Three views of Oz

By Daine Daniel, Globe Correspondent, 11/24/02

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Marianne and Gavin Hogan have both traveled extensively, so when the Whitman residents were given a week's time-share stay anywhere in the world as a wedding gift, they chose Australia. "It was the furthest-away place that neither of us had been," said Marianne, 31.

As a guidance counselor at Cardinal Spellman High School in Brockton, Marianne has summers off, and Gavin, 30, was able to get almost a month off this past July from his office job at a body shop in Braintree. They arranged visits to three distinct parts of the continent — city, country, and coast — with the time share in the middle.

First stop was Sydney, where they stayed near Hyde Park and wandered the many sections of the capital of New South Wales. "It was very walkable, clean, and pretty," said Marianne.

Several museum tours captivated them, one of Australian art at the Art Gallery of New South Wales and the other of local animals at the Taronga Zoo. They also learned about native plants and their aboriginal uses at the Royal Botanical Garden, went on a harbor cruise, and saw a local jazz competition at the famed Sydney Opera House.

"Within three days we both said we could live there," Marianne said.

Gavin, a native of Dublin, said Sydney reminded him of Ireland's capital. They caught a game of Australian Rules football and found it similar to Gaelic football.

When the Hogans told locals that their next stop was Mansfield, in the state of Victoria to the south, "people either didn't know it or wondered why we were going there," Marianne said. The couple's answer was that it was the only timeshare they were able to get in Australia that week.

The long drive there in the rental car was "beautiful," said Marianne. "It got hilly and there were black cows in the fields, and then it got mountainous. It was very rural and natural looking." But as the terrain grew more desolate, "we were getting a little worried," she said. "We didn't know where we were going or what would be there."

Mansfield turned out to be a charming ski town, though the time share, the Mansfield Country Resort, is 9 miles from Mansfield and surrounded by national parks, including the state's largest, Alpine National Park.

"We were in a little cottage," Marianne said. "And the night we pulled in, what was waiting for us but a family of kangaroos!" She said, there are so many kangaroos there that cars are equipped with large metal bumpers to protect them in case of accidents.

The couple spent much time "bush walking" or hiking. "Everything was dense and lush in high country," she said. They were thrilled to also see wallabies, echidnas, wombats, and cockatoos.

After driving back to Sydney, they flew north to the Great Barrier Reef area of Queensland for the final leg of their journey. They stayed in Cairns and spent one day snorkeling off Green Island at the Great Barrier Reef and another on a 4-mile gondola ride over the rainforest canopy of Kuranda.

Another highlight was when they rented a convertible and headed north to Cape Tribulation National Park and Great Barrier Reef Marine Park.

"We're driving along the Captain Cook Highway to this area and we turned a corner, and boom — it was tropical paradise," Marianne said. "We had no idea it was going to be like this. We also didn't know how stunning the views would be on the way there. It was breathtaking."

Their "trip of a lifetime" ended, thanks to a missed flight, with an unexpected day in Auckland, New Zealand. As energetic travelers, the Hogans made the most of it.

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