DOWN UNDER
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Tauck Tour SP # 15 got under way in mid-April. The Australian itinerary was two days and nights each in Melbourne, Sydney and Cairns. One of the highlights of Melbourne was the dinner on a tram, decorated like an old luxury railroad diner, as we slowly rolled about the beautiful city. To view any of the pictures full size, just click on them; return to this page by pressing your browser's BACK button.
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The first afternoon in Sydney involved a coach tour, a brief visit to the Performing Arts Center (Opera House), the memorable Sydney Harbor cruise and dinner at the waterfront. The next day brought a visit to Koala park with much petting of the animals, more coach touring and an inside tour of the Opera House.. Evening saw some of the group taking the Harbor Bridge walk while some others attended a ballet in one of the several Opera House theaters (there was an orchestral concert going on concurrently).
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Cairns, Tjapukai Aboriginal Cultural Park and the Great Barrier Reef were the final Australian visits before New Zealand. After seeing the sights of Auckland, we proceeded to a sheep show and Rotorua. At a Hangi (Luau) dinner in Rotorua, a great Maori chief (after describing to us how his people had been regaled for six weeks by the US Presidential election) ordained Ronald and Alan as honorary chieftrains of their respective tribes (tour groups).
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The Milford Sound experience, probably the trip highlight for most of the group, proved to be uncaptureable by photograph. Wide-angle trivializes the verticality and any other angle only gives a patch of mountainside or a disembodied peak. You have to BE there.... Queenstown, on the other hand was so photogenic it was almost impossible to take a bad picture. The jet boat, the helicopter tour, the luge-on-wheels, the para-sailing, the skyway gondola, the fishing, the boating and the lake and surrounding mountains provided great memories as well as pictures.
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