The Heddens Arrive in New Zealand

There was one event that we had been looking forward to ever since Jeff's parents left us in early August: Meeting up with Annette's parents in mid-September for a New Zealand adventure!

Our time with Jeff's folks was carefully planned and coordinated by all of us, whereas our time in NZ with Annette's parents was really just a product of their hard work and planning.  Our disconnect from the planning of our two-week spin through NZ meant that we had a different relationship to it in terms of anticipation.  With Jeff's parentals we had something concrete to look forward to months before we ever even saw them.  Annette's parents and our wonderful time in NZ with them snuck up on us a bit, and turned into a fantastic surprise tour of the land of the kiwi!

Annette's parents (her mother, Marie, mostly) planned a very full, action-packed two weeks.  Expertly, we might add!  Annette's parents' flight was delayed by about two hours, so when they finally stumbled off the plane we hugged them (quickly), threw them in our rental car (quickly), and proceeded to get lost for an hour driving out of Auckland (slowly).  But we still found time for a tasty lunch outside an historic country pub (leisurely), underneath the sun and alongside hot rod and motorcycle owners who were drinking beer and showing off their considerably righteous rides.

Our day's driving ended in the picturesque town of Russell, which provided us fantastic views from our too-perfect cabin on a hill above town. The next day we hopped  on a boat around 9 in the morning for our Bay of Islands cruise.  But you'll have to be a little patient to read about that, as it is a story for another post.

Note:
We are super de-super lucky to be on this journey in the first place.  And the fact that both parental sets managed to visit us (while taking vacations and seeing the far reaches of the globe) really is too good to be true. There isn't really even a word for how travel-lucky we are!!

Before We Go...

...We wanted to give you a really accurate and detailed map of our route around Australia from start to finish . Instead, we give you this monster drawn up by Jeff before our flight from Sydney to Auckland:

Actually, we do have a few maps that show our paths a bit better, just in case the masterful map above doesn't quite do the trick...

These are all of our stops through Nov.1

We started in Brisbane, and ended in Sydney.

You can also see a full, more interactive, constantly updated map of our entire journey since April here.


Quick Note:
We're pretty sure we can thank our two months in Australia for the fact that the only key worn off our keypad is the letter "A." No worries though, we still loved  ustr li . But, alas, we must continue on.   

Next up: Two weeks in New Zealand with the Heddens, plus another one for good measure!

Held up in Sydney

A quick note to anyone flying to New Zealand on a one-way ticket:
Make sure to have proof of your flight out of the country before you try to check in to your flight into it.  Despite Jeff's careful visa research back in February and March, we arrived to the Sydney airport late (not our fault) and unprepared to meet the one requirement for entering New Zealand beyond having a ticket (totally our fault).  We ran into this same sort of trouble before, on the very first leg of our journey in fact.  We were forced to print a falsified ferry ticket in a small office behind the Asiana check-in desks in Sea-Tac just to get them to print us off boarding passes for our flight to Osaka, Japan.  Once in Japan, however, immigration didn't even mention the need to have onward travel planned.  The folks in Seattle insisted we had to have proof of onward travel, but we weren't pressed at all coming through immigration in Osaka.  Leaving Sydney, this time with budget airline and Qantas affiliate, JetStar, we were forced to purchase onward tickets before our boarding passes were issued.

The situation was tense, with one gal behind the counter yelling at the two helping us and another young lady in the same boat to hurry up and finish because they had to start boarding.  This caused Jeff to sweat profusely, and Annette to cringe as she realized he had forgotten to put on deodorant.  Being on the wrong side of security while three agents try frantically to jump through the hoops necessary just to get you HEADING in the right direction turned out to be pretty stressful.  But, in spite of all of the excitement, we made it to the plane with enough time to board  (not even the last ones on) and even take a few deep breaths before the plane started moving.  The Jetstar gals must run into idiots like us a lot because they led us into refundable tickets that (only) set us back $50 each in handling fees, the receipts for which we filed in the, "Well, that's what we get" category of our 2011 Grand Adventure.  New Zealand immigration was a little more on the ball than Japan's, as we were grilled extensively on several topics as we tried to enter the country, including, but not limited to, our onward travel plans.

