New Zealand and Australia pictures

I’ve finally put together a selection of pictures from the trip to New Zealand and Australia.

A picture from the top of New Zealand’s Sky Tower in downtown Auckland. Copyright, Ann Torrence.

A shot of me inside the Sky Tower.

A shot of the gates outside the Auckland Ferry Building. Copyright, Ann Torrence.

Robert and Ann on the Auckland Museum grounds.

Robert enjoying a latte at Frasier’s. This place has some of the best lattes and eggs benedict I’ve ever sampled. I fear that the eggs benedict will have been a high point in my life and that they will never be equalled, but perhaps that is for the best.

Auckland is covered in parks that were once Maori strongholds. Mt. Eden is one of them.

A tree over by the park in Devonport.

Piha in black and white. Copyright, Ann Torrence.

Piha, a black sand beach where if you are lucky, you can see blue penguins.

Me taking pictures of the sand at Piha beach.

Auckland has one of the cleanest harbors I’ve ever seen from the waterways to the shipping container ports. Copyright, Ann Torrence.

Jones, Robert and Ann in Devonport.

Michael and I in the Occidental enjoying mussels and Chimay.

Robert and Ann in the Occidental enjoying Chimay and mussels.

Me enjoying a Guinness on a street cafe in Devonport.

Ann and I in Devonport.

A picture of me at sunset in Auckland harbor. It was a spectacular day followed by an impressive sunset.

Robert and Michael at One Tree Hill.

Ragitoto taken from the top of One Tree Hill.

Robert in the Perth maritime museum. If you are ever in the area, this is a great museum that is well worth your time.

The side of the HMS Ovens. The story here is actually reasonably amusing as I kept seeing “Submarine Ovens” on various maps and could not figure out what submarine ovens were. I kept thinking that perhaps they were ceramic ovens used for acoustics construction or something, similar and only when we walked up and saw “HMS Ovens” did we snap to the reality. Copyright, Ann Torrence.

The cute little town of Freemantle where one can get decent deals on opal and other precious and semi-precious gems. There are also some great bars, decent food and more in Freemantle.

This is a wonderful bell tower in downtown Perth. Ann got some wonderful pictures of it from inside and out whereas I was only able to get some distance shots from the outside as time was limited.

A sleeping koala bear. Copyright, Ann Torrence.

We did a day trip to the Australian outback outside of Perth where we saw plants and animals not seen in our part of the world. Ann got these great shots of a plant that I still don’t know anything about. Copyright, Ann Torrence.

We saw this huge group of kangaroos on where else? A golf course. Copyright, Ann Torrence.

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As part of the outback trip, we made it out to a place called the Pinnacles. Copyright, Ann Torrence.

The Pinnacles in the Nambung National Park was a surreal place with limestone pillars that project out of the ground. Copyright, Ann Torrence.

We had stopped at a gas station to get some supplies and enjoy some tea and biscuits when this little fella came walking up to me. He literally walked less than a foot away from me and waited until I gave him some of my biscuit when he ate and then asked for more.

Just after spending some time with my new parrot friend, we heard a terrific noise out in back of the gas station where we had stopped. Walking around the corner we saw a huge gaggle of rosy headed galas which are like grey cockatoos with pink crowns instead of the yellow ones.

We had planned on going out to Rottnest Island to do some snorkeling, but this day was extraordinarily windy creating oceans swells of twenty feet. So, while snorkeling was out, we did get to the outback to at least see the ocean.

This was the first time I had seen the Indian Ocean. The weather had settled down a bit as had the surf from earlier in the day, but it did wash up interesting things on the beach. I could imagine how amazingly beautiful and remote this beach would be on a sunny, calm weather day.