- Melbourne
- Brisbane
- Noosa
- Fraser Island
- Sydney
- Singapore
Central Melbourne skyline.
Typical Melbourne architecture.
One of the older Melbourne trams still in use.
Brighton brightly painted beachhuts.
Sculptures against mutli-story appartments in the docks area.
One of the many vineyards we visited in the Yarra valley. Well we had to find the one we liked best.
Phillip Island coastline. An area know for it's penguins.
Another photograph of Phillip Island.
Split Point Lighthouse. Used for the lighthouse in the children's tv programme 'Around the twist'.
Brisbane landscape from the south bank.
Australia's famous Ibis.
This caught my eye in a Brisbane park just up the road from our hotel. Looked kinda like Rupert bear.
A view from the balcony of our hotel.
Another view from the balcony of our hotel.
A multi-rooted tree growing on the banks of the Brisbane River.
Our villa on Noosa waters. Four bedrooms, pool, with rear garden on the waters edge with mooring. Hire car parked in the drive with choice of two garage doors.
A nearby market.
These noisy birds appeared each evening around our villa and settled in the trees above our heads.
A koala doing what a koala does best.
Lizard photographed in Australia Zoo.
A pair of otters in Australia Zoo.
A kookaburra. Another Australian bird.
Fraser Island here we come. These were the ferries operating to and from this island. An island built entirely on sand. No animals, very few birds, no fish but lots of insects.
A lizard spotted on Fraser Island, no doubt after the insects.
One of the lakes on Fraser Island. The sand here is extremely fine and the water pure. No fish can live in this lake.
One of the trees that line the shore of the lake.
Fraser Island is covered in tropical rainforest trees and ferns. These grow to incredible heights in the sand.
Staghorn Fern (Platycerium superbum), epiphyte on rainforest tree Fraser Island.
The only way to get around Fraser Island is to use the sandy coastline, preferably at low tide. This is our 4 x 4 getting stuck in the sand whilst making a U turn on the softer sand.
Sydney Circular Harbour skyline.
A view from the Opera house towards the park and harbour.
Sydney Opera House shortly after a rain storm.
Kangaroo and baby roo in a zoo on the ouskirts of Sydney.
Koala, just waking up.
These three points are known as the three sisters and can be found in the Blue mountains just outside of Sydney. The Aboriginal dream-time legend has it that three sisters, 'Meehni', 'Wimlah' and Gunnedoo' lived in the Jamison Valley as members of the Katoomba tribe. Legend has it that these beautiful young ladies had fallen in love with three brothers from the Nepean tribe, yet tribal law forbade them to marry.
The brothers were not happy to accept this law and so decided to use force to capture the three sisters causing a major tribal battle.
As the lives of the three sisters were seriously in danger, a witchdoctor from the Katoomba tribe took it upon himself to turn the three sisters into stone to protect them from any harm. While he had intended to reverse the spell when the battle was over, the witchdoctor himself was killed. As only he could reverse the spell to return the ladies to their former beauty, the sisters remain in their magnificent rock formation as a reminder of this battle for generations to come.
Another view of the Blue mountains. The name derives from the bluish tinge the range takes on when viewed at a distance, which is caused by the release of volatile oils from eucalyptus forests. (Most mountains and plains in the forested parts of Australia take on a similar hue: the Blue Mountains were a familiar sight to early British settlers in the Sydney district long before the bulk of the continent was explored by non-native people.)
We stayed in a hotel in Darling Harbour. This is a shot of the harbour at night.
Darling harbour had a tranquil Chinese Garden which is the result of a close bond of friendship and co-operation between the sister cities of Sydney in NSW, Australia, and Guangzhou in Guangdong Province, China.
Chinese Garden, Darling harbour.
Chinese Garden, Darling harbour.
Chinese Garden, Darling harbour.
An old church nestles amongst the skyscrapers of Sydney.
A more conventional view of the Opera House.
The naval dockyard, Sydney.
A busker on the streets of Sydney.
The Singapore lion. On the records in the 13th century Malay Annals, a prince from Palembang was shipwrecked and washed ashore to an island. There he saw a creature which he believed was a lion. So he named the island "Singa Pura" which means "Lion City", from which the name Singapore was derived.
Children on a school trip taking shelter from the sun.
A Chinese temple in Singapore 'Chinatown'.
Singapore art.
A trip to the Singapore tropical orchid gardens provided these next photographs.
Singapore orchid gardens.
Singapore orchid gardens.
Singapore skyscrapers towering over the restaurants along the water's edge.
The multi-coloured shutters of the Police Station.
Inside one of the many shopping malls of Singapore. Spotless, but easy to get lost in these malls.
An Indian Temple in 'Little India' Singapore.