The two and a half hours between leaving our Sydney hostel and boarding our flight to Auckland brought above average stress levels.  First, the airport train was broken and we were forced to take a replacement bus, which was slower in picking us up and in making its way to the airport.  The onward ticket out of New Zealand added to our stress, especially since the long line to check-in and slow counter work (presumably due to other morons blowing off NZ's visa rules, just like us) meant that we would have been cutting our timing very close even if we had an onward ticket and obtaining our boarding pass had gone smoothly.  Ending our time in Australia on such a hurried, stressful note led us to skip the all important, "Awe, we're so sad to leave," moment.  Exhausted, it was all we could do to watch the Hangover on our net-book while our stomachs reminded us that we had failed to get dinner (budget airlines only serve meals if you are willing to part with vast amounts of money in exchange for barely edible food). 

It wasn't until that evening, around 2am, when we were in our Auckland hotel, that we were able to stop, realize we had left the wonderful land of Oz, and reflect on how much we had enjoyed that rough-and-tumble, hard-drinking, hard partying, kind-hearted country.

Sydney: Return to and Exit from Civilization

No trip to Australia would be complete without checking out Sydney, so we swung back down from the Blue Mountains after a few days to see what this world class city was all about.

Once back in the big city, we indulged in all of the joys a metropolis can offer:  Free museums, fancy meals, fast wireless internet, throngs of people, shopping, daydreaming about what it would be like to have enough money to live in a fat-ass penthouse in downtown Sydney, and humongous mega-hostels (with a movie theater, two giant kitchens, and room for over 500 guests).  The whole mega hostel thing might not have been a quintessential part of the big city experience in, say, Chicago, but in Oz, giant hostels with lots of extras are all the rage.  Travelers, students, and transitional folks from all over the globe lurk in these modern Aussie marvels.  It is fitting that Aussies like to travel so much and that their cities and towns are now riddled with every type of hostel imaginable.  Even as millions of Aussies travel the globe outside their own borders, millions of foreigners (mostly German) shuffle from one sweaty Oz hostel to the next, in search of the best "free" shelf in the kitchens and the poshest (or just least foul smelling) roof-top pool or jacuzzi (with or without a waterfall).  They work for a month or two here or there, then it is on to the next town and its hostel playground.  The best part--not--about all of the hostels that offer movie theaters, pools, game rooms, and more free perks, is that none of them (that we found) offer free wifi or internet.  Guess the discerning traveling masses would rather zone out to a bootleg version of Fast and Furious than save some coin on the hours and hours of internet they will most certainly use...

But we digress.  This is Sydney we're talking about.  Surely there must be more to write about than Australian hostels!  How about our transition from the glorious small towns of Oz to the big, swingin' city?  Well, rural areas in Oz were certainly not devoid of culture - we ate stinky cheese and drank good wine even as we drove through very sparsely populated areas.  But the mish-mash of cultures and surging energy that flow in big cities is hard to get anywhere else.  Watching Sydney-siders swim through parks and checking out the other tourists down by the harborfront helped us get back in the big city groove, which, while not required in New Zealand, we knew we would have to summon soon in Bangkok, Hanoi, and Ho Chi Minh City.


Sydney is an easy city to like, and free museums don't hurt any.  The (awesomely free) Art Gallery of New South Wales had some LOL contemporary art, but also had some real art that made us un-wrinkle our noses and take note.  And Sydney's many and varied neighborhoods were even more fun to explore than its museums.  The food and culture was a bit different in each.  We have definitely found that the most interesting big cities are the ones made up of several distinct neighborhoods with their own flavor.  The flavor we liked most in Sydney was maybe the breakfast we had at Bills in Surry Hills.  At this point you all are probably pretty sick of hearing about the food we ate in Australia, seeing as how it isn't really all that new or exciting.  But the pancakes at Bills were pretty special.  Not too thick, but with enough fluff to give you something to sink your teeth into, these hot cakes were the real deal.  A really delicious, leisurely weekend breakfast at home is one of life's truly awesome things, and moments like our morning in Surry Hills and bfast at Bills help us feel like we are close to home.

