G'Day from Down Under

I arrived in Sydney, Australia, three days ago, after having spent several days in Christchurch, New Zealand.

Christchurch is a beautiful city. It was designed to be an English-style city, with gardens and greenspace. Many of the homes have an English country feel to them. There is a river that runs through the city called The Avon River. Grass, weeping willows and other trees are planted along its banks. The autumn colors of the trees added to the beauty of the area.

After Queenstown and Franz Josef, Christchurch was rather low key. It isn't a very action oriented city. You can sky dive (did that already in Queenstown), hot air balloon, or simply walk around soaking in the beauty. I did the latter. There's also big culture aspect to Christchurch, so I spent time exploring museums and art galleries. And one afternoon I took a ride to Hamner Springs and soaked in the sulfur spa pools. The end of my stay in New Zealand was very relaxed.

Today is day number three in Australia. Sydney is a beautiful city: sky scrapers, lots of green space, and lots of beaches. In some ways it is similar to Auckland and Wellington, only more impressive. And expensive.

So far I've just spent time exploring different areas of the city: Darling Harbour, Bondi and Manley Beaches, the Sydney Tower, a couple of city parks whose names I can't recall. Wandering and meandering.

Yesterday I visited a few wineries in Hunter Valley. Hunter Valley, located a couple hours outside of Sydney, is famous for its wine, mostly Shiraz and port, although I was impressed by all the wine -- white and red -- that I sampled. I prefer Aussie wine to Kiwi wine. Kiwi wine just didn't do it for me. And kiwi wine is VERY expensive, atleast NZ$20, with the better wines costing NZ$34 or more. And to pay so much for wine I didn't care for... I started buying Aussie wine while in New Zealand because not only was it half the price, but also tasted better.

Tomorrow I will visit the Blue Mountains. That should be nice.

That's what's new with me.
Cheers,
Stacey