Bowes Updates

Packed a lot of highlights into this visit: Hot Dougs (Sausage Superstore and Encased Meat Emporium), with Steph, Cubs game and Roseangelis with Rob and Elissa, drinks at the Hancock, a wander though the hipsteriest part of town…

Pictures here.

A short visit to Calgary in April. Visited grandma, saw some old friends, and hun out with the family.  More photos here.

Sydney is an awesome town.  Tons of parks, interesting archtecture, good eats, and fun things to do.

We spent our aniversary having a bit of a nocturnal wander before a celebratory champagne in front of the opera house.  Visits to Bondi Beach, Manly Beach (to recover from New Years Eve), the Rocks, and some old friends from London rounded out the trip.   Photos here

New Year’s in Sydney was awesome:

1) It wasn’t freezing
2) We were there with tons of good friends
3) What a fireworks display!
4) The whole town opens up to have a good time (we never did find out whose party we ended the night at)

We got down to the Blues Point Hotel pretty early to meet up with the gang. A few drinks, then up to the Commodore for dinner and some coin-flip drinking game that Richard definately got the worst of! Down to the waterline in time for the show…and what a show! The harbour is spectacular enough as it is, but that was truly awesome.  Photos here (some of them are from other people…I would credit more appropriately if I could figure out which came from who), and Richards video here

For some contrast after 2 nights in hostels on the way from Adelaide, we checked into the Westin for some luxury. 

Melbourne is a cool town (downright cold when we were there too: it never cracked 20), and has a vibe sort of like a cross between the best of both Toronto and Vancouver.  Good eats, too!  Too much of our time in Melbourne was spend watching the Ashes Boxing Day Test.  No amount of beer makes that exciting: Australia was facing a slaughter after being bowled out for 98 on the first day when we arrived at 10:30 on Day 2.  After a couple hours, we’d had enough, and went touring the town.  About 3:00 we came back to check up on the game, and one of the same English batters WAS STILL BATTING.  The pictures are here

One stunning vista after another!

We went for a lovely Christmas drive along the south coast of Australia between Adelaide and Melbourne.  Christmas dinner was BBQ’d, and spent with the Escobars (sort of those Escobars…a very distant relation to the infamous one) and the rest of the gang.

Aside from the scenery, we also walked through a temperate rain forest (the one on Vancouver Island is just as cool), saw some Koalas (cute, sure, but really boring to watch – they sleep 18 hours per day, and even when awake aren’t really all that active), and took the obligatory picture in front of the kangaroo crossing sign.  The photos are here

We needed to get from Adelaide to Melbourne.  There are plenty of flight, but the scenery is so spectacular, that we chose to take a 3-day bus tour.  There seemed to be two sorts of options: luxurious splendour with blue-rinsed travelling companions, or rough and tumble fun with the backpackers.  Easy choice – so we hopped on the Groovy Grape tour with a motley mix of miscellaneous tourists (including the Escobars from Columbia, who were very nice once you got to know them…).  First stop was the Grampians National Park…full of jagged sandstone ridges and pretty waterfalls. 

We stopped for lunch along the way, and stumbled across an “historic culvert”.  No sign detailed what it was (is, or will be), but we posed for a picture…which I’m sure is the ONLY reason it’s there. The pictures are here