Tourist Activities and Bookings

Halls Gap is a small tourist town in the middle of the Grampians, a mountain range in western Victoria. We spent 2 nights there at the start of April, staying in the Halls Gap Caravan Park in the middle of the town.

Halls Gap is about 300km from Kongorong. There were 3 car loads that went: Peter and Allison; Brett and the family in their car; and Wan and I in Brett's Jeep with Dad's new camper trailer on the back. Its a nice setup, taking about 20 minutes to put up and includes queen mattress on the trailer, plus floor space for about two more, as well as a large annex.

The caravan park wasn't too busy, with most people staying in cabins and caravans. We had the open camping ground to ourselves. In the early morning and late afternoon there were plenty of kangaroos around the park, coming up to our camper trailer. Peter and Ally slept outside in their swags, and had kangaroos almost walk over them.

On arrival, after setting up we had a walk around the park and town then settled down to some drinks and dinner. The next day we all made the trek to the Pinnacle, a lookout above Halls Gap. Before going home on Sunday, we all drove up to Stawell (home of the famous Stawell Gift) and visited a couple of wineries in Great Western.

Halls Gap, and the Grampians in general, are a great place to visit with many opportunities for bush walks, camping and mountain climbing. Check out the Photo Gallery for more pics.

On arrival to Australia, we had four nights in Adelaide, staying in the city at the Country Comfort Motel on South Terrace. Adelaide is a quiet city. Although the population is about 1 million, the centre of the city is small and everyone is quite laid back (to the extent that the city is almost dead on weeknights and Sundays).

Staying on South Terrace, within 5 minutes walk of King William Street is great because there is a free tram running from South Terrace to North Terrace during the day. Most shopping, cultural and entertainment venues are near North Terrace. Some of the things we did while in Adelaide included:

• Shopping (or at least window shopping) in Rundle Mall
• Visited the South Australian Museum (free entry)
• Wandered down North Terrace admiring the statues and old majestic buildings, and through Adelaide University to the River Torrens
• Lunch and shopping in the Central Market, which includes Chinatown and some good Asian grocers
• Tram to Glenelg Beach
• Coopers Pale and Sparkling Ales, as well as red wines at the Austral and Exeter on Rundle Street
• Dinner at the Red Ochre Restaurant (see me separate review), as well as at pubs and restaurants around Adelaide

On Friday we borrowed Brentons Pajero and drove up to Cleland Wildlife Park. Here is a great collection of Australian animals, most of which you can get close to and feed. We saw: kangaroos, koalas, Tasmanian devils, emus, echidnas, bandicoots, wallabies, wombats and all sorts of birds. There is also a snake farm. Well worth a visit if you are in Adelaide.

On Saturday morning Mum and Dad arrived in Adelaide and we all went up to Barossa Valley for some wine tasting. The first stop was Chateau Barossa, a new winery built by the guy who owned Chateau Yaldara. The wines were not special, but the highlight was the large rose garden outside. It was opened by the Queen Elizabeth II on here previous visit to Australia. Lunch was at a snack shop in Tanunda (Wan tried a Hamburger with the lot and was full after 1/3 of it). Then on to Jacob's Creek Winery which had some nice wines.

Back on Adelaide we had dinner at the Gilbert Hotel. It was great food and atmosphere until I noticed the last couple of mouthfuls of my chicken schnitzel was uncooked. Not sure how much of it was uncooked but luckily there were no side effects the next day.

On Sunday we made our way to Mum and Dad's home in Kongorong near Mt Gambier (about 450km south of Adelaide).

On Constitution Day (10 December), I drove Ahe, Ann, Maew and Philippe to Safari World in the outskirts of Bangkok. We spent the entire day there, most of which was walking around the zoo and viewing the shows held throughout the day. Towards the end we drove around the open-air zoo. I had been to Safari World before, but only had time to do the open-air zoo then.

Although its a long day, I really enjoyed Safari World and recommend others take a visit. Being a public holiday, it was quite busy, but you only really noticed that when the shows were on. The shows we saw were: Sea lions, Dolphins and Beluga Whales, Cowboys, and the Bird Show. There were a couple that we missed as well. All the shows were entertaining and appeared very professional. In between the shows we wandered around looking at the large selection of animals.

Entry was a bit steep (420 Baht) but given the selection of shows, animals and the whole place was well-run, it was ok for a day of entertainment.

Photo Gallery

My friend Brenton is visiting Thailand again, this time with a group of his friends from Japan. For the first few days of his trip he made plans to go to several tourist attractions in the provinces of Khorat (นครราชสีมา) and Buriram (บุรีรัมย์). Once I knew Brenton would be travelling alone for these three days, I decided to keep him company. This is an overview of our trip, starting Friday 21 December 2007 and ending on Monday 24 December.

After some corn flakes and bananas for breakfast (the first time I've eaten cereal for almost 1 year), Mum, Dad and I headed into the big smoke - Bangkok.

Official tourism website for Canada. Can find maps and lots of info on things to do in each of the states.