Much like Uluru, the Sydney Opera House has a reputation that precedes it.  We were both looking forward to seeing the heralded structure, but weren't really sure what to expect.  Would it wow us like Uluru, or let us down, unable to live up to all the hype?  After viewing the Opera house from the harbor Bridge, various vantage points right below it, and half a dozen other spots, far and near, we decided that it is really a marvelous piece of architecture.  Actually, we came to that conclusion after our first prolonged viewing from the Harbor Bridge.  But as you take it in from other angles and vantage points, the building continues to offer new faces of itself. We could see why people might have hated it when it was first built, as it is awkward in a way, dingy looking up close, and supported by ugly, clumsy concrete at its base.  But the Opera House's genius is in the way it seems to take on a new form from different angles.  It appears to take on new shapes, even as it evokes images of sails with its sharp points and almost fabric-like curves.  We did find, though, that the Opera House was best viewed from the fancy-pants restaurant Aria, which served us up one of our favorite meals of the trip.  We would have had to find work in Oz in order to finance dinner there, but we found that lunch at Aria was enough to make us sing!

Sydney's Royal Botanic Gardens and old Observatory on a hill overlooking the harbor bridge were other highlights.

A great big city should provide interesting culture (in the form of art, people, architecture, food, etc.), and Sydney came through on that account.  It's free museums, free observatory, excellent parks and gardens, and distinct neighborhoods were fascinating to experience and explore. But we did find that we reacted to Sydney differently than we did to other big cities earlier in our trip.  We think that we really began to fall in love with the less populated areas.  The unspoiled natural beauty and hundreds of thousands of unpopulated acres in Australia gave us a new appreciation, and taste for life away from the sprawl of the city.  Australia had some really great cities, like Sydney and Brisbane, but the country really captivated us with its scenery, animals, and truly magnificent wild side (which isn't just locals drinking beer at 10:30 in the morning, or ship captains getting so drunk on their own sail boats that they regret their actions among the tour group the next day).

We figured the lure of a more rural land hit us at the right time, since we jumped on an airplane out of Sydney September 17th bound for Auckland: The largest city in a country known more for its live stock than its stock market, and more for its natural wonders than its man made ones!

Misty Mountains: Shades of Nature Just Outside Sydney

There is a place outside (above?) Sydney where evaporating oil from a vast eucalyptus forest catches the sunlight, creating a blue mist.  This blue-ish shroud only adds to the immense natural beauty of this area, which is aptly named the Blue Mountains.  These mountains are actually a sandstone plateau that has been cut up by gorges.  The effect is stunning.  Sharp rocky outcrops and sheer cliff faces, many with waterfalls, dominate the horizon in an imposing way.


The many big (sometimes old) mansions, B&Bs, and upscale restaurants of the Blue Mountains (an area referred to as one, but is actually made up of several towns that sit on the edge of the mountains' valley) are a clear reminder that Sydney isn't far off.  The Blue Mountains are indeed a weekend playground and retirement haven for the many wealthy Sydney-siders with money to burn.

Here's how close the BMs are to Sydney:  We flew in, hopped in our rental car (a nifty Toyota Yaris), and were taking a great walk and snapping photos in about two hours. It is pretty amazing how fantastic the Blue Mountains are and how close they are to one of the world's largest cities.  We don't have an equivalent in the States, we don't think.  It would be a little like if you could drive from New York City to the Grand Canyon in two hours.

We didn't have time for any of the more spectacular multi-day hikes, but we did take in some fabulous scenery from almost every possible viewpoint around the rim and went on one really beautiful hike (and a few more short walks).  We also stayed at two of those charm-filled accommodations. 

The neatest place we stayed in the Blue Mountains was an empty bed and breakfast, where we had a tasty breakfast prepared by our always-smiling hostess and a fantastic night's sleep in a cozy, old room, with flowers in the place of fire in the fire place.

The strangest place we ate at in the Blue Mountains, and probably the whole trip, was a little cafe called the Common Ground Cafe.  This place had a real folksy vibe, laid-back, bearded and linen-pants wearing staff, and interesting little murals on the walls with quotes.  Somewhere between the offered organic, country style food and the nature and conversations of the staff, we figured out that this restaurant was a commune owned and operated joint.  Some literature they had at the front provided proof and entertaining bedtime reading.  The food was actually pretty tasty and even though the literature put the place somewhere south of a commune and a bit closer to a cult, we were glad for our strange and unexpected food experience.

The Blue Mountains provided a nice change of scenery from crashing coastal vistas, with an array of breathtaking mountains, cliffs, and waterfalls, all (deceptively) arranged in a valley or basin formation.  The mountains were less mountain and more valley, but they were all magnificent.

