Visitors

If we take a jump in the wayback machine, and stop off before that trip to Tassie, way back when, Shannon and I had our first non-relative visitor. My colleague and friend Ashley made her way down to Australia for about 10 days. You'd think, working for an airline, that a lot of colleagues would drop in. But no.

Anyway.

We started with a weekend in Sydney, where we checked out a lot of the usual suspects.





My favorite part about the trip up was our jaunt out to Manly, where Ashley had, like a local, scoped out a loop to walk that took us out on one of the many heads and back into town. If you didn't know, we could have been anywhere, and not in the largest metro area in the country.




Sunday was fairly mellow, with some breakfast, a trip to the botanical gardens, and the biggest rookie mistake of my space available travel career.


All three of us managed to get cocky, and not check the loads on the Qantas flights we were trying to make, since they leave every half hour or so. This was a grave error, considering that we also neglected to factor in the start of school holiday in one state, and the end of it in another. Needless to say, we didn't make any flights, eventually gave up, got another hotel, and took the UA flight the following morning, which, was predictable, empty, and we sat in first class. Like you do.

Ashley works her ass off, and was content to have as much down time as busy tourist time, which makes for a super easy house guest. We spent time checking out different parts of the city, but never with any tremendous agenda.


There were museums, there were breweries, there were cafes, there were walking tours, there were beach trips, but rarely with a strictly fixed plan, which is actually really nice from a host's perspective, as well.


We did have a weekend to get out into rural Victoria and show off some of the regional sights. We spent a Saturday going around the Yarra valley with the three of us, as well we Melbourne colleague Robin, and her wonderful designated driver/husband Darryl. We stopped at a number of wineries, some better than others, as well as the Coldstream brewery (which was tragically, a little disappointing, but the wedges were good).

We spent a rainy, crappy Sunday as a party of three taking in the better parts of the Great Ocean Road, including

The Bay of Islands

The Grotto

London Bridge

Loch Ard Gorge

The Twelve Apostles

And an obligatory stop along the Cape Otway road, where one is nearly guaranteed to see koalas in the wild. We were fortunate that the rain didn't send them to warmer accommodation.

(Not a koala)

Return via the GOR and inland with mixed views in the rain.

And that was that. Ten days pass, and our house guest leaves. But always great to see a familiar face down here. And let that be a guilt trip for everyone who hasn't dropped by :)