From Brisbane to Warrnambool, a day of travel – Tuesday 30 June 2009

We are EXTREMELY excited to announce that we have arrived at a location that has HIGH SPEED internet!!! And finally finally!! we can upload some of our photos -- so...scroll back as far as Cairns to check everything out. We've put up some photos and several albums - enjoy!

So today was definitely a travel day. We woke up early, showered, repacked, and headed to the airport. Returned the car, made it through security, enjoyed another airport breakfast, and then hopped on our flight from Brisbane to Melbourne. The other Melbourne is a very windy and blustery city so far - as we discovered in the last forty-five minutes of our flight. But we got here okay, rented another Yaris and were headed for Warrnambool! It was a good 3 to 4 hour drive through rolling countryside - we counted lots of cows, survived a solid rain storm, and saw a few delicious looking vineyards along the way.

We have safely reached Warrnambool and are very pleasantly surprised at how welcoming and "warm and fuzzy feeling" of a town it is -- some of the towns we passed through seemed cold, distant, and falling apart. This one seems vibrant, even if a little rough around the edges. This one has some of the strongest and most varied downtown areas we've seen.

Tomorrow we are hoping to see some Southern Right Whales and get some beautiful views from the Great Ocean Road and maybe a hike in at Port Campbell National Park. We're hopping each day now, but it should keep us very busy the last few days.

Happy early fourth if we don't get to post to anyone between now and then!

Cheers!

An Awesome Day at the Australia Zoo – Monday 29 June 2009

Click below to check out pictures from our day at the Australia Zoo!

Australia Zoo

This was by far one of our most anticipated - and in actuality, one of our favorite days of the trip! We really tip our hats to the efforts and opportunities of the Australia Zoo!!!

Okay, so today was an awesome one!!! I have a lot of raving to do! First of all, the Australia Zoo may not have the largest variety of animals in it, but it has by far the most phenomenal enclosures, the most loving animal keepers, the most interactive exhibits, and the healthiest, liveliest looking animals – we LOVED it and had a truly wonderful time!

We arrived early and were sent directly to the information desk to finish our paperwork for our tiger photo shoot and organized our day with the office. We spent the next hour checking our amazingly happy, healthy looking wombats – who really are like furry pigs crossed with guinea pigs…or something… they had huge, expansive enclosures. We checked out the snakes – with captions that read just like Steve Irwin would have said them. And we visited the aviary that had just fed the birds – so they were all crowded round, front and center. We visited some of the crocs and read the different stories of how Steve caught them or saved them in various situations and then we headed back to information for….!!! Our tiger shoot!!!

So! We were met by a photographer who took us by golf cart through all the “personnel only” gates and brought us back to the Tiger Temple – where we waited in the wings for Singha – a five year old female adult Sumatran tiger. They briefed us on how to approach her and what to do and then sent me in to pet her and start taking pictures. Singha did not really agree with what was going on and was very restless, so the keepers would try to occupy her as you slid into the shot, make sure she was calm, the keepers would back out for a millisecond while they clicked and clicked pictures and then keepers would dive back in with grass to bribe her if she moved. Daniel and I each managed to get a quick quick individual shot, but a shot of us together was not happening, we kept having to stand up and move back. You would think we might be annoyed – but really it was awesome – it showed how tremendously respectful the keepers and the zoo is of her “wildness” and her potential power that they were so careful and that it didn’t go “as clockwork” to me, proved the naturalness of all of it…

So they decided to switch gears and bring out a different tiger – so really, we got to pet two! Bashii was a two year old male who was a cub of three who had been brought to the zoo from Indonesia – and was the first set of cubs to be sent out of the region in about 30 years. He was must calmer and more docile. They said that in general female tigers are much more energetic and restless, but that Bashii is very chill. So, we moved in for our couple shot and got to spend a good bit more time petting him and taking pictures – they even gently lifted up his tail and had us feel that too. It was really cool. And the entire time, the other two cubs were moaning and yelling….as if “why don’t we get whatever our brother’s getting too?!?” very jealously.

So, after the tiger shoot we headed into the Crocoseum for the show – since it was a local school holiday, Terri, Bindi, Robert and Wes performed the show!! It was pretty neat! They were working with a croc named Monty and things didn't go entirely as planned – the croc moved extra fast and wasn't very cooperative, so it was really fun to watch them “make it work” and roll with it – very fun! According to Terri “Unky Wes” even taught the kids some new words (when he cursed) – quite funny! After some tense moments with Monty they ended the show with clear messages against croc farming and buying croc products because most of them are derived from inhumane croc farm processes, etc.