Melbourne's Goals and Gaols

Life without our camper van barely seemed worth living for a few hours, then we remembered that we had tickets to an Aussie Rules Football (the official league for the game, is the Australia Football League, or AFL) playoff game (they call the playoffs the finals).  The game was held at the  famous Melbourne Cricket Ground, which holds 100,000 people.  The MCG was truly a marvelous sports venue, but we're glad we saw an AFL game there instead of cricket.  No offense to any cricket fans out there, it's just that Aussie rules was much easier to pick up.  Annette found that some sports are not a total waste of her time, as Aussie rules did not offend her or make her want to brain herself on the stadium steps.  We both actually liked the game, which is a cross between soccer, American football (they call it Gridiron in Oz and NZ) and rugby.  The team we randomly chose to support (Carlton FC! What?! What!?!) ended up kicking the other guys' teeth in, so we walked away from our introduction to Aussie rules and a beautiful day at a beautiful stadium quite happy indeed.

The highlight of Melbourne for us was the AFL finals game at the MCG, but the city was pretty nice all around.  A visit to the Old Melbourne Gaol (prison) was another highlight.  Ned Kelly was hung there after a brief stay, and their tour where they treat you like a prisoner was pretty entertaining.  They yell at you and act as if they are booking you.  You sit in a cell with the lights off, knock around a padded cell, and learn what hanging out in a jail cell was like for the drunks of Melbourne (as, apparently, a large number of their guests were just there for a night or two after some disorderly behavior caused by a little too much of the sauce).  The oldest section had some interesting exhibits on female prisoners, some of their real baddies, and, of course, lots of information about Ned Kelly.  The two coolest Ned Kelly related things at the Gaol was the awkward two-person play and the poster for the 1970 Ned Kelly movie starring Mick Jagger (we had no idea this film existed, but it is going straight to the top of our Netflix que when we get back).

The old Gaol was certainly one of our favorite things in Melbourne, but the Aussie rules game, and the excited and jet-lagged Kiwi we sat next to, really made our trip to Melbourne great.  And we were in the perfect city to learn about Aussie rules, as 10 of the 17 AFL teams are from Melbourne or one of its suburbs.  Although fans of the sport like to say it is the most popular game in the country, it really doesn't hold a candle to rugby (either league or union) in other areas of the country.  The Sydney Swans, we'd later discover, barely made it on to pub televisions when they played their second finals game a few days later.

We found Sydney a very different city from Melbourne in more ways than one, which is a story for our next post...

The End of an Area: Our Final Day in the Sticks Before the Big City

Before dropping off our beloved camper Apollo in Melbourne, we swung through some sweet suburbs outside of town.  We got snowed on, ate some tasty pub grub, tried some equally tasty beer at a local brewery, and had a picnic at Hanging Rock.

Picnic at Hanging Rock, for those who don't know, is a creepy film about some school girls that go missing during an outing in the early 1900s.  The film, directed by Peter Weir, is based on a book that may or (more likely) may not be based on actual events.  Annette can remember seeing the film with her mother and brother as well as telling her mom it wasn't scary just before becoming so freaked out that night that she couldn't sleep.  Jeff has never seen the film, so the rocks and the hike didn't hold the same allure.  The scenery was beautiful and even though the weather was fickle, raining on us one minute and sun the next.  At the summit of the rocks there was even some snow mixed with rain!  Our "picnic", which consisted of merely a carrot, was cut short by the weather, but Annette insisted we have a picnic at Hanging Rock!



We followed up our wet hang-time at Hanging Rock with some excellent pub grub at an old, local brewery.  The beer was as good as the food.  We found that it is hard to put a price on warming up with good, hearty food and equally good beer after a few hours in the cold and wet.  Our brewery lunch left us happy, but there is something to be said for a coffee and fresh baked goodies when it is nasty outside.  We soon found ourselves face to face with the best vanilla slice of the whole Oz trip, which was made even better by the blustery weather and the nice little buzz we acquired at lunch.  Indeed, our day outside Melbourne was a success all around -truly a fitting end to a wonderful road trip.

 

Driving the Southern Coast and the Great Ocean Road: Or, Water Vs. Rocks, Koalas Vs. Kangaroos, Small Towns, and J&A Vs. Tasty Small Town Treats

The Great Ocean Road is probably Australia's most infamous stretch of highway.  It isn't very long, but the dramatic coastline is often breathtaking.  The GOR is a true testament to the power of water over time.  A magnificent feature called the Twelve Apostles (now beaten down to either six or eight, depending on the guide book you consult) is the most famous along the popular drive.  There is also a feature called the London Bridge (now also called the London Arch), which, in a fitting twist of fate, actually fell down.  The bit that connected the bridge to land toppled several years ago, leaving a group of tourists stranded for a few hours. 

