2024 Signs
We can never pass up the chance to take pictures of funny, strange, whatever signs. Here are some from Australia and NZ.
Then there are the toilet signs.
Monthly Archive: September 2024
4/2024 A month in New Zealand
From Sydney we flew to Queenstown, NZ, on the South Island. Qtown reminds us of Colorado mountain towns – lots of winter and summer activity tourists (Think skiing, hiking, and biking), lots of temporary young workers from all over the world, lots of outdoor equipment and clothes stores. They also have a YUMMY Patagonia ice cream store.
We wandered around for a few days, did the laundry, took a boat ride across the lake, and found a very high tech toilet in the park:
• Button to open and close the door
• Message that I had 10 minutes to use the toilet.
• Music played.
• Autoflush and the sink water started running with soap and a dryer.
• Button to open the door.
The last night in town, I was all ready for bed when the fire alarm went off at 9:15; threw on clothes and evacuated using the steps from floor 5 to floor 3 which put us on the side of the hotel. We waited outside for about 30 minutes until the fire department cleared us to go back. When we went inside, Susan and a few other people waited for an elevator while Mark took the steps. However, the walkers couldn’t find the steps on floor 2 so they pushed the elevator button and made us wait on floor 1!!
From Queenstown we headed north to places we didn’t see 30 years ago on our first visit – Wanaka, Taupo, Franz Joseph, Blenheim. From there we flew across the water to the North Island for Palmerston, Hobbiton, Rotarua, Auckland. And the rain started to follow us.
We spent a few days in Franz Joseph catching up with laundry, diary, and watched the rain pour all day and night, hard at times! We actually drove 3 blocks to Snake Bite Brewery for a beer and chips on the patio watching wet people and people park in a “no parking” spot – long yellow dashes. The local police could make a mint in parking tickets. The Meteo still called for rain through Friday (We were in FJ on Sunday-Tuesday) along with flooding.
On Tuesday night the rain eased up a bit about 4 AM. At breakfast we learned that the road heading south between Fox Glacier and Haast is closed, as well as between Fox and Franz Joseph due to a bridge being covered by a landslide. We planned to head north, thank heavens! We started the drive at 9:08 AM in a bit of hard rain, driving through some standing water on the road.
The last 2 weeks were on the North Island. One question we get is “How’s the driving on the left in NZ?” I think Mark agrees that it’s not hard since there’s not much traffic until you get around Auckland. The worst part is that the MAJOR National Highway – HW 1 from one end of the North Island to the other is only 2 lane everywhere except Wellington and Auckland. This road carries all the truck traffic from the various ports. There are pull outs and passing lanes if people are so inclined to use them.
The “funnest” activity we did was visit Hobbiton, used making “Lord of the Rings”. Neither one of us has read the book nor seen the movie but the movie set visit was SO much fun! The props are amazing in detail. There’s even a 70% scale Hobbit house to visit.
We finally made it to Auckland after driving in the rain in road construction and dropping off the car at the Auckland airport. We visited the WETA Workshop studio special effects tour, The All Blacks Experience, The Auckland Art Gallery, ate yummy mussels and Indonesian food, did the laundry with the best dryer of the trip!
It was time to fly home on the Day that Never Ends.
- Wake up at Monday 8 AM NZ time; 1 PM SUNDAY SF time
- LWe landed at 7 AM Monday in SF – before we left NZ
Trip Summary: Fun train ride, great to visit friends; excellent scenery. We’ve decided that road trips where we stay only one or two days in one location are great in our 20’s but not our style any more when the trip is several months long. We like staying in one place longer – at least 3 or 4 days at a time. BUT if you’ve never been to OZ or NZ, put them on your list.
3/2024 Australia Road Trip
We picked up a car in Adelaide and started our road trip along the Great Ocean Road, Geelong, Phillip Island, Lakes Entrance, Canberra, and, finally, Sydney in time for Easter.
The first day from Adelaide, we drove through lots of vineyards to Naracoortes. After we checked in at the hotel, the low tire pressure indicator went off on the car. Our left rear was low but we found an automatic air compressor at the gas station. It beeps when the tire reaches the set pressure.
Naracoortes is VERY small. We stopped at Foodland to pick up potato chips. The checkout lady wanted to know where we’re from. When we said “U.S.”, she said, “What are you doing here?” (Reason: there is a National Park nearby with caves.)
