In  late May and early June, my wife and I had the enjoyable experience of visiting to Australia.  It took two flights each way with cumulative flying time averaging 18 hours each but it was well worth it.  Most of our time was spent in Sydney which is Australia's largest city and the New South Wales state capitol.  It was late fall/early winter down there, but since Sydney's latitude south of the equator is about the same as Los Angeles' north of the equator temperatures were not that bad.  In fact, highs most days were in the mid to upper 60s and may have even jumped into the low 70s a day or two.  We had a couple days of rain but only one of these days, our next to last one, was the rain heavy.

We were fortunate to stay in the Grace Hotel in Sydney's central business district so we were within 15-20 minutes walk of most attractions.  The Grace is an art deco hotel patterned after the Chicago Tribune building.  It is Malaysian managed and was a first class place to stay with an absolutely awesome breakfast except for the vegimite.  We were with a tour group a couple of days and got to take a nice guided bus tour of Sydney seeing Bondi Beach, sections like Paddington, and the historic Rocks area which was where Sydney's first white convicts and settlers came ashore after being transported from Britain in 1788.  The other guided tour we took we went to Featherdale Wildlife Park in west suburban Sydney where we got to see a wonderful variety of wildlife.
While there, an emu picked at my jacket zipper, we also got to have our photo taken with a koala, and saw wallabies, kangaroos, dingos, kookaburas, crocodiles, and other animals.  We then went on to see the town of Leura in the spectacular Blue Mountains which are about an hour northwest of Sydney.  We saw Govett's Leap in Blue Mountains national park and one of the three rocks called the Three Sisters in this same park.  It was very foggy that day so we could only see one of the sisters who are important in Aboriginal  mythology.  We did get to walk in a rainforest and saw Katoomba Falls and on our way back we got to see Homebush Bay where the 2000 Sydney Olympics were held and the Olympic Stadium which is now called ANZ Stadium.

Downtown Sydney is chock full of attractions and we took advantage of them.  We saw the National Maritime Museum and got to explore a replica of Cook's ship the Endeavour,  the Museum of Sydney, Powerhouse Museum (covering science, technology, and the decorative arts), the Art Gallery of New South Wales, the Queen Victoria Building, the Royal Botanic Garden, the Chinese Garden of Friendship, and went to church at St. Andrew's Anglican Cathedral which is pleasantly evangelical in theology.  We saw the spectacular Sydney Harbour Bridge and a chamber music concert in the Sydney Opera House.  We also saw the New South Wales state library and legislative building and enjoyed hearing about Australian political developments on the news.  We also took a trip on the Sydney ferry which is an experience I highly recommend.  Sydney's harbor is spectacular and you should make an effort to see the gap area where the Pacific Ocean flows into the lengthy network of waterways.  We took the ferry over to Manly where we saw their spectacular beach, a nice local art gallery, and got to hike in Sydney Harbour National Park.  On our way back from Manly the sky cleared enough for us to see the Southern Cross constellation.  We also were very moved by the ANZAC Memorial in Sydney's Hyde Park.  We should remember and appreciate the sacrifices made for freedom by our Australian allies and study their historical and political developments as carefully as we study ours.

I bought a ton of books on Australian history and politics which I'm still working my way through.  One of these books is called Battlelines and is written by Tony Abbott who's the leader of Australia's Liberal Party which is actually a center-right party.  He would fit very comfortably within mainstream conservatism in the U.S. and Battlelines is clearly written by an intelligent and principled individual who was Australia's Health Minister in the last years of John Howard's government ending in 2007.  Hopefully, Abbott will become Australia's next Prime Minister after their election in late August.  When we were in Manly, we were actually in Abbott's Warringah constituency in the Australian House of Representatives.  Last summer, we spent some time in Witney near Oxford which is the seat in the British House of Commons represented by David Cameron who is now Britain's Prime Minister.  It would be totally awesome if I could say I was in the legislative districts of two conservative Prime Ministers just before they were elected!

When we were there the Labour Party Government was headed by Prime Minister Kevin Rudd.  Just a few weeks after I left, dissatisfaction with Rudd in his own party became so high that he was forced out by his fellow party parliamentary colleagues and party bosses and replaced by his deputy Julia Gillard who comes from the same genetic and ideological cloth Hillary Clinton does though Gillard has never been married.  Rudd was viewed with Obama like worship when he defeated Howard and was elected in 2007.  Australia's previous conservative government, under Howard and his first-rate treasurer Peter Costello, had managed to eliminate Australia's national debt which Rudd and his incompetent Labour cronies squandered with stimulus spending including a blundering home insulation program which produced household fires that killed four people.  Australia has weathered the recession better than many countries thanks to the 1996-2007 conservative government's reforms but Rudd and Gillard have brought debt back to the Australian economy and Rudd's continual policy reversals and idiotic decision to impose a "super-profits" tax on Australia's highly profitable mineral resources industries spelled  his downfall.  Perhaps, Obama will follow Rudd's example and meet the same fate.

The Australians are very friendly and I  hope I get the chance to see more of their country.  It's a long flight but it's well worth the journey to go to the land down under! 

Ma

I bought tons of books