Travel log of Eli and Anna Bendersky

Hi all,

As in the previous post, a summary for the anxious:
We snorkeled in Cairns, flew to Adelaide, met Igor, had a roadtrip to Melbourne, spent time there, and then had a road trip to Sydney, so here we are. Photos below

On our last day in Cairns we went sailing on a yacht, for snorkeling in the great barrier reef. The yacht had about 20 people, and three crew members. We sailed in the ocean, and saw dolphins jumping around us. The fish are beautiful (though the corals themselves are prettier in Eilat) and even reached a “green island” - one of the many islands in the great barrier reef. This was a great experience

On December 21st we flew from Cairns to Adelaide. This flight took almost the whole day as we flew through Sydney. At least we had the opportunity to land in Sydney which is an interesting experience. Until the very last second it seems as if the airplane is going to land inside the ocean, and then after the airplane finally lands, it crosses a runway which is located on a bridge above a busy highway.

We reached Adelaide in the evening, where we met Igor who flew in from Melbourne. Igor is our friend who lives in Australia. We have been travelling with him since.
Adelaide is a million-residents city, which (surprisingly) does not have much to offer to the average tourist. It seems as a nice place to live, though. We travelled in the Barossa valley, which is a valley full of orchards and wineries. In the evening we visited Dave Austin (Eli’s friend) in his house, and met his family. It was a wonderful experience to see how “real australians” live. Although, it seems that the Austin family is probably much nicer than the average Australian .

After visiting Adelaide, we drove a two-day drive to Melbourne. There is a drought in Australia now, so most of the way was filled with yellow grass. Ironically, starting with Adelaide (and only until we reached Sydney today) it did not stop raining. Australians are very happy about it, but we aren’t. It is cold, windy, and not fun to be outside.

On our way to Melbourne we saw the big lobster, and the “12 Apostles” on the great ocean road (most of which we did not drive eventually because of the weather )

We stayed with the Vainshteins (Igor’s family) the time we spent in Melbourne. Melbourne left a positive impression on us. It is a fun city, with a busy city centre, and quiet living neighborhoods around. We got a chance to see the city from driving and walking in it, and also from a 55-store-height view from the Realto tower. We also visited Phillip Island and saw the “Penguin parade” - a colony of tiny penguins (the size of a pigeon). The “Parade” is seeing the penguins coming out from the water at dusk and heading in steady rows towards their burrows on the beach. Unfortonately we don’t have photos from there since it wasn’t allowed, but we bought a postcard.

We left Melbourne on the 28th, heading together with Igor and his girlfriend Mandi for Sydney on the coastal road, a road trip that took us 3 days (1300 km). Here are the four of us at Lakes Entrance, a vacation town a few hours from Melbourne, right in the middle of the Ninety Mile Beach. For the first time we saw Australian animals “in the wild” - two wallabies along the road !

Since it is now a very busy holiday time in Australia, it was very difficult to find places to stay along the way. On the second night it took about two hours from the moment we decided it’s come time to stop to when we eventually found a place. And that success came as a result of a tip from a lady that worked in a petrol station, which got us the last two rooms in a motel, at an absurdly inflated price. Australia generally is quite expensive, more expensive than Israel, and unless one carefully plans his expenses, it’s very easy to quickly go bankrupt

Here is a map of our trip so far:

And here is a proof that we indeed reached Sydney

Sydney is very nice so far, and the weather is good. It is completely packed with people, awaiting the forecoming celebration of the New Year 2007 tomorrow.

Happy new year to you all!

Hi All,

For the impatient (you know who you are): We were in Hong Kong. It was fun. Now we’re in Cairns, Australia. It is hot and fun. There are photos below. See you later.

And now to the long story

Our El-Al flight took us to Hong Kong landing on Thursday, at about 15:00 local time. We catched a train to downtown where our hotel was located. The train, on its way from the airport to Hong Kong Island (the main area of Hong Kong) passes through two islands and the mainland, at times running on suspension bridges and at times in tunnels underneath the sea. The route is very beautiful, and takes 24 minutes (according to the super-punctual Hongkongians who count everything up to the minute).

Our hotel was pretty nice. Although the room was on the 13th floor, the most views we had were of the buildings across the street. 13 floors is tiny in Hong Kong terms - even the residential buildings are on average 30+ floors high there. All in all, Hong Kong looks the most advanced place we’ve ever seen - the downtown, in particular, is all scyscrapers, traffic on 3 levels (with a subway below) and even pedestrians move mostly on “sky walks” which are elevated bridges above the roads and enter and exit the buildings. It is also one big shopping mall, the various stores running endlessly in all directions. It is interesting that with all this high technology around, Hong Kong construction teams are using bamboo for the scaffolds.

In the evening we took the “Peak tram” to ascend a high hill in the southern part of the island, from which there are stunning views of Hong Kong at night:

Next day we spent half a day walking around the other side of the harbour - the mainland (Kowloon peninsula) and then came back to the central train station. There, we checked into the flight, got our plane boarding passes (at the train station !) and took a train to the airport.

Our flight to Cairns stopped for an hour in Brisbane, and finally reached Cairns on the 16th at 14:00. Cairns is a tropical leisure town (somewhat similar to Eilat) on the north-eastern tip of Australia. It is located near the upper part of the Great Barrier Reef (the largest coral reef in the world):

The weather here is very hot and humid, just like Haifa in the summer. We live in a backpackers hostel near the city center. The ocean is beautiful, but people don’t swim here - there are no beaches at all ! That is because the water near the beach is filled with venomous jellyfishes and sometimes sharks. When one must go into the water for some reason, he wears a “stinger suit” - a thin metalic net. We have booked a snorkeling tour to the reef tomorrow, so we’ll see

Yesterday we rented a car and went to a short road trip around Cairns. The area here is a real tropical jungle and the roads cut through the forest and the hills offer stunning views. The car was a tiny Daihatsu Charade with manual transmission, which proved to be not too bad. In fact, the left-hand manual transmission is much easier to master than driving on the wrong side of the road.

It was a very nice day, and the highlight was Kuranda - a small village on the banks of the Barron river a little west of Cairns. We trekked for a couple of hours around the village (jungle walk) and visited the Kuranda wildlife zoo, where we fed Kangaroos and Wallabies (basically smaller Kangaroos) and (for an extra fee) we got to hold a Koala bear.

Today we’re going to spend a quiet day at the hostel and rest, and tomorrow we’re going for a full day trip, boarding a catamaran to the reef and nearby islands to snorkel and bask in the sun. On Thursday we have a flight to Adelaide.

That’s it for now - see you later. There are more photos at the photo album.