 

 

As with all of the soft limestone cliffs along the Great Ocean Road, the water is largely winning the battle against formations like the apostles and the bridge.  These rock formations were certainly awesome, but we found this famous stretch of coast most impressive when we just stood back to watch and listen to the ocean batter the sheer cliff faces of worn rock.  There was one area in particular, The Grotto, that we stayed at for at least 45 minutes.  We marveled at the power of the waves as they filled holes and crashed up and over imposing shards of rock.  At another we watched a seal colony with pups from time to time, but were always brought back to the sounds and force of the clash between the ocean and the coast.

Although the coast held its marvels, Annette's favorite part of driving the Southern Coast was most definitely Cape Otway.  The cape is known for its historic and tall lighthouse at the end of the road.  But we didn't pay the outrageous fee to go up it.  Instead, the highlight was the drive out there.  First we saw one koala high up in the eucalyptus trees.  Then we saw another.  Pretty soon we were seeing five or six or seven every time we looked up.  The only way our koala experience could have been better would be if one of the koalas actually fell out of a tree and landed in Annette's arms.  We saw big ones, small ones, and even a baby.  There was one point where we found a koala so low in a tree that Annette could have taken a few steps off the road and touched it.

Cape Otway will always be known to us as THE koala wonderland, but we also had our most amazing kangaroo experience there too.  We were driving in light rain, chatting about the amazing amount of koalas (we lost track of the numbers early on), when we rounded a corner to find a kangaroo hopping down the road.  We followed it for a good 45 seconds, driving slowly.  Several times the roo bounded toward the woods like it was going to make the right decision and get out of the road.  But then, each time, it would bound back toward the middle and just keep bouncing down the windy two-lane road.  Just when we thought it couldn't get any better, a second roo came leaping out in-front of us, joining the first in the dangerous and delightful act of bouncing down the road in front of our car.  The two hopped in unison for a few moments, then both broke left into the trees and brush.  The whole thing was amazing, and we were grateful for the chance to see Australia's favorite marsupial up close, doing its thing!

Robe

Robe, again

The third best part of our Southern Coast and Great Ocean Road drive, after the scenery and animals (we also saw many emus, with and without chicks), were the small towns.  More specifically, the delicious food made for us in the small towns we passed through.  Jeff's favorite small town was Robe, which provided free internet, a host of awesome old buildings, an obelisk perched on a striking cliff, a delicious lunch, and two delightful slices (they later became our dinner - who said we're grown ups?).  Another small town surprised us with some of the best homemade ice cream either of us have had in a long, long time.  We passed on the shitake mushroom and fig and prosciutto flavors in favor of the safer, and delicious, chocolate-honeycomb and cookies and cream.  The sun was out and the ice cream was made even more enjoyable by combining it with a stroll on the beach.  We cooked up some delicious food in our Apollo camper van, but the small towns (especially Robe) gave us awesome taste sensation after awesome taste sensation.

Even more Robe

The fourth most excellent thing about our Southern Coast drive was learning about the Shipwreck Coast, a particularly hazardous stretch that decimated ship after ship.  The most famous shipwreck had a hero story that we saw repeated (with mostly the same details) in every museum and information center we visited.  A young mate named Tom on the Loch Ard saved an upper class woman named Eva after the vessel had sunk.  They were the only two survivors.  Tom had washed ashore and drank nearly a bottle of whiskey (from a case that washed up with him) when he heard Eva calling from the sea.  He then swam for over an hour and retrieved her, bringing her back to the beach and keeping her warm with whiskey.  He then climbed up the steep cliffs for help in the morning and both were rescued.  The media wanted to add a love story, but Eva went back to Ireland and nothing sexy ever developed.  The story of Tom and Eva is just one of many (Jeff's personal favorite being the one where case after case of whiskey washed ashore in one town and an old, dying man was brought down and had whiskey poured over him).  The stubborn manner in which people kept coming to Australia was almost as impressive to us as the huge number of wrecked vessels, lost investments, and human casualties.  The Flagstaff Hill Maritime museum was a fascinating blend of history, kitsch, and entertainment.  They had some beautiful displays and the most in-depth retelling of the Loch Ard story, but the recreated  village, complete with costumed actors, may have been the highlight.  It was as entertaining as it was cheesy, which is a difficult line to walk successfully!

