusts or alarms North Americans and seems to rank up there with Vietnamese snake wine as a must-do.

At the same time it exerts an odd pull on certain travelling Australians who at home may have no particular attachment to the stuff but start yearning for it once they're somewhere it's not procurable.

Myself, I can take it or leave it, but I suspect the problem for those intrepid travellers brave enough to try Vegemite is that they simply use too much of it. The whole idea is to slather your toast with an artery-clogging amount of butter and then add some flavour with the thinnest of scrapes of Vegemite. So it's really an aid to butter consumption, Michi.

"as for st. bede's i love small information churches."

not sure how the word "information" got in there. we did like the church very much. went to st. david's in hobart (also a simple but nice little church) and missed out on the mass which was cancelled that evening. we sat alone in the church for a short time listening to the singer and pianist practise, a nice touch.

we're now in cairns after taking the 6:00 am flight from hobart. met with nice sunny weather and great breeze. time in pt. douglas and some day trips and back to sidney on the 19th. hotels in sidney, launceston, hobart great. not sure yet about the cairns colonial club but it looks okay.

i hope no one took the description of myself seriously. some was true but svelte - maybe 50 years ago. look forward to seeing margo if possible. can't get clive james book "unreliable memoirs" since it's out of print and the new one isn't out yet.

we have been watching our dvd player on the plane and running "shogun" which is five cds long.

for lunch we had the "sushi train" in cairns. i don't think we have one in toronto. internet very reasonable. this one is only $2.50 an hour.

margo

as you suggested, i'll get back to you via this site or if you leave a number at the menzies, where you can be reached that would work too.

bill is planning to go to canberra on a day trip probably the last day, but we won't need him (just joking).

Well - I met AD & Co, who are indeed charming and witty, although terrorised by JohnJ!
I do hope they haven't been carried off by rampaging kangaroos at Euroka Clearing.

Will call on Michi....

hello margo

it's monday and just arrived in sydney around 10 and waiting for hotel room at 12:30. we don't know our room number yet at the menzies but ask/leave message for KOBAYASHI, Mrs. A and Mr. T. (i'm addie and he's bill).

we have been able to settle our schedule at last:\

monday: bridge climb at dusk
tuesday: blue mountains (alan should be happy since it looks like a good day)

wednesday: bill taking off for canberra and i'll be on my own (leaves early and arrives back late). this would be a great day any time from 8:00 am on, if you are free.

thursday with have the zoo and a couple of there places but at our leisure and i feel we can arrange something in the afternoon/evening.

i look forward to meeting you marg. i am a little intimidated since you found AD charming and witty (darn you andrew), but i'll try to live up to his example the best i can.

ps. alan and neil. i finally found a clive james second hand book in cairns. can't remember the title but he says it's the second of his "unreliable memoirs." one bookstore had us confused by saying that the author's name was james clive. i put the book away and will laugh all the way home.

see ya!

Hi, Michi!

Glad to know that you're in Sydney and all is well. Enjoy your Mountains trip! But, hey... why is Bill going to Canberra without you? In spite of what someone said a couple of days ago on another post (about Canberra being "soul-less", which is a charge I don't agree with, although I can see why it's been made: everything in Canberra is around the same age, so you don't get that architectural mix of "old quarter" and "new areas" which give places like New Orleans -- and Sydney -- its "soul&quot, it's full of great things to see.

Alan, would you believe it, but I actually saw you and your group in Manly on your walk! I am not so active Fodor's writer but I posted a question about Easter time in Sydney and got some advise also from you.

Quite a chance that a person from Finland, who occasionally checks this site for travel information, runs accidentally into one of the Australian regulars. Without noticing it, of course.

I have to admit though that I was a bit annoyed because your group blocked the whole road and was not very eager to give way at the point where our paths crossed ;o) Well, maybe it was because you had already walked for a while, since I saw you walking towards Manly around the Forty baskets beach.

By the way, we had a great time in Australia (Darwin, Cairns + Sydney) and eventually even ended up going to the Royal Easter Show. Thanks again for the advice!

- Katja

Sorry, Katja, for our discourtesy.... we had fifty-three people on that walk, and I guess we did make a formidable group (I was the old guy at the head who (I am sure) DID give way!)

Glad that your enjoyed Sydney -- and I am sure you would have enjoyed the rest of that walk -- did you do the whole 11 kilometres?

Home again to rain, cold and wind and temps about 10C. Only some trees have buds; seems like a late spring again. But it's good to get home and the trip was quite painless due to a couple of good naps on the flights.

Thanks to Margo who met and treated me to dinner. A very unexpected and pleasant experience. Margo also drove me to many locations in the Sydney area and gave me a running commentary on the various sites, and views of Sydney Bridge. She didn't know St. Bede's but we passed it twice that evening so now she knows where to go if she wants an old church. Margo is a feisty person, and I enjoyed her company and thank her for taking time out to meet me.

Andrew David, have you discovered all the internet accesses in Cairns, some as low as $2.50 AU and hour.



Why didn't I go to Canberra? It was a long day trip from meeting at 8:00 am and arriving back around 10 pm. Bill was interested in the city and what it had to offer and enjoyed the trip. It was good respite for me because I was sure there would be a lot of walking and my legs were crying "give us a break." Besides, I couldn't have spent time with Margo.

I will write later about some of my observations/comments. My copy of this thread is now quite worn and marked.

And so to bed.

Michi
I'm glad you're home safely to Tronno (Tranna?) It was fun meeting you

m

Hi Addie,
At long last have caught up with this thread. It sounds like you had a great time in Australia and I'm pleased that you got to meet more 'Internet" friends.
Fodors is a great travel source, because of the people who post wonderful tips & information.
For all you regular posters, I'm Addie's 'penpal', from Canberra and I caught up with her when she & Bill first arrived in Sydney. I've been in Turkey for the past few weeks, so have been reading this thread to catch up on all the goss.
AD, like Neil, I'm disappointed that you aren't going to visit the heart of this country. Maybe next time??

Dear Friends in Australia (those seen and unseen)

I will post on another thread titled MICHI& AUSTRALIA April 2004 (by next week). I will try not to bore you with minute details, nor will I speak as an authority on your wonderful country, but will comment as a person who had a great visit and learning experience.

Thanks for this terrific thread and the information it contained.

In the course of my innumerable readings in preparing for our still long-distant trip, I spent many happy moments reading this thread and laughing and making notes. I feel bad that Andrew David never got an answer to his "Pig War" inquiry. This happens to be a subject that I am fascianted by.

The "Pig War" was actually between Britan and the US and wasn't really much of a war -- more of a stand-off. The islands are quite beautiful and possession of them was left unclear by the Oregon Treaty. At last that is the way we tell it, the Brits would no doubt claim that they had unambiguous title. When a pig owned by the Hudson's Bay Company wandered away onto the land of an American settler (squatter by the British view), he promptly shot and killed the pig. History does not appear to record if he ate it as well. When the Brits announced their intent to arrest the settler, the handful of pioneers requested and received military aid. This quickly led to a stand-off with five British warships with thousands of troops facing off against 400+ men with a few cannons. Both sides maintained a military presence for 12 years in an uneasy truce until the dispute was eventually presented to Kaiser Wilhelm who ruled in favor of the USA and the Brits finally left in 1872.

In the interesting footnote department, Henry Robert was the supervisor of the cannons for the Americans, who later went on to write Robert's Rules of Order.

As long as I am rambling, you might also check out www.pigwar.com about a semi-amusing attempt to bring a pig to the recreation of the events.