Australia, here we come (again)

After a great time in New Caledonia, where we saw so much in so little time, we couldn't slow down, and after a short flight back to Sydney, we picked up our rental car from the airport and started to drive toward Canberra.

Now just a short pause to explain that rental was not our original plan. We planed our trip in Australia around car relocations, the principal of which is to send back the car to its original port. For very cheap, like 5 dollars a day. Well, during Australian holidays it doesn't work much: Most of the relocations are actually rented back due to the high demand. So it appears that most of our trip in Australia will be through car rental. It's a bit heavy on our budget, but we have no choice. Buses are more expensive than car rental, and much less convenient.

As you know, Australians drive on the left side of the road. So that was our new experience of the day and we're used to it now. We ordered a manual car since it's cheaper in Australia but Talia is not used to it much and she was still in the learning process (see previous post). So Rony was suppose to drive till Talia would get used to manual shift.

We arrived at the car and after Rony entered the car, said, "Talia, what kind of car did you order? Manual or automatic?"
"Manual, of course. It's cheaper"
"Well we got automatic."

First good news of the day! Talia will be able to drive after all. But she wasn't psychologically ready for it yet, so Rony took the first shift to Canberra.

Driving on the left side is not that hard after all. First because we had to do it in Thailand on our motorbikes. And also, Australia's road signs are very clear: "Wrong way! Go back!" signs are displayed in the right side of every intersection on the highway, and "keep left" signs are displayed each time you wonder where you should drive. Plus signs to the cities on the highway so you won't get lost. It was a big change from New Caledonia where you can drive for hours and see no signs.

Anyway, we got to meet our first couch surfing host, Frank, in Canberra. It was quite an excitement, because we didn't know what to expect and we didn't really know how to behave.

Frank is a very nice guy, very friendly and helpful. First he met us at the information center of Canberra, because it was an easy place to find, and we followed him all the way to his home. He also drew us a map with the directions to his home so if we lost him on the road we could always find it.
After that he prepared dinner for us: a barbecue of the finest Australian meat: Lamb, chicken, and kangaroo meat! It was our first time and it tasted good. The taste is different of any meat we have eaten so far.

Frank's barbeque with kangaroo meat and other stuff

We were quite exhausted from our day (we woke up at 5:00 to catch our flight to Sydney) but we couldn't go to sleep because Frank was so interesting to talk to. He told us stories about Canberra, Australian history, and we talked about IT too, since he's in the field and we are as well. At some point we were too exhausted to continue and had to sleep.

We discovered that one day in Canberra was certainly not enough: There is so much to see in this town that you need at least 3 days. And one more day to go the the Natural Parks around. But we had only one day so we decided to start early and see as much as we could.

We started with Capital Hill and the buildings around: The Old Parliament, New Parliament, the gardens. We passed by the High Court of Justice building, National Gallery and National Library. The weather was rainy and cloudy, so we didn't want to spend much time outside and decided to focus on the big things.

The next big thing was the War Memorial Museum. One of the best museums we ever saw. We had only 2 and a half hours to visit it, but we could spend the day there without a problem. So interesting and full of details and interactive features. There was a light and sound show made by Peter Jackson on the WWII section, the presentation of each event was so realistic and made us feel as we were living it. The rest of the exposition was just as interesting: Real planes and submarines from the different wars, historic footage, short movies explaining each turning point of each war, amazing displays of battle fields. As Talia said, "Every history lesson should be like this museum and it would be much more popular among teenagers. Not to mention I would know some history!"

Memorial War Maquette

Memorial war airplane

But time was running short and we had to head to our next destination, Albury. Why Albury? Because it's a good place to stop between Sydney and Melbourne. After a 4-hour drive by Talia, who felt confident to drive on the left side, we made it to this small town. Albury is a very pastoral and lively town.

At first we didn't hear anything from our host all day, which was a bit scary, but she finally met us in town and we drove to her place. Shannen invited us in her house where she lives with her boyfriend Tim and another roommate. After a small dinner, we discussed about our plans for our trip and she gave us a few tips on what to see on the road to Melbourne.

Tim, her boyfriend, told us that he has visited Japan twice, and twice in the winter, which is exactly the time we will be there. So we had a lot of questions to ask him, especially about what is possible to see in the winter. And apparently you can see a lot! And his trip was a lot like the one we plan to do so it was great to meet someone who has done it and is interested in the same things. Plus they have the most amazing vegetable garden!

So again, we went to sleep very late, but we were lucky to have met such interesting people in 2 days and hoped it would stay that way. We were 2 for 2.

Shannon and Tim

We started our way to the final stop before Melbourne: Ballarat. In the previous 2 days, it had rained a lot in Australia and the previous week some parts of New South Wales were overflowed. So it was hard to drive with all this rain and sometimes heavy rains. So heavy that sometimes we couldn't see the road ahead.

The Ballarat area is where the gold mining rush occurred around 1850. So a lot of towns around this area look like a western movie, and Bendigo, one of our stops on the way to Ballarat, was no exception. We had the feeling were in some American town and Talia had a feeling she was back in Texas.

So once we got to Ballarat, 2 hours late because we missed the turn and got almost to Melbourne, we finally met our next host: Mark and Adrienn. A nice and young couple who lived in Melbourne before moving to Ballarat. Once again, it was hard to say good night to them too. They were so nice and so welcoming. They have a great Christmas tree in the bedroom we stayed in and stockings hanging on the fire place so we really felt the Christmas spirit around us :)

Chrismas tree in our room!

They had a cat which just gave birth to 3 kittens and it's probably the smallest kittens we ever saw: They were so small they looked like rats. But so cute!

So cute!

There are a few things to see in Ballarat, usually related to the gold mining. So we decided to see Sovereign Hill, a theme park on the gold rush period of Ballarat. The park is reviving the 1850s period of the gold rush and actually has interesting attractions and activities for children and adults as well. Australia has a good way to make history interesting and alive. You can really learn and have fun!

Sovereign Hill

We learned how to separate gold from mercury, we saw the discovery of the second biggest gold rock by going down into the mine itself and live the moment with the miners themselves. We saw the condition of the Chinese workers and learned how to prepare sweet candies. It's hard to explain everything but it was just amazing.

We also visited the Gold Museum, which is much smaller, but has some nice displays too.
Now we were ready to get to Melbourne and see the big city.

Pics from the Canberra, Albury and Ballarat: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=581142&id=906005363&l=c2492beb84