In November 2016 I made my first ever trip to Australia -- and blogged about it here. It was a supremely wonderful adventure that included (1) getting to meet and stay with a cousin (who also enjoys genealogy); (2) visiting the house sites of my great, great grandfather and my great grandfather when they migrated from Switzerland to Australia in search of gold in the 1850's; (3) traveling the Great Ocean Road; and, (4) driving between Melbourne and Sydney - exploring both cities and much in between.
After that trip, I watched for another opportunity to return -- to continue my friendship with my cousin, explore more genealogy, see more of Australia, and scuba the Great Barrier Reef (a bucket list addition ever since I learned to scuba just two years ago, blogged about here).
So, luck was with me when I found an open jaw trip flying into Melbourne and out of Brisbane for about $484 worth of free points that I had acquired from applying for a credit card. I depart Monday, October 16 and return November 7 with these plans:
Oct 16-25: Fly to Melbourne, drive to Daylesford (map here) - stay with cousin and visit the annual Swiss Italian Festival there - details here.
Oct 25-31: Fly Melbourne to Cairns - and spend 2 nights/3 days on live-aboard scuba diving adventure on Great Barrier Reef. Details of live-aboard here.
Oct 31-Nov 7: Fly Cairns to Brisbane and travel to island of Karragarra (map here) where a new friend/wife that I met in Bali invited me to visit/stay. More on that in a future posting.
Since I'm traveling solo -- I hope to have time to continue this blog and post photo links.
