The Ooh Tour
Hawaii and Australia
February 17, 2011: The Plan
Julia and I have capitulated to the powerful traveling
bug once again. Its highly
venomous and contagious bite has infected us once more.
Click on the map for details
So, we are planning
our next trip over the Pacific puddle. We will leave in April and return in
May. We have christened the trip "The Ooh Tour" as we propose to visit so
many places that end in ooh.
First stop, the wonderful, sunny, sandy, and warm
Honolulu. Here we will spend a week with our good friends Holly and Alex.
They will celebrate their very first vacation without their lovely daughter
Claire. Alex and I hope to get some SCUBA diving in while the girls relax on
the beach in Maui. I see a mai-tai in my future.
Volcanic rocks in Hawaii
Second stop, my homeland Australia. Our first port of
call will be a short stay in the bustling city of Sydney to eat drink and be
merry while our circadian rhythms acclimatize. Julia and I have both visited
Sydney before, but the place is like an old friend to us, we always like to
return to it.
The third stop on "The Ooh Tour" is the hot, sandy, and
famous Uluru or Ayers Rock in the old vernacular.
The big red rock
Julia has never been here
and is looking forward to experiencing the arid center of Australia,
climbing the massive rock, and seeing a big red kangaroo. Male reds can grow
up to a body length of 1.4 meters (4 ft. 7 in) long and weigh up to 85
kilograms (190 lb.).
Fourth stop, will have us land in Darwin in the
Northern Territory. This is the little big town in the very (almost) top of
Australia.
The big little town
John Clements Wickham (who was a Lieutenant on HMS Beagle) named
the region "Port Darwin" in honor of his former shipmate Charles Darwin, who
had sailed with him on the ship's previous voyage. The settlement there
became the town of Palmerston in 1869, and was renamed Darwin in 1911. You
have to love Australia. They have an atheist Prime Minister and name cities
after Charles Darwin.
From Darwin we will drive to our fifth destination the
magnificent Kakadu National Park.
Kakadu National Park
The park is located within the Alligator
Rivers Region of the Northern Territory. It covers an area of 4,894,000
acres, extending nearly 200 kilometers from north to south and over 100
kilometers from east to west. It is the size of Slovenia, about one-third
the size of Tasmania, or nearly half the size of Switzerland. We plan to
walk and see as much of the place as we can.
The sixth port of call will be my hometown Melbourne.
Here we will stay with my brother John and his Di. I hope that we will visit
and spend time with family and friends.
Exhibition Buildings Melbourne
So that is the "The Ooh Tour", we are very excited and so
looking forward to it. We hope to keep you posted on our progress as we
visit all of these amazing ooh locations, so stay tuned to your Internet
browser for updates.