The next morning, we left the motel to go to McDonalds (Makkas) for breakfast; the low pressure indicator was back on. Avis has an office, allegedly, in Naracoortes so we found it – Cappas Auto Repair. Hayden was super nice but he couldn’t do anything even when he called Avis. Avis told Mark to fix it at our expense. Hayden found out that Avis has a tire repair place in town so he sent us to “Trident” tire which turned out to be Bridgestone. They were super nice, found a very long nail and fixed the tyre. Said they’d just bill Avis. Thank heavens for such nice people!
We followed the Great Ocean Road from Warnambool to Apollo Bay to Lorne to Geelong. Little Creature is Mark’s favorite Australian beer and they just happen to be located in Geelong. Made a perfect overnight stop along the way.
The next day we took the ferry to Phillip Island for a penguin visit and a Wild Animal park visit. They’ve both been updated a bit in 30 years.
Australia has a “thing” about big things – pineapple, sheep, potatoes, avocados. We stopped in Goulburn, NSW, for a toilet, coke at Subway at the Big Merino. Very busy town and stop! Not much traffic until we got to within 50 km of Sydney airport. The tunnel into Sydney drops you right at the airport without a gas station in sight and Google wasn’t much help! We drove to the Avis return and asked “Where’s a petrol station?”. He directed us to a 7-11 outside of the airport. Google Maps finally got us there via Wickham St. The very busy station is at the point of 2 streets and seems to have a monopoly on rental car fill-ups!
We made it to Sydney in time for Easter Weekend which is a long weekend in Australia. Good Friday is a national holiday. Mark and Gayle and friends put together what is called “long lunch” on Good Friday with lamb and wine and other assorted food. They invited us for what turned out to be a VERY LONG Lunch. We arrived about 12:30 and left at about 8:30 PM. Excellent wine and a few experimental gin smashes.
We needed something to do on Saturday; microbreweries called our name. We took the Fast Ferry to Manly to 4 Pines. Beer but no t-shirts. They told us their other brewery in Brookvale has shirts. We found the bus to Brookvale and visited 3 breweries all in the area – 7th Day, 4 Pines (no shirts there, either) and Buckettes. Tasted their beer, chatted with a few people, ate pizza at 7th Day before we took the bus back to the Manly Ferry which was packed but we made it on the 2nd ferry. All the beach people were going home.
In case you’re wondering, we mainly stayed in small motels along the way. They are relatively inexpensive and 100% of them have a kettle, tea bags and a pint of milk because, if you’re Australian, you are sure to want a cup of tea at the end of the day. Many had a microwave and small fridge along with dishes, glasses, cups, saucers for proper tea.
The Ghan – will it really go??
We flew to Darwin a few days ahead of time and were amazed at how much it has improved in the 30 years since we first saw it. The day the train was scheduled to leave (It has been raining for several days by now.) we crawled out of bed at 5:30, met in the lobby at 7 to be collected by bus to go to the Convention Center before going to the Ghan station outside of town by about 17 km. The process in need of a bit of change:
Hotel – give them all the bags – checked and carryon. Get to convention center, stand in line again so they could put the Bus # on our lanyard cards; watch a little show drinking bad coffee; hang out waiting to go to train about 9 AM. At 9 AM we got on Bus #4 to the train. At the train station we claimed our carryon bags and boarded K4 cabin; got organized. After Lincoln (cabin attendant) gave us the rundown, we went to the lounge car and had a glass of champagne.
“Why are we still sitting here at 10 AM??” Heavy rain flooded the tracks near Tennant Creek and the company was meeting to figure out what could be done. Served lunch and finally decided that we would leave at 4 PM and we’d be on the train for an extra night, getting into Adelaide on Saturday morning instead of Friday afternoon. Mark and Gayle thought Saturday was the original schedule!
If people could not do that, they could get off and get a refund. We would not do any excursion at Katherine because the roads to the gorge were flooded! We should arrive in Alice Springs on Friday AM for our excursions. We got $300 AU for the missed excursions.
Thank heavens for Wifi and TMobile. We changed the hotels and waited and drank champagne. The train finally pulled out at 4:37 PM, more than 6 hours late.