The whole first half of the day I continually found myself a bit choked up – and Daniel yet leaning in and saying “this is really sad” – it’s still very devastating that Steve Irwin died and so heartbreaking – although his family and crew are doing a phenomenal job preserving his legacy and using it to continue the zoo’s message and direction.

After a quick lunch in a nicely varied food court that overlooked some of the croc enclosures, we met up with the photographer for the red panda shoot and were again whisked away for another amazing encounter. The red pandas were absolutely awesome! Even Daniel keeps saying…they really were pretty darn cute… The encounter has only existed for a few weeks so the fellas are still being trained. The goal is to feed them by hand, not from the bowl, and to keep them separated while they eat (if the were trying to get food from the same person they started getting feisty and might fight each other…which somehow I ended up in the middle of toward the end!). We were allowed to pet them, coax them into our laps, etc!

So, we entered the enclosure, and I sat on a bench along with a teenage girl doing the encounter and Daniel volunteered to sit on the ground. We were each handed a bowl full of fruit pieces – pears, apples, bananas, carrots, sweet potatoes, grapes, etc. and were told to feed them. Yoda went to Daniel instantly and was very friendly with him and Pasang eventually made his way to the other girl and started working with her. Once Daniel ran out of apples, Yoda made his way to me and I managed to scoot over and try to get him to jump up on the edge of the bench and then walk into my lap (their claws are really sharp, so if they use your legs to jump up it’s bad). All the while we got to pet them, feed them, look at their cute faces, and turn when the photographer asked so we could get some good pictures. It was really awesome! I had a few tense moments – Yoda lunged for the bowl at one point and I had to pry him out of it and as Pasang finished the particular fruits he liked out of the other girl’s bowl I found myself with two red pandas in my lap lounging from my hands and the bowl I was holding, but it was a lot of fun – they’re adorable critters and have really cute, expressive faces! They’re soft but also have thick, slightly bristly fur. The whole thing was really cool – it was something I had persuaded Daniel into at the last minute and he had caved and whenever it’s come up since he’s agreed that he’s really glad we did it! : )

We spent the rest of our afternoon feeding the ridiculously afternoon siesta lazy kangaroos and wallabies who at that point were pretty well fed and in mood for a nap. We patted another koala in the open koala walkabout space – and actually saw a koala drop down from a limb, walk across the sidewalk and hop into a different tree!, I discovered the Cassowaries are intrigued when you make a clicking noise and come out for photos, we saw the tiger play show in the Tiger Temple and watched the trainers play with the tigers as you would play with a kitty and yarn – only these guys jumped six or seven feet in the air to go after the milk cartons taped to sticks or dove across the pool to catch the plastic baggy stick toys, and we watched the trainers feed the adorable Southeastern Asian Otters who baaed and yelled for their every nip of food and eat up to eight times a day.

It was really a wonderful day – we loved how open the exhibits were, how healthy and happy the animals seemed, and the overall message of the zoo. It was just an awesome and inspiring day! Kudos to the Australia Zoo and the wonderful Irwin Family! : )

A day of travel – Daintree to Brisbane – Sunday 28 June 2009

Sunday was mainly spent in transit, so not much to mention. We woke up before sunrise to shower and finish up our suitcases and headed off to the airport. We drove from Daintree to Cairns (just under 2 hours) and then returned our car at the airport. Enjoyed a leisurely breakfast, checked out the shops, and were delighted to discover we had exit row seats. We arrived in Brisbane early, got our luggage, were upgraded when we went to the rental car counter, got fairly miserably lost in Brisbane which is a hellish city to try to navigate, and then checked into our hotel – the Ibis in downtown Brisbane.

We spent the afternoon hunting down a lunch restaurant, walking the botanical gardens, and finally, finally, guiltlessly crashing. We knew we’d be busy at the Australia Zoo and then need to be ready to go to fly to Melbourne the next day, so we crashed early and called it a day and fell asleep ready to pet a tiger!

Mossman Gorge and Port Douglas – Saturday 27 June 2009

Because of Blogspot limitations, pictures from this day can be found in the "Daintree" album in the previous entry!

After conquering the rainforest and spotting fig trees on Friday, we decided to head after different pursuits and headed south on Saturday morning, down towards Mossman Gorge. Now, before I forget, I need to mention that our breakfasts at the not-so-loved bed and breakfast were actually phenomenal – really the best part of our stay – and came with a really awesome fruit tray full of passion fruit, black sapote, papaya, some usuals, and several others that I am not actually sure of the name for…but it was delicious and accompanied by mango juice, homemade breads and jams and yogurts, and great musli…and then just as you started to feel full they asked you what you wanted for your hot breakfast – it was like first and second breaky on the boat, but combined!

