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An American's Impressions



 
 
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  #21  
Old November 15th, 2007, 04:01 AM posted to rec.travel.australia+nz
gerrit
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Default An American's Impressions


"kangaroo16" wrote in message
...

10,000 or 100,000 words later, they might grasp the
essentials. :-)


In your case I would suspect much closer to 100,000 if not more. :-)

Gerrit


  #22  
Old November 15th, 2007, 04:05 AM posted to rec.travel.australia+nz
Alan S[_1_]
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Posts: 2,163
Default An American's Impressions

On Wed, 14 Nov 2007 20:17:47 -0600,
.. wrote:

On Thu, 15 Nov 2007 10:33:07 +1100, Alan S wrote:

On Wed, 14 Nov 2007 17:23:27 -0600,
.. wrote:

Janet, did you take a flight from your nearest airport to either one
of: DFW/SAT or IAH then to LAX and then a direct flight to ? [SYD].

This would make it an extremely long trip. I never have done it i.e.

But the direct flights are much better than years ago.
When Continental used to fly the route, their route was LAX to
Honolulu to Auckland then to Sydney/return same.

At that time, other airlines went via Honolulu, Rarotonga or Tahiti.

Cath


In '67 I went SYD-NAD-HNL-SFO in a 707. On the ground for
re-fuelling at both Nadi and Honolulu. Returned the same
way.

In '03 SYD-LAX was direct 13 hours. I prefered the broken
reverse trip in '06, LAX-HNL, three days in Waikiki, then
ten hours in daylight HNL-SYD. But if you use that one, make
sure you fly Qantas, not Jetstar. Same route and timing but
different carrier on different days of the week.


Cheers, Alan, Australia


I used to love the transit thru HNL as I'd take bumps and get to spend
24-48 hours in Honolulu as a guest of the airline!

I've been looking at a trip home in the not too distant future via
Honolulu and have come up with the craziest routings.

Most have me flying Hawiian via Sydney then Air New Zealand via
Auckland [AKL] to my final destination [when there are direct
international flights from SYD to CHC]; some are routing me back to
LAX then a direct flight to AKL.

There are several direct HNL to AKL flights, plus HNL to Nadi [Fiji]
with a direct flight into CHC yet they rarely come up most likely
because of the cost [Air New Zealand who else!].


If you like island-hopping there is also an Air Pacific
route via Kiritimati (Christmas Island) and Fiji. The rules
are complicated and you stay either one hour or one week
IIRC:-)



Cheers, Alan, Australia
--
http://loraltravel.blogspot.com/
latest: Slovenia
http://loraltraveloz.blogspot.com/
latest: Mossman Gorge in the Daintree Rainforest
  #23  
Old November 15th, 2007, 04:06 AM posted to rec.travel.australia+nz
Alan S[_1_]
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Posts: 2,163
Default An American's Impressions

On Thu, 15 Nov 2007 00:57:18 GMT, kangaroo16
wrote:

From memory, was a 727 aircraft.


707. Qantas never used 727 on long-haul over water IIRC.


Cheers, Alan, Australia
--
http://loraltravel.blogspot.com/
latest: Slovenia
http://loraltraveloz.blogspot.com/
latest: Mossman Gorge in the Daintree Rainforest
  #24  
Old November 15th, 2007, 06:11 AM posted to rec.travel.australia+nz
kangaroo16
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Posts: 222
Default An American's Impressions

On Thu, 15 Nov 2007 11:01:20 +0800, "gerrit"
wrote in
:


"kangaroo16" wrote in message
.. .

10,000 or 100,000 words later, they might grasp the
essentials. :-)





In your case I would suspect much closer to 100,000 if not more. :-)

Gerrit


Well, mate, I've spent most of my life in Oz, have accumulated a
lot of new experiences, seen a lot of new things, done a lot of
things, given them a fair bit of thought, and so on.

It would be interesting to know how many words I could speak in
an hour of conversation, actually. There might be a market for a
compact electronic device that would actually count them, just to
satisfy my curiosity. I suppose I could ask my wife how many
words she has heard from me since we married a few decades ago.

If she told be about a googolplex, I wouldn't know for sure if
she was exaggerating or not, though! :-) It would be nice to
have an actual count, or even a rough approximation.

A nice addition might be if it sounded a beep every 500 words or
so, but the constant beeping might become an annoyance.:-)

My typing speed is around 50 WPM, and I can probably do 2 or 3
times better than that with speech.

Hmm, wonder how good the current models of speech to text
converters are these days? Perhaps should get one to speed up my
Usenet posts a bit?

I will admit that I am seldom at a loss for words. Took a public
speaking class once at uni. Class members would have to reach
into a box filled with an assortment of random small items, pick
one out at random and talk about it for five minutes or so. It
was great fun, actually.

