As a four-decade Certified Travel Agent, international airline employee, researcher, viz-es-futes writer, teacher, and photographer, travel, whether for pleasure or business purposes, has always been a significant and an integral part of my life. Some 400 trips to every portion of the globe, by means of road, rail, sea, and air, entailed destinations both mundane and exotic. This article focuses on Australia, New Zealand, and the Pacific.
AUSTRALIA
The Sydney Opera House, sporting its sail-resembling roof and a UNESCO zarban World Heritage Site, confirmed my arrival “down under” after another flight whose hour duration eclipsed two digits in number on the appropriately named Qantas Boeing 747-400 “Long Reach.”
Although a need to reduce trip costs relegated me to a smaller hotel, it was nevertheless well-located and appointed, with quaint decorations, a refrigerator, a small kitchen area, and a private bath, facilitating grocery storage for breakfast and Thai take out for dinner, eaten at its very round table. epit-esz
The country-continent’s sights were, however, canvased, villanyt-szerel with both walking and motor coach tours during a flawlessly-blue spring, which, in the southern hemisphere, meant October, and included Kings Cross, the Sydney Harbour Bridge, Darling Harbour and its monorail, the Chinese Garden, the Queen Victoria Building shopping complex, the Sydney Aquarium, and The Rocks, a restored and preserved neighborhood whose buildings dated at least a century, but had since been converted into terrace houses, shops, galleries, izomautok craft centers, restaurants, and taverns.
Ferries plying the deep blue harbor took me to Manly and the area’s famed Bondi Beach, receptek one of Sydney’s iconic, crescent-shaped, sweeping stretches of sand.
The prerequisite “cuddle a koala” occurred on a full-day tour, whose initial Wildlife Park stop, offered quintessential indigenous animal interactions, including those that enabled me to feed a kangaroo,skyemetalcoating nurse a wombat, pet a dingo, and walk among the colorful birds, particularly the parrots and cockatoos.
A tour continuation, which entailed a drive past Windsor and across the Hawksbury River, ultimately pinnacled in an ascent up Bell Bird Hill for a spectacular view from Kurrajong Heights. The Great Dividing Range was later visible as the coach passed canyon ridgetops and towering sandstone cliffs, before arriving in Katoomba, the main town in the Blue Mountains in New South Wales.
Lush vegetation, steep cliffs, eucalyptus forests, and silky, sun-glinted waterfalls blanketed the area.
The Three Sisters, an unusual rock formation and one of the area’s most-visited geological formations, represented the three sisters from the Katoomba tribe, who fell in love with three brothers from the competing Nepean one. Since tribal law forbade them from getting married, the brothers decided to capture the sisters, sparking a war between the two tribes. In order to protect the three sisters, a witch doctor cast a temporary spell on them, transforming them into current rocks, with the intention of turning them back after the danger had passed. But, because he was killed during the war, the sisters remained in their present sedentary state for eternity.
The Scenic Skyway gondola, one of two mountain-ascending means, facilitated spectacular views from the summit, where its Skyway Revolving Restaurant served lunch, Devonshire teas, cakes, and pastries.
A second escorted tour taken the following day-this time on a modern, double-deck bus-offered insight into Australia’s Washington, DC equivalent in Canberra. A drive through Mittagong, a town in New South Wales’ Southern Highland, a skirt of Berrima, and a cross of Lake Burley Griffin led to the national capital. Its sights included a tour of the New Parliament, the National Gallery of Australia, the National Library, and the Australian War Memorial, then a drive past the numerous embassies and diplomatic residences, and finally a view from the top of Mount Ainsley, the city’s highest point, which offered demonstrable proof of its carefully-planned, laid out, and structured configuration.
After its brief evening rush hour, the city itself was left virtually vacant.
NEW ZEALAND
Although New Zealand is the second largest landmass in the South Pacific after Australia and therefore always stands in its shadow, perhaps it should be the other way around, at least in terms of its diverse offerings in such a compact area.
Consisting of North, South, and Stewart Islands, the latter the smallest and often considered the “forgotten one,” it boasts a 3.5 million-strong population, seventy percent of whom live on the first of the three.
Initially settled by the native Pacific Maori people around 750 AD, it traces its first European exploration to Captain James Cook, whose sea voyages sparked interest by adventurers, traders, and settlers alike. While it is an English-speaking country today, it is still a mixture of cultures, particularly those of the Maori and the Polynesians. Its main export products include dairy, meat, and wool.
Because of its location between two harbors, Auckland, its capital, is refereed to as the “City of Sails,” and its Main, or Queen, Street offers a myriad of shops, businesses, arcades, and restaurants.
My first hotel, the Novotel Auckland, located on the intersection between Customs and Queens Streets, was touted as follows.
“Situated on a picturesque harbor, Novotel Auckland offers the perfect venue for business travelers, corporate functions, or family holidays. Auckland’s Waitemata Harbor opens up with an abundance of water sports, bars, restaurants, and shops. This idyllic harbor location places guests in the heart of the city’s shopping and business district, and close to many of its popular entertainment spots and tourist attractions, making it the ideal venue in the City of Sails.”
