Happy Home in Sydney--Sydney Journal 3

On this Journey we saw Two Tasmania devils in Cradle Mountain National Park, went to a party in Melbourne and returned safely to our Happy Home in Sydney.

(PRWEB) August 24, 2005 -- The Devil with Tasmania. Sorry to be so trite, but our sojourn to western Tasmania was not the greatest, to be honest. Dave and I had been to the eastern side of the Island State in 1997 (we think). We had adored Hobart, the capital, but had not been able to get to Strahan, in the west or to Cradle Mountain, the national park in the center.

We flew to Hobart and rented a car for what we thought would be a straightforward drive to Strahan on the west coast. You got it, after the first hour there was the scariest, winding, narrow road we can remember, making Independence Pass look like a piece of cake. After 5 hours, we reached Queenstown and flopped into a take-away place for a cup of tea. The lady there said: "no worries, mate" (she really said this), the rest of the way is not bad at all. Well, that was true and we completed the journey in 6 hours.

I wish I could tell you that the trip was worth the trouble. Strahan is a pretty little town on the Gordon River. The big thing here is to take a Gordon River Cruise on a 200 passenger yacht designed for inland cruising. It was quite pleasant with coffee and lunch served and wonderful, comfortable reclining seats. During the 5 1/2 hour trip, there were 2 real points of interest, one being the harbor entrance. The latter has an unbelievably narrow opening for commercial ships to pass through. These vessels come in to pick up the copper mined in the aforementioned Queenstown. We disembarked at Sarah Island for an hour. This was a convict island where the prisoners sent out from England built boats from the native wood.

After 2 nights in Strahan, we drove on to Cradle Mountain National Park. This is a World Heritage Site and a lovely spot. The highlight was an after dark "Spotlight Tour". We saw 2 Tasmanian Devils! This is a big deal as most people think that these little, nocturnal animals are extinct or existed only in fairy tales. We also spotted 2 kinds of wallabies (small kangaroos), wombats and quolls. These are little marsupials that run like cats.

MELBOURNE: We arrived in Melbourne on March 6th and met up with Danny. He had been in New Zealand and came to meet us for the Schreiber-Baytch family do! We stayed at Fountain Terrace, the B and B where the owners, Penny and Heikke have treated me and my clients like family. They had agreed that we could have our get-together there, which was great. That day, we walked a few miles and bought general admission tickets to the Melbourne Grand Prix Formula I car race. Ohmygod, they go so fast, that it is a blurr altogether! It was understandable why everyone was wearing earplugs!

That night we went to Vivinne and Martin Baytch's home for dinner. This couple is our generation though about 10 years younger. It is always great to be invited home and this was no exception. Martin is the only one in the family to still have the name of Baytch and since he has 2 daughters, I guess that he will be the last!

THE PARTY: Cast of characters: Dave's 3rd and 4th cousins from his Dad's side. The original emigrants came from Scotland in about 1950. Of course, they were from Russia, way back when Dave's grandparents came to the U.S. The only surviving member of Dad's generation is Betty, who is a very sprightly 87 years old. The rest of the 30 odd guests were our generation, their children and grandchildren. I remember Dave's Mother saying that when she and Dad came to Australia to meet the misspoke that she felt like family and as though she had known them all her life. That is how we feel too. We saw everyone 2 1/2 years ago, so the preliminaries could be dispensed with. We had a delightful 3-4 hours together. We don't doubt that we will see some of the 30 and 40 somethings in the U.S. at some point. Also, we do expect that Vivinne and Martin Baytch will show up as they do a lot of traveling.

The other activity of note in Melbourne was that Dan and I went on a balloon flight over the city. This company wants to sell their services to my main wholesaler for Australia, so my guy here in Sydney asked me to do this as a favor, gratis, to give my opinion of this activity!! Neither Dave nor Dan wanted to get up at 5:30am but David, the elder, decreed that Daniel, the younger should accompany "the Mother". All of the other people on the trip were Aussies, so we presume this is something locals do for special occasions. Dan and I thought that it was fun but not too interesting. We are advising that tourists do this company's trip over the Yarra Wine Valley instead. Of course, I disgraced myself in front of "the son" by needing mega help with the hand and foot holds to get into the basket and out of the basket! It was all pretty mellow though we could have done without our basket-mate commenting on descent about the massive power lines we were just passing over!

We are back at our home base in Sydney. As you all know from my first missive, I never thought I would be happy to be "home" in this house. However, I am happy to be home in Sydney and back in our now familiar neighborhood. Last night, as we sat on our porch overlooking the Middle Harbour view, Dave commented: "it doesn't get any better than this" and this is true! I am going to take a shot at attaching a photo of the view for you to see for yourselves.

Yesterday, we had lunch in the city with Phyllis and David Leibson. They are from Louisville, KY and are friends of old clients of mine. David is semi-retired as a professor of law at the University of Louisville. They became acquainted with Sydney when he taught at the University here for a semester about 5 years ago. For the last 3 years, they have taken an apartment in Sydney for 3 months every winter. They are a treasure trove of information on local activities and are the ones who put us on to the ferry walkabouts.

Today is Saturday (Friday, March 11th to you) and we went to Balmoral Beach for our daily walk. There was a weekend long Scout Jamboree going on. Here, it seems, Girl Scouts and Boy Scouts belong to the same groups and are all "mates". They had all pitched tents in the middle of the oval and the Mums and Dads were yelling at the kids just like at home. It reminded me of the time that Maxine Horn, Joanne Rieland and I took the Girl Scout troop for an overnight to South Park! Here they must do badges in sailing, wind surfing and kayaking as all of these things were going on. It was a scene right out of the movies that I wish you all could have shared.

Dave has gone to play golf, thus giving me time to write my epistle! He couldn't remember the name of the course, so couldn't "book in" for a starting time. He just called to say that he can go off at 1pm, so will have to eat himself silly for a few hours. A man that Dave was paired with at Royal New South Wales a few weeks ago has called to ask him to play in about 10 days. He is thrilled as he really liked this guy.

We are glad to know that the whole world is enjoying our house in Aspen! We knew that the lady we met here had gone. The other day, a gentleman called to thank us for our hospitality and we were like derrrr! Just another lucky skiing friend of the Spencer's who had popped over to America to ski! Also, I learned from my next door Aspen neighbor, that friends of our guests from New York had also been there. So, it seems that the trade has been a huge success from both ends. My brother Eddie, from Mobile, arrives tomorrow morning from Hong Kong. He is on an around-the-world business trip and has included us in his stops. We are excited about this.

I am sorry, but nothing hilarious has happened lately!! Just the news, so I hope you enjoyed. We both send our love, Alece

Journal Part 1: http://www.prweb.com/releases/2005/6/prweb252298.php

Journal Part 2: http://www.prweb.com/releases/2005/7/prweb267363.php

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