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SINGAPORE, NEW ZEALAND AND AUSTRALIA 2003

The Holiday began with a trip to Singapore

Hotel on Sentosa Island

Our hotel was by a beach on Sentosa Island, just a short cable car journey from Singapore Island.

Ships at AnchorCable car

From the hotel balcony we could see big ships at anchor and a view of the distant oil refineries (Left) Di didn't like the Cable car ride (right)

DownpourNo Durians !

Sheltering in a beachside cafe from a tropical downpour (left), sign on the Metro (right). Durians are a very smelly fruit!

SYDNEY CITY, AUSTRALIA

After 5 days in Singapore we had an overnight flight to Sydney, Australia (the first visit for all of us). The first day Steve had to visit Homebush, the site of the Sydney 2000 Olympics

sydney from homebush

The City of Sydney from Homebush, about 10 miles away. The Harbour bridge is on the left and Sydney Tower on the right.

homebush roof

Behind these solar panels can be seen the Telstra Stadium the site of England's dramatic extra time 20-17 win in the 2003 Rugby World Cup Final.

darling harbour harbour bridge

Darling Harbour from the Sydney Tower (left),Sydney Harbour Bridge and a Solar powered boat "Solar Sailor" (right)

bridge climbing us on the bridge climb

We climbed over the Harbour bridge (that's us waving) and at the top they take a picture that makes it look as if you are standing in front of a painting ...

bridge at night

Sydney looks very pretty at night - Sydney Harbour Bridge(above) and

circular quay at night

Circular Quay from the Opera House (luckily I took my tripod)

The Opera House from the Manly ferry (left)

AROUND SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA

near sydney

Beautiful houses half way down a cliff (right) in a bay above Sydney. The paths were so steep they all had stair lifts.

steph on a cliff rock formations

Steff went climbing and found these rock formations.

at the blue mountains panorama of the blue mountains

FOX GLACIER, NZ

Christchurch New Zealand is a x hr flight from Sydney. After driving to the West Coast, staying the night in Greymouth, we went to Fox Glacier.

flying up the glacier at the glacier top

We flew up to the top of Fox Glacier in a helicopter and had a few minutes at the top

steph at the topice peaks mount cook

The views were stunning around Mount Cook. Next day we went for a 4 1/2 hour walk on Fox Glacier

hiking to the glacier cutting steps in the icein the ice hole

The Maori guide had to cut steps in the ice for us to walk on. The line of people in the background were on the 8 hour walk (left). We found an ice hole (right). It rained all the way. This was the week in August (their winter) that the temperatures were 100F in the UK!

under the glacier

At the end of the glacier there was another cave. We couldn't see where we were going even though the flash illuminated the picture

looking back down

Half way up we could look back down the valley. The "islands" down below were from the terminal moraine in the 1700s

Queenstown

Middle earth 1 In front of the lake at Queenstown

Near Queenstown the scenery was straight out of Middle Earth

NZ lakeNZ stars

Beautiful lakes and Starry nights

Te Anau lake

Te Anau where they had a launderette/internet cafe

Milford Sound

On the way to Milford Sound Fjord

On the way to Milford Sound were very flat valleys cut by glaciers (fjords, not sounds)

Milford sound

Milford Sound. You can see how large the peaks are by comparison with the boat in the bottom right hand corner!
Waterfall 1

Waterfall 2 Waterfall 3

The captain took us round the sound and put our bows into a few waterfalls.

Ipswich Queensland

sign4 of us

We had to change planes and spent a night in Brisbane. Steve was born and bred in Ipswich, England and had always wanted to visit the other towns in the world called Ipswich. In 1996 we all went to Ipswich near Boston, Mass, USA. Now was our chance to visit Ipswich, Queensland, just an hour west by train from Brisbane. It also gave us a chance to meet a friend I'd only ever communicated with on line.

ipswich viewipswich street

A view of the town A main street

ipswich post officeipswich college

Ipswich Post office Somewhere else

ipswich flying foxes

Some flying foxes

Barrier Reef

Heron Island

Approaching Heron Island by Catamaran

fish 1Fish 2

Amazing fish

SunsetMoon rise

Sunset and Moon rise

Heron Island beach

One of the beaches on the island which only took 30mins to walk around

Snorkelling

Ascent of Woman On the rocks

The ascent of woman

Daintree, Cape Tribulation Qld Aus

Daintree sunset

sunset over daintree

In the rain forest Lizard

CASSOWARY

CassowaryCassowary 2 Cassowary in Zoo Cassowary sign Sleeping birds Sleeping lizard

Sleeping birds and a lizard

Port Douglas QLD

port douglas beachkoala

We had 3 nights in a beachside Hotel in Port Douglas (<), Nearby was a wildlife sanctuary (>)

sarsnight beach

An unfortunately named drink (<), If anyone can guess what this is (>) please let me know and I'll tell you if you are right !

mangroves

The beach at Port Douglas had some mangroves 

low islands

We caught a boat to go snorkelling and this was going past the low isles(^)

more snorkellingv sign

We did 3 dives in a day (^)

Yungaburra, QLD 

stars at yungaburra

The stars in Yungaburra were very bright at night (^) and it was lovely to see the Milky way that you can't see so well from Europe

strangling fig curtainit's

An enormous strangling fig tree near Yungaburra (<) and some pedant has tried to remove an apostrophe from a sign (>)

atherton waterfall

One of the waterfalls nearby (^)

volcanic lake

It's difficult from this picture to tell the scale but this is an enormous volcanic cratered lake (^). 

wind farm

This is a windfarm (^), the signs state that it supplies enough energy to supply 3000 homes per year! Does this mean that next year there'll be an extra 3000 homes? or a different 3000 homes?


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