Think what I could have accomplished had I been born with a
photographic memory...:-)

For people who were having sleep problems, I could give a long
boring lectures and have some of the audience asleep in minutes
:-)

Or I could turn my hand to writing pulp western or romance
novels. Even at the old rate of a couple of cents a word, could
bring in a nice income.

I see from this weeks "Time" magazine, Nov.19, that a section
dealing with new products, mostly technical. One is:


[to quote Time]
An ATM for Books

The "Expresso Book Machine"--meaning "fast" not coffee--can churn
out a 300 page paperback on demand, complete with color cover, in
just 3 min. The $50,000 machine could transform libraries into
minibook stores, making hard-to-find titles as accessible as
cappuccinos. At $3 a book they might be cheaper too.
Available Now
www.ondemandbooks.com

Oh well, enough for the moment, have been off doing some actual
housework.

Cheers,
Kangaroo16

[Who happily hops from one subject to another, even within
individual posts...]


  #25  
Old November 15th, 2007, 06:18 AM posted to rec.travel.australia+nz
kangaroo16
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Posts: 222
Default An American's Impressions

On Thu, 15 Nov 2007 14:06:17 +1100, Alan S
wrote in :

On Thu, 15 Nov 2007 00:57:18 GMT, kangaroo16
wrote:

From memory, was a 727 aircraft.


707. Qantas never used 727 on long-haul over water IIRC.


Cheers, Alan, Australia


You would no doubt be correct. I just relied on my memory,
didn't bother to check. Sadly, as we get older we sometime
mess up such little details. Thanks for the correction! :-)

Cheers,
Kangaroo16


  #26  
Old November 15th, 2007, 01:45 PM posted to rec.travel.australia+nz
Frank Slootweg
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Posts: 275
Default An American's Impressions

Alan S wrote:
On 14 Nov 2007 16:05:40 GMT, Frank Slootweg
wrote:

wrote:
We have just returned from our 3 week cruise-tour of Australia and New
Zealand. W

Great report and thanks!!

I live in the States and have never been to Aussie land
but want to someday


A warning: Only do it if you can afford to come back!

Our once-in-a-lifetime trip to Australia was in 1995. Next year we
will go on our seventh-in-a-lifetime one! :-) It's a sickness and -
luckily - there's no cure. So don't say 'we' didn't warn you!


When are you going to drop in on the East coast again Frank,
so we can say g'day?


Probably not this time. We will probably do it again when we're
*really* old and grey (not that I can get much greyer) and the (real)
outback is getting too hard.

You seem to like wandering the outback too much:-)


AFAIC, there's no such thing as "too much". Next year is already a
'compromise' because that time we will be driving a 2WD campervan, so no
unsealed roads. We will concentrate on the *towns* in outback QLD and
NSW which we 'had' to skip on this year's 12,000 km trip.

Frank "We *love* the open spaces!" Slootweg
  #27  
Old November 15th, 2007, 10:51 PM posted to rec.travel.australia+nz
Alan S[_1_]
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Posts: 2,163
Default An American's Impressions

On 15 Nov 2007 12:45:10 GMT, Frank Slootweg
wrote:

Alan S wrote:
On 14 Nov 2007 16:05:40 GMT, Frank Slootweg
wrote:

wrote:
We have just returned from our 3 week cruise-tour of Australia and New
Zealand. W

Great report and thanks!!

I live in the States and have never been to Aussie land
but want to someday

A warning: Only do it if you can afford to come back!

Our once-in-a-lifetime trip to Australia was in 1995. Next year we
will go on our seventh-in-a-lifetime one! :-) It's a sickness and -
luckily - there's no cure. So don't say 'we' didn't warn you!


When are you going to drop in on the East coast again Frank,
so we can say g'day?


Probably not this time. We will probably do it again when we're
*really* old and grey (not that I can get much greyer) and the (real)
outback is getting too hard.

You seem to like wandering the outback too much:-)


AFAIC, there's no such thing as "too much". Next year is already a
'compromise' because that time we will be driving a 2WD campervan, so no
unsealed roads. We will concentrate on the *towns* in outback QLD and
NSW which we 'had' to skip on this year's 12,000 km trip.

Frank "We *love* the open spaces!" Slootweg


One route we wandered about ten years back may interest you.
Just dusty little towns which we wandered past or through,
staying in Caravan Parks, sometimes extremely basic ones.
I've just noted the ones we stopped at in our caravan; there
were lots of hamlets between for lunches in pubs and chats
with the locals.

Start and finish wherever; in between: Cania Gorge (near
Monto, a magic place for fauna) - Biloela - Taroom - Miles -
Roma - St George - Lightning Ridge - Walgett - Burren
Junction - Narrabri (spent a lot of holidays there as a kid)
- Coonabarabran - and places onward.

