Wet and cool. Chris and I took a cruise up the Gordon River into the rainforest. It was misty and mountainous; reminded me of pictures of China's Three Gorges. Cruise was OK, but at 5 1/2 hours it was about 1 1/2 hours too long.

Strahan Village

The best part of the cruise was right at the beginning: when we went out of Macquarie Harbour into the ocean through the 60m gap called Devil's Gate. The tide was going out, and we glided out. into the Southern Ocean. Out in the Southern Ocean a couple of miles, a …

Breakfast at the Oatlands Lodge was quick, we then headed out on the road across the Central Highlands, following a route described in the big "Explore Australia by Four Wheel Drive", a big bible of a book we picked up somewhere in Sydney.

Nothing but a Telstra phone booth here.

Interlaken was our first stop; it looked like a town between two lakes and I had vague visions of a Swiss like village. Sorry, no. It was in high grazing country, with sparse eucalypts and fields, the village was no more than a few sheds and some battered weatherboard houses …

Driving day to Strathgordon

Fantastic hike at Mt Field

Hartz Mtn National Park and Tahune Airwalk

Hike to the south coast of Tasmania

Bright sunny day in Hobart. Went to the Saturday Salmanaca Market... a big open air market mercifully not hempen-clad and patchouli-soused. Old book sellers, farmers with end-of-summer produce, woodworkers, a ginger beer homebrewer (yum), small garden stuff, etc.

And bikeys!

Some of the zillions of seed packets I brought back were bought at this stall.

Salamanca Market, Hobart.

I bought seeds, which are just about the only thing I can bring back to the US, plant wise. Here's what I bought:

• Christmas Bells (Blandfordia punicea)
• Kangaroo Paw (red and green, Anigozanthos manglesii)
• leatherwood (Eucryphia lucida)
• black coral pea (Kennedia nigricans …

Going to New Caledonia for a week in late April.

Gotta leave the country (for visa reasons) every six months... this was the cheapest option, as all the good deals to Bali were all taken up since it's school holidays in New South Wales... and with our road trips to Cape York and the Kimberly, it'd be rough to do it in May or June.

We want to see Bali anyway; figure we'll do that in October from Perth. For some curious reason, it's cheaper to fly to Bali from Perth than it is from Sydney or anywhere else in …

A collection of stuff I've found interesting.

- People here tend not to clean their tables--even at places like McDonald's, only a few people will actually throw away their trash. Most folks just leave it on the table behind them.
- Recycling bins are few and far between--almost everything ends up in one bin.
- Restaurant service can be interesting--often you'll have one person take the order, some one else serve your food, and some one else ask you if you'd like another drink with your meal. Sometimes you pay the server, but most of the time you just walk to the cashier …

One surprising thing about Tasmania is the amount of roadkill. Traveling at a nominal 80kph/50mph, you pass one dead mammal about every 20 to 30 seconds on any of the highways here--anything from the size of a cat (possums, quolls, pademelons) up to dog sized (wombats) and big dog sized (wallabies). What makes it all the more interesting is that Tasmanian devils come out at night to scavenge the road kill. They're carnivore scavengers, and often four or six of them fight over the carcass at once, though you never see it since it's usually really lat at night …

Short hike around Waterfall Bay, Tasmania

Visiting Port Arthur, the most notorious open-air convict jail

A great 16km hike to Cape Raoul

A bit of rambling along the eastern coast of Tasmania

In Launceston, Tasmania. Finding that Tasmania is not just home to a Warner Brothers cartoon character.

Drove from Sydney to Melbourne with an overnight stop in Wangaratta, Victoria. It's about a nine hour drive straight through. Wangaratta was a nice, neat, country town, in a wine and ranching region near Milawa. There were very good restaurants there, but we ate at the doner kebab place.

Melbourne, on Friday, was a quick blow through--though we stopped at 'the biggest Kmart in the Southern Hemisphere' in Campbellfield on the north side of Melbourne. It was... well, big. Note to North Americans: Kmart …

Foxy

Yet another cloudy overcast day. In the twelve days we've spent in Sydney so far this month, we've had a day and a half of sun. This is not my idea of summer.

Went to the Bear Essentials Evening Lapse. Strangely enough... I got bored, and told Chris--"this is a great setting; there's free drinks and finger foods... but... I'm bored. This is the third night with this same group of people."

Maybe I should've drunk more (I had a single beer when I arrived). Maybe I should've just made more effort. Blech. Whatever. I just haven't been able …

Walking around central Sydney

Went shopping today. After a quick check of mail, the first stop was the Virgin store, for Chris' mobile phone.

Second was Gowing's. Oh, my, this is the store for guys. It's guy stuff, just stuffed with stuff. If guys could do department stores, this would be it. Clothing, and adventure books, and gadgets, and camping gear, and etc etc etc. It's like Men's Health magazine come to life (without the Chivas ads). "All the gear you need to raft down the Amazon in drip-dry style, and still enjoy a cuppa tea in the morn and a semi-fancypants dinner."

Then …

I wish Sydney weather would make up its mind about what season it is! Yesterday at 10am it was cloudy and drizzly, yet still 20C/68F. It cleared up in the afternoon for the pool party, though :-). Alan and Bill threw a great party, I enjoyed myself quite a bit just hanging out and chatting.

This morning, though, it was cloudy and grey. After a bit of dithering, we finally decided to get Mardi Gras tickets today, so we called the Mardi Gras folks, then hopped a train to their headquarters in Erskineville where a very woofy redbear named Ross …

The local dialect

Sydney leather is all about swapping potato recipes

The apartment we're renting for two weeks in Sydney is smack in the middle of restaurant central. For some curious reason, the block the hotel is on is full of Spanish restaurants. Tapas galore! And it's not just a few--it's every restaurant!

Around the corner on George Street is fast food central. McDonald's . KFC. Burger King. I'm amused that across the street from Burger King is a Hungry Jack's--which is Burger King with a different name. It looks like they're renaming the Hungry Jack's in Australia as they update the logo.

I went to Taco Bell for dinner, and am …

Basically Epcot

Around the high country south of Canberra