Okay, enough about food. So we headed down to Mossman Gorge to hike through some more rainforest and check out its famous boulder laden river, which was admittedly quite beautiful. We got to drive through a genuine Aboriginal village and visited their arts shop – nice stuff. And then we were off to Port Douglas – we would have stayed in Mossman longer, but as we new ahead, alas, the extension bridge and 2 mile hike was closed, so there wasn’t much reason to stay. So onto Port Douglas, which we discovered was full of nice shops, lots of Aboriginal art galleries, and real restaurants. So we enjoyed lunch and a few hours of touristy shopping and then drove to the lookout point where we took some beautiful pictures from the PD Lookout.

By the time we left Port Douglas we were hot and sticky. I know it’s over 100 back home, but we are here in Australia’s winter and it was in the mid 80s with high humidity. Really? So I turned to Daniel and suggested we take advantage of the swimming areas in Mossman’s Gorge and he thought a split second and decided that was perfect. So, we drove back to Mossman’s Gorge on the way home and swam for about an hour in chilly mountain water, playing with the small mini rapids, hiking on the boulders, fighting the current, and just enjoying the scenary – a nice way to rap up our day.

After that we headed back to the B&B to crash. We were pretty tired between diving, our day of trails and Cape Trib and we were just really starting to feel it. So we headed back, cashed in the promotional bottle of wine they owed us, and met another American couple – from Boulder, CO. We got along really well and decided to do dinner together – only we soon discovered the nearest restaurant that had available tables was….back in Mossman – a good 30 or 40 kilometers back up the road. So, back we went. We enjoyed a fairly good dinner in their one and a half block main street strip and then headed back. They too had gone diving the previous week and had been traveling around Australia, so we had lots to talk about – and both the guys were programmers/engineers so everyone got along really well.

All in all a good day. We got back to our rooms to find a handwritten note on our beds reminding us to tread lightly because the woman downstairs wasn’t feeling well. And we sighed and went to bed, not in love with the bed and breakfast…

And then…. An interesting sequence of events - Friday 26 June 2009

If you click on the picture below - you will see our photos from Daintree, Cape Tribulation, Mossman Gorge, and Port Douglas

Daintree

Okay, so today was an odd one… we had a lot of fun, but there were a lot of different little things that happened that made the whole day unfold the way it did…

First – we woke up around six or so again and met a woman named Ellen on the side of the road – at a specific unmarked spot as instructed by our hostess…Ellen led us through the woods to Dan Irby – the man who runs the mangrove river tour – and we were the only two. So, we set off on a wonderfully tranquil, beautiful tour of the misty, sleepy, Daintree River and Barrack Creek in search of birds and crocodiles. Dan and Ellen know their stuff and were experts on the river – we learned a ton about the birds, trees, ferns, vines, canes, and river systems and just as the mist lifted and then sun came out we spotted to crocs just as it was time to go in – it was a neat trip. We realized how much we had learned later in the day as we were pointing out different birds and plants to each other.

And then, we came back to Red Mill, had an excellent home cooked breakfast, did our laundry, enjoyed an hour or so of internet time, and then took on the task of hanging our clothes up to dry on the lines in the yard. We discovered that I have a bit more experience with this than Daniel.

And then, we set out for a walk/hike recommended by our host and hostess that was supposed to end with a swimming hole. This was where we distinctly changed our plans. We essentially drove into someone’s yard and after we persuaded the cows to move out of the middle of the road, managed to park our car in the middle of a cow pasture. Then, after finally finding the poorly marked signs, and hiking up and down some serious hills in direct tropical sun, we found the trail. While we thought would be a beautiful narrow path through a rain forest. No. It was a car blazed trail through someone’s property…that sometimes had shade from trees and then other times cut through more cow pasture. We walked for about fifteen minutes and stopped dead in our tracks when we saw that a significant part of the walk was a valley through a cow pasture (full of cows and their patties) in full sun…
We were walking through someone’s yard and had been asked to pay to do so. It wasn’t a rainforest. It was a hot, smelly pasture. It wasn’t at all what we were expecting and at that moment we said forget it.

So then, we decided to wing it and drive to Cape Tribulation, we were planning on going on Saturday and planning the day out ahead, but eh! who cares - onward!

So then, we had to pay to take the ferry across the Daintree River. The road ends. You either take the ferry or turn around. The ferry is a chunk of concrete with a pully system connected to a cable strung across the river. Sixteen cars can fit on the ferry. Then the chunk of concrete is pulled across the river. We were asked to stay in our cars.