That may even get you close enough to slip across the great
divide towards my area:-)


Cheers, Alan, Australia
--
http://loraltravel.blogspot.com/
latest: Slovenia
http://loraltraveloz.blogspot.com/
latest: Mossman Gorge in the Daintree Rainforest
  #28  
Old November 16th, 2007, 01:07 AM posted to rec.travel.australia+nz
kangaroo16
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Posts: 222
Default An American's Impressions

On 15 Nov 2007 12:45:10 GMT, Frank Slootweg
wrote in
:

Alan S wrote:
On 14 Nov 2007 16:05:40 GMT, Frank Slootweg
wrote:

wrote:
We have just returned from our 3 week cruise-tour of Australia and New
Zealand. W

Great report and thanks!!

I live in the States and have never been to Aussie land
but want to someday

A warning: Only do it if you can afford to come back!

Our once-in-a-lifetime trip to Australia was in 1995. Next year we
will go on our seventh-in-a-lifetime one! :-) It's a sickness and -
luckily - there's no cure. So don't say 'we' didn't warn you!


When are you going to drop in on the East coast again Frank,
so we can say g'day?


Probably not this time. We will probably do it again when we're
*really* old and grey (not that I can get much greyer) and the (real)
outback is getting too hard.

You seem to like wandering the outback too much:-)


AFAIC, there's no such thing as "too much". Next year is already a
'compromise' because that time we will be driving a 2WD campervan, so no
unsealed roads. We will concentrate on the *towns* in outback QLD and
NSW which we 'had' to skip on this year's 12,000 km trip.


If renting the camper van, the company might have a rule on not
driving on unsealed roads, but otherwise not all that hazardous
in inland N.S.W. if don't get too far off the highways. In the
tropical north during the wet season, a lot more hazardous.

I wouldn't think that the "rule", if there is one, could be
absolute, as if crews are working on a stretch of highway and
have a detour set up, it will usually be unsealed.

In Australia, the definition of "outback" can be pretty vague.
To many who live their whole lives in Sydney, anything west
of["Blue Mountains"] qualifies as the "outback".

Penrith is only 53 km [~ 33 miles] WNW of the GPO, the
central post office in the central business district of Sydney.

Or more properly, this distance is from Sydney GPO
to Penrith GPO. This can cause a bit of confusion to
US tourists, where map distances are usually from the
edge of one city to the edge of another.

Another 51 km [31.7 miles] west, and they would be
at the Katoomba GPO.

Another 44 km [~ 27 miles] NW and they would be
at Lithgow GPO.

59 km [~ 36.7 miles] further, at GPO Bathurst, and perhaps they
think that they have now been in the "outback" :-)

By Australian definitions, though, they would have to go a bit
further. "Back of Bourke" is one saying indicating the outback.
Bourke is 786 km [~ 488 miles] NW of Sydney by road.

There is no definite "boundary" for the "outback". As may have
mentioned on this group before, one humorous definition is
to take a ute [pickup], throw a small sea anchor in the back,
head inland. When locals start asking you what it is and what it
is used for, you are probably in the outback.

Perhaps a more useful tourist definition is when you drive at
dusk, night, and dawn and risk running into a kangaroo, you are
probably out of the Greater Sydney area. A definite hazard here,
and you will not find much car traffic on highways at night,
mostly large trucks.

Most drivers in NSW belong to the NRMA, National Roads and
Motorists Association.
http://www.nrma.com.au/


In Queensland, RACQ, Royal Automobile Club Queensland (I think)
http://www.racq.com.au/cps/rde/xchg/...e_ENA_HTML.htm

Membership is usually by the year, I don't know if either offers
temporary membership for travelers. Perhaps the car rental
agencies include a business membership card with their rental
vehicles.

However most towns have a garage who serves as the local office.
They are an excellent source of maps and travel guides, local
road info, etc.

These are free to members, for sale at low cost to non-members.
However, it shouldn't be hard to find someone who is a member and
will go in with you to get some for free.

The maps are very good, but read the map legends carefully.
Looking at a Robertsons map, principle highways are shown with
solid lines for a sealed surface, parallel lines for unsealed.

Main connecting roads are narrower, but marked the same.

Minor roads are a narrower solid line, like _______ but the
surface isn't specified. They might be paved, graveled or dirt.

Tracks are marked by --------- . Not isn't the surface
specified, but a track between point "A" and point "B"
really means, in practice, that someone once managed to
use they them to get between "A" and "B".

On foot, horseback, or 4 WD. It doesn't indicate that
it is still passable by vehicles. There might be washouts,
fallen trees, rocks, etc. As a guide, friends have told me
that several of them with 4WD drives, chainsaws, winches,
etc. took a day to travel about five miles on one of these
tracks. They said, that judging from sapling trees on the track
that it probably hadn't been covered by a vehicle in ten or 15
years.