Our second road trip ended in Melbourne just a day after our ice cream beach walk, and we found ourselves missing the open road pretty quickly.  We've found that there really is no substitute when traveling for the mobility and ease of a good camper van.  Some days we made amazing meals from scratch, and others we just ate pastries from some astounding small town bakery for dinner.  But every day along the Southern Coast and Great Ocean Road, superb food day or no, held some moments of wonder and amusement!

Notes 
Annette saw her first ever sinkhole along our Southern Coast road trip.  This hole was more like some fancy sink garden.  It has been maintained as a sight for something like 100 years .  It is an interesting geologic oddity on its own, but the maintenance and landscaping of this sinkhole make it probably the most attractive in the world. (We have no evidence to back this last claim up, but how many manicured sinkholes can there be?)





There is great article about the trip from Adelaide to Melbourne here.  Well worth the read and 95% of the reason why we took the second road trip!

Adelaide Hills: No, Not those Hills...But Close

Spencer Pratt and LC were no where to be found, but the Adelaide Hills are certainly the playground for many wealthy Aussies who want to eat fancy food and drink trendy wine.  We don't remember seeing any crystal shops, but we do remember being enchanted by the old German settlement of Hahndorf and blowing a huge wad on one hell of a lunch in an old mill turned fancy-pants winery/restaurant.  Hahndorf, and other small surrounding towns, had, as you might expect, a glutton of tasty bakeries.  Caramel slices, vanilla slices, danishes, and everything in between were enjoyed in vast quantities.  Wine, good food, and money to spend also attract things like boutique shops, fancy-shmancy artisan cheese, and handmade chocolates.  A tremendous chocolate shop/bakery served us the best drinking chocolate and the best caramel slice we'd ever had, making our sit there one of our best sweet treat breaks of the trip, and Woodside Cheese Wrights in Woodside made Annette a believer in all things goat cheese.

We tried a few wines we liked, though we struggled to find credence to some of the more snooty claims made on the tasting sheets.  While we learned a thing or two about wine, we mainly discovered that we are happy to be casual wine drinkers, as opposed to the type of people who comfortably discuss oaky notes and types of grass near the vineyard.  We know when we like a wine or when we don't.  And we know when a wine does something unusual and new and exciting to our tongues.  But beyond that we really can't justify pretending to taste things that no human could taste, or putting our pinky fingers in the air while decrying any bottle below $75.  (Actually, just the opposite happened a few days later when we tried a $13 bottle of wine--that's cheap in Australia--from a small wine maker from the Coonwrara region and loved it.)

The Adelaide Hills also taught us that while it is always fun to peak into the lives of the wealthy and bored, the best things in life, while not always free, are not always the most expensive either.  A small German style bakery in the quaint town of Lobethal (aptly named the Lobethal Bakery) provided us with some of the tastiest treats we'd had in a long while, but charged very little compared to most of the rest of Australia (have we mentioned how expensive the country is yet??).  Half a dozen cute towns, one amazing lunch, several wineries, the better part of two days, and half a tank of gas later, we drove down out of The Hills in search of more food and small town adventures along the Southern coast of OZ and the infamous Great Ocean Road, where food would take a backseat to impressive scenery and wildlife!

 Notes:

We did do a few things in the Adelaide Hills that weren't gastro-related...

Our quick stop at a wooden toy workshop brought back childhood memories of some of our favorite toys, like wooden ducks and penguins on sticks that you can push around to make their feet flap against the floor and wooden trains and trucks.  The workshop/toy store also had one of the more tasteful giant roadside attractions that we saw in Oz.

Another joy was the National Motor Museum in a small town called Birdwood.  The museum could have been a sterile homage to the automobile, interesting only to auto enthusiasts.  Instead, it provided thoughtful exhibitions and displays on everything from humans-and-their-trusty-auto stories to the future of the automobile in a world negatively affected by gas burning vehicles.  The museum had an extensive old and current car collection, with some really beautiful machines.  But the most interesting parts were the stories of how cars and the people that drove them helped shape living in the Outback.  An awesome set of lamb burgers cooked on the museum's outdoor BBQ put an emphatic exclamation point on the end of our time in The Hills, and the focus back on food!