Travels WithJohn and Janice

Travel blog

Every trip we've shared since 2011—filter by where we went, when we traveled, or what we explored.

Showing 2 of 236 posts

The Sydney Harbour BridgeAustralia
8 min read2015

Dateline March 6, 2015, Sydney, and Then Home

Our last stop. We arrived in Sydney from Narooma and pulled into the Russell Hotel at the Rocks, an old boutique hotel with a wonderful staircase puzzle (cut through two fire-exit doors, up two stairs, down three stairs, to find your room). A few days to wind down a 42-day adventure: a pass on the $250 walk across the Harbour Bridge (we'd rather get high at the pubs, thanks), a Sydney butcher-counter dinner at Phillip's Foote where you cook your own steak, a Saturday market crowded by 3,000 of our closest friends off a cruise ship, a small Pony Lounge dinner we loved so much we went back for the End-of-Vacation supper with Pete and Bunny, and a Sunday round at Moore Park Golf Club that turned out to be eight holes because of a booking-system quirk. The last bottle of Lambert Estate, The Commitment Shiraz, was opened in the Russell's reading room. We donated the chill box to Maxine at the front desk. Then a 24-hour flight, and a landing at Daytona Beach just before midnight on a Monday. Forty-two days, 4,200 miles, fifty-some bottles of wine, six of rum, six of vodka. Goodbye to another adventure with Pete and Bunny.

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The Sydney Opera House from the harbor, on the ferry out to Watson BayAustralia
4 min read2015

Dateline January 21, 2015, Sydney — The Adventure Begins at Doyle's

In 2010 we had spent a couple of weeks in Australia, primarily to play the great Sandbelt courses around Melbourne, and we ended that trip with a few wonderful days with Jim and Pam Lambert at the Lambert Estate in the Barossa Valley. We had been looking for an excuse to go back ever since. This trip is the excuse. New Zealand and Australia with our friends Pete and Bunny Warenski, who were with us on the Alaska Walkabout and on the Robert Trent Jones Trail in Alabama. We arrived in Sydney Tuesday morning after twenty-four hours of flight time, met up with Pete and Bunny at the hotel, walked the city, and tried to stay awake until evening to outwit the jet lag. The next morning we took the ferry across the harbor (past the Opera House and under the Harbor Bridge) out to Watson Bay and Doyle's, the seafood restaurant we had visited on our last trip to Sydney and had been looking forward to introducing the Warenskis to. Tomorrow we fly to New Zealand.

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