Small blue circles on this map usually indicate smaller towns,
but may just be road junctions or mileage points. Larger blue
circles are towns, the size of the circle giving a rough
indication of the size of the town. If this overprinted with
an open black circle, like a degree sign, it is a mileage point
as well.

Small white "degree signs" even on main connecting roads may or
may not be towns. Some may have a combination service
station/shop, etc. Then again they may not. Some are former
towns, perhaps a few homes, not necessarily retail outlets
though. They might have a public pay phone.

They usually have service station(s) store or stores, pub,
etc.


N.S.W. law requires vehicles to be locked if you are more than a
few meters away from them. This was passed mainly to discourage
joy riders in more settled areas, but applies statewide.

Most towns of any size have free Internet services.

Even if traveling on the highways, a good idea to carry
water, food, perhaps spare petrol. Or at least get in the
habit of keeping the tank pretty full, as service stations
can be few and far between, and usually not open at night.

You probably know much of this, Frank, as you have been in
Australia before. Other readers might not know, though.

In more remote areas, sometimes on minor roads, small black solid
squares are private homesteads. Tanks and bores [wells] usually
marked by small blue circles.

Why? Well, if stranded somewhere, knowing the nearest source of
water is vital.

At least that is how Gregory's Road Map 27, 10th edition, is
marked. It has a scale of 1:1,456,500. It is not up to date,
though.as is copyright 1978.

Would strongly suggest that any tourist travel with as an
up to date map as possible, unless he has mobile Internet access.

Some libraries may still have an old Readers Digest Atlas of
Australia published in 1979. Still worth a look for any
interested in travel in Australia, as gives a lot of detail. In
more remote areas of Australia even individual windmill bores are
often marked.

Frank "We *love* the open spaces!" Slootweg


Well, Frank, plenty of open space here. In 1990,
Alaska had a population of 1 person per square mile.
In the continental U.S. Wyoming in 1990 had 4.7
per square mile.

Australia has about 6 per square mile, but this is misleading
as around 85% of the population is in the major capital cities.
Get about 75 km from the coast, and inland areas might
have an average population of 1 to 1.5 people per square
mile. The large inland desert areas used to be marked on
maps as "uninhabited".

So for any traveler who likes to get away from it all, this is
the place! :-)

Cheers,
Kangaroo16
  #29  
Old November 16th, 2007, 01:39 AM posted to rec.travel.australia+nz
[email protected]
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Posts: 91
Default An American's Impressions

On Wed, 14 Nov 2007 00:00:21 GMT, kangaroo16
wrote:
sNIP sNIP Snip.....
the attention of customs officers. After all, a lot of things
could be hidden in a jar of opaque black Vegemite. :-)

Not sure that it is that much of a "secret" either. From memory,
British "Marmite" is very similar, and think it was invented
first. However, easily checked.


AFAIK Marmite is a "Beef" product, not from yeast like Vegemite

Yep, Marmite invented in 1902, Vegemite invented 1926. No
longer an Aussie company, as Kraft Foods bought the
company several years ago.


Cheers, Alan, Australia


Regards,
Kangaroo16


  #30  
Old November 16th, 2007, 05:17 AM posted to rec.travel.australia+nz
Calif Bill
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Posts: 991
Default An American's Impressions


"Janet Wilder" wrote in message
...
Frank Slootweg wrote:
wrote:
We have just returned from our 3 week cruise-tour of Australia and New
Zealand. W
Great report and thanks!!

I live in the States and have never been to Aussie land
but want to someday


A warning: Only do it if you can afford to come back!
Our once-in-a-lifetime trip to Australia was in 1995. Next year we
will go on our seventh-in-a-lifetime one! :-) It's a sickness and -
luckily - there's no cure. So don't say 'we' didn't warn you!


What will keep it a "once in a lifetime" trip for us is the plane ride.
Don't think we can handle that again.

--
Janet Wilder
Bad spelling. Bad punctuation
Good Friends. Good Life


Just a long flight. I think 2nd longest timewise in the world is Sidney -
LAX. You can have my quota of Vegemite. I used to travel to Oz on
business. Business Class eases the flight time. One trip to Hong Kong /
Singapore / Sydney and took the wife. She said it would be good to get to
Oz, and be able to understand the speech better. She changed her mind when
she got there. Said was easier in Asia to understand the English. Have not
been back for a lot of years now, and am planning a trip to NZ and
Queensland next year. Get to see the Great Barrier Reef and do some diving
there. Business, you only get to see a town for a couple of days when you
are there, so get limited sightseeing. So not counting on Perth and Sydney
this trip. What to do for a week in the Cairns / Port Douglas area for a
week? Or schedule 4 days and more other places.


 




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