And then, we decided to do the Daintree Discovery Center and to see us some real rainforest. Forget the cow pastures. So, we bargained student discount and then spent a while walking the aerial walkway, climbing the tower that overlooks the whole rainforest, and then hiking through the covered walks. We enjoyed it – it was scenic and pretty and much more of what we had hoped for…and while we were in the “exploration center” or something, we found another, better map of the area…

So then, we decided to go to a free walking trail…

But then, we saw a café that was right on the beach and we realized it was 3 and past lunch…so we had lunch and a great beer as we looked at Thorton beach – which was beautiful…great brilliant blues with a little chunky island just off the water.
We also admired the jellyfish sting station they had with a big jug of vinegar there for public use if stung…

And then, we headed to Marrdja Boardwalk which was a mix of both mangroves and rainforest – and crossed over Noah Creek. Very pretty.

And then, we decided to drive further north to the info center – to find out when the ferry closed and what else there was to do in the area

So then, we headed up to Emmagen Creek, the most northern point you can go before absolutely having to have a 4WD vehicle – and they’re not kidding. After that point you have to actually drive through Emmagen creek and several feet of water. Seriously.

And then, this trail led out to a really cool beach with tons of rocks and lots and lots of washed up coral pieces all bleached out from the sun….

But then, I remembered to leave the coral on the beach, because if customs catches you with a piece of the reef it’s a $10,000 fine on the spot.

So then, just as we were leaving the trail we spotted an awesomely huge strangler fig and got a stranger from Victoria to take a picture with us at its base.

And then we decided to start working our way home. Now food is hard to find. We drove for at least an hour on very windy, bumpy, twisty, rocky roads and only saw one “grocery store” that was the size of one of the US’s gas station convenience stores. So we were looking for a restaurant. We pulled into one and passed. We pulled into another one and chickens and roosters came up to our car to greet us, but the sign said it was closed for the night, and then finally just before the ferry, we passed a sign saying “Family Night BBQ”

So then, we decided to try it out – and we felt really bad because they had an awesome BBQ set up with a ton of food and the whole hour and a half we were there they sold five plates. Two of which were the ones we purchased. But Daniel enjoyed some kind of fresh reef fish and I had a delicious Aussie Porter House steak – all with salad and potato casserole and other good yummy home cooked food.
And then, we finally headed home. Caught the ferry back – which was really odd to do in the dark. Almost hit a rat, frog, and bat while driving home, and safely made it back to our B&B.

So now…we are off to bed – we’re beat. We hiked quite a few trails and stopped in quite a few places. Lots of spontaneous decisions, but sometimes those are the best kind! So now we’re just trying to work out the details for tomorrow so we can have another great one. We’ve decided to take our host and hostesses recommendations with a grain of salt – but are having fun covertly planning tomorrow. We enjoyed some of their recommendations, but were beginning to feel like they were sending us to all of their friends and like Daintree Village is a tourist trap where they all send their guests to each other…

So now – good night! We’re caught up for now! We really would love to post pictures but cannot – Aussie internet speeds are very slow and many have a 2 gig monthly cap, so you can’t use it all up posting a few pictures. We’ve actually learned that Daintree Village uses a satellite internet connection from the Aussie government that is somehow connected with the king of Thailand… interesting…

A Myriad of Transports – from Spirit of Freedom to Daintree – Thursday 25 June 2009

Yes, this really was the airport!
And our tiny 13 passenger plane - Suburban size anyone?




View from the window!!!



Snuggling a Koala!!!!


Thursday was a day when we traveled many kilometers to make our way from the Spirit of Freedom boat and make our way to Daintree…and somehow we managed to take quite a few modes of transportation, so, it seemed fitting to divide up our day –

Part I – The live-aboard dive boat

Six am came early and we woke up, quickly packed our bags, and had our last breaky aboard the SOF. The boat slowly tutted into close range of Lizard Island as we watched the sunrise and continued to enjoy the last while with our new friends.

Part II – The tenders

To reach the airport on Lizard Island was a multi-step process – that included ourselves and all of our possessions to be loaded into tenders – little tiny inflated dingies that have a tiny motor on the back and being motored to the shoreline. We nervously and very cautiously entered the tenders with our cameras and backpack that contained both of our laptops and all of our other electronic equipment and hoped for the best. The tenders couldn’t quite reach the sand, so we had to take our sneakers off, climb out into the water, and walk to the shoreline with our technology tightly hugged as we headed for land. As for our suitcase, the crew transported our other stuff while we were walking the island and it was waiting at the “airport” later on…

Part III – We literally walked to the “airport”

It was nice to step onto a beach and to be on solid land. And we, along with the rest of the passengers on the SOF went on a “walkabout” around the island. We walked down the beaches and then through the mangroves, up a mountain/hill where there was a beautiful overlook of the reef, and then down to the shoreline on the other side again where we waited for a crew member from the main boat to arrive and escort those of us who were heading home to the airport.

