Travel
We will be doing a lot of travelling, starting with a 30 hour flight from Edinburgh to Melbourne via Doha with Qatar Airways. After some time in Melbourne we will be driving the coast road in an Avis rental from Melbourne to Sydney in a nice rental car. It will be an automatic which Wilma isn't sure of. I will put a picture up when we get it.
Transport through Australia
Mysterious Melbourne Road Rules
We arrived in Melbourne at about 9 o'clock at night and didnt leave the hotel after the long flight. when we finally got out we were able to use the free trams that Melbourne offers. they are a great service
The Tram on the left is a tourist tram which is scheduled every 12 minutes and goes round in a clockwise direction.
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The everyday trams are usually 3 cars long and go to all areas of the city. and they are free to use in the central area too.
With having so many trams trams running through the city they have come up with a way to turn right that confused Wilma and me. It is called a hook turn.
If you want to turn right you approach in the left lane and when it is your turn to go you pull forward into a box on the left hand side of the road with a right turn arrow. when the light turns red you can then make your move across the other lane of traffic and the tram lines that run up the centre of the road.
The reasons for use
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In Melbourne the hook turn allows both the clear passage of trams and prevents right turning drivers to having to wait or checkon trams crossing the drivers path in thecentral city cars are not allowed to travel on tram lines so dedicated right-turn lanes are not possible.
We used a hire car from Avis. It was a Toyota Corolla which we had for best part of 5 days. We could have flown the 700 kilometers from Melbourne to Sydney, but took time to enjoy the country and drove the 1200k long way round.
The last full day we had in Sydney Manley was great.we took a ferry to Manley. even though Wilma dosnt like boats, it was her idea to take the half hour each way trip.
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It was well worth it.
When we were in Sydney i took a helicopter trip over the harbour bridge, Opera house and bondi beech.
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Transport through New Zealand
We entered New Zealand through Christchurch. We flew in from Sydney with Quantus Airlines
In Christchurch we we took a Tram ride around the city. there were several trams and they were on a hop on hop off system so we were on a few of them.
From Christchurch we took the Trans Alpine train to Greymouth. It was a great journey through the mountains with fantastic scenery. The journey took 5 hours. see more in the blog soon.
We picked up our second hire car in Greymouth A very nice MG. After we picked it up we drove 2 hours to Franz Joseph so I could have my second helicopter ride.
There should have been another helicopter here but it was cancelled due to bad weather on the mountain,
We drove to Queenstown from Franz Joseph where we had a couple of days relaxing. starting on a boat trip to a farm on the other side of the lake for a BBQ lunch. The boat was the TSS Earnslaw.
On the second of our two days off traveling we took the Gondola to the top of the mountain where I had a go on the Luge, I had to take a second Ski lift type lift to get to the start of the run.
The Gondola taking us to the top
The Ski lift to the start of the luge
Not me on the luge, but I did do it.