Down Under Trip by the numbers

Yesterday, I played the last round of my dream trip at the historic Kingston Heath GC in Melbourne. Hoping I was saving the best for last, I have no doubt that I did just that. All together I experienced 21 courses from 2/7-3/5, photographing all but one. All except two were seaside courses with 14 being considered True Links plus 6 that would be on most peoples Top 100 list. After playing 1000 courses, my real passion is Links courses which I am now at 76 of the nearly 250 in the world according to the book, True Links.

After landing in Sydney from the USA, I spent a couple of days sight seeing before I headed to Christchurch in the South Island of NZ for eight rounds. The scenery was spectacular from the Fjords to the shores of the west coast and back around through the vineyards of the NE to Christchurch. While I was there they had another earthquake of 5.4 magnitude. They have had over 5,000 shakes in the past 5 years. Next was the North Island arriving in Auckland to my only rainy day. Took in some great courses there with designs by MacKenzie, Russell, Doak, and Harmon. Flew back to Australia into Tasmania to play in Hobart and at Barnbougle, which is very reminiscent of Bandon Dunes Resort. Lastly, I had a few days left to fly back into Melbourne for my final three rounds.

The weather was great with only one wash out, which I was able to make up at Titirangi on my last day in Auckland. The first round in Dunedin, NZ was the coolest in the low 60's and the last round at Kingston Heath by far the warmest as it was 99 as I walked to my car. I got to see a great amount of New Zealand and a bit of Tasmania and Victoria states in Australia. I probably drove over 4,000 miles total in four different rental cars, stayed in 20 different hotels, and logged over 50 hours of flying time in 11 flight segments. All in all I probably traveled close to a total of 35,000 miles round trip. Complete photo tours of  20 courses/2500 photo's will begin around the middle of March with all hopefully posted by the 1st of May.