Down Under, another Summer Solstice

We touched down in Sydney, and immediately flew to Brisbane, which is directly north, but has a 1-hour time zone shift, because they did not adopt daylight savings time, and Sydney did.
We spent the next 3 weeks meandering our way down to Melbourne where we spent 10 nights before flying down to Auckland, where we are now.
Highlights of our travels in chronological and geographical order (North to South) :
Tambourine Mountain area:  Several parks and some lovely waterfalls.  Unfortunately, most of the streams that have rock pools for swimming had too little water to swim in, but the rain forests were beautiful  (80% of the original Australian rain forests vanished after Europeans arrived), and the Koala bears, cockatoos and other wildlife unique to Australia were very interesting.

Central Coast Area:
Especially enjoyed the laid back coastal towns of Port Macquarie, and Port Stephens / Nelson Bay areas.

Sydney:
It's surrounded by water.  This strikes you when visiting the Sydney Tower Eye.  We enjoyed the city life, restaurants, and parks, especially the Botanical Gardens, and various municipal ferry rides up the river.

Melbourne:
The highlight of our stay was a visit to Phillip Island, where we went to see the Penguin Parade, which occurs after sundown.   Click here for video.  We also got to watch pelicans being fed, and seals nursing their pups
(a boat ride out to an island with thousands of seals.) and playing in the water.
Spent Christmas in Melbourne.  then off to Auckland on Dec. 28.