Lizard Island has a very ritzy resort on it – I was told the rooms are upwards of 800 bucks a night…we actually passed Greg Norman and another famous golfer as we were hiking and were told many celebrities frequent the resort.

So a crew member arrived and we literally walked to the airport, Daniel carrying our “technology backpack” and myself carrying our camera and purse full of passports, dive cards, etc., that we had actually carried up and over a huge hill/peak to actually reach the airport. The airport itself was a moderate sized gazebo with four chairs and two benches. I’m not kidding. We have pictures of us waiting at the “airport”. I think the runway for the plane was no longer than 400 meters.

Part IV – The 12 passenger plane

The pilot arrived with his twelve passenger plane and we had to give him our weight in kilos and take a life vest to wear around our waist in case the single engine plane went down. We walked to the plane and discovered the inside was comparable to the inside of a suburban. Not kidding. At all. And as we took off the pilot reminded us we would be flying 700 feet or so above the reef, since we couldn’t fly any higher and risk getting the bends (it hadn’t been 24 hours since any of us had been diving yet).

To be perfectly honest, I thought the flight was AWESOME! I loved the view and was glued to the window with my camera for the entire hour and ten minute span. It was just beautiful!!! However…we both looked at each other and agreed that it would be incredibly easy to completely freak out if you let yourself... I will admit that when I got third pick at the seats I picked the one closest to the exit.

Part V – SOF transport crew

We were greeted at the airport by SOF crew who were ready to take us to our car rental place with both our boat luggage and stored bag. There was a slight misunderstanding at first about which car rental place we needed, so we drove through all of main Cairns, and then, ended up at the other airport terminal.

Part VI – We rented a car…that came with a steering wheel on the right side of the car…

We rented a car at the airport – a cute, red, Toyota Yaris that Daniel was relieved to discover was an automatic – (he was afraid it was going to be a manual that required him to not just drive on the opposite side of the road, but to shift with his left hand too…) and then our journey had three additional parts…

Part VI – sub a. We drove back to Cairns. Again.

We headed back into the main city, yet again. This time we were returning our underwater camera and trying to give them enough time to make us a DVD of our photos. We had been backing them up all along, but it’s a free service… so we hit the atm again, grabbed lunch, got two ice creams at McDonalds to use the wifi and let everyone know we had safely made it off the boat, and then picked up our DVDs…it all took much longer than one would think, so by the time we finally left we were good and ready to get on the road…

Part VI – sub b: We swung through Karanda…

So we decided to try to visit Karanda’s Koala Gardens…there are only a few places in Australia in which you can legally hold and pet koalas…and Karanda is one of them. Most states in Australia ban it – but Queensland allows it…we could actually do it in Brisbane the Sunday afternoon we have free - at Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary, but there’s a huge wine festival that afternoon that allows you to taste wines from all over Australia, and we were hoping to get to take advantage of that. Consequently we also discovered Karanda’s a cool place to look at the rainforest, but we didn’t have enough time to do any of that before it closed.

Anyway, we decided to take an hour or so detour to Karanda to try to snuggle with a Koala – one of the huge must do’s on Beth’s list!!! The road leading up to Karanda Village was ridiculous and put Daniel’s driving-on-the-opposite-side-of-the-road-skills to a test immediately. I can best compare the roads to the ones up in Pisgah national forest…and these were extremely windy for much much longer – 13+ kilometers of snakey roads at 50, 60 and 80 kmph. Ridiculous.

We safely made it. Somehow. And!!! I got to hold a beautifully soft and fuzzy koala named Sienna! Her fur was thick and slightly bristly, but still very soft. She was pretty heavy and solid for her size too – but very sweet – so fun! We also got to handfeed some kangaroos and wallabies and got a great look at a big, fat wombat who was chowing down on his meal…and really looked like a guinea pig crossed with…well, a pig…

Aw, yay for the Koala snuggle!!

Part VI – sub c: Alas, we weren’t there yet – onto Daintree

The drive to Daintree wasn’t a bad one – pretty views of the water but still tight, narrow, winding roads. We drove for just over an hour and a half before arriving at our hotel – an eco-lodge in Daintree Village. We were greeted by the very amicable owners and quickly set out for dinner across the street and then settled in.
So, after six forms of transport we managed to make it up to the Daintree area. We’ve seen a mix of tropical vegetation and extremely lumpy green farmland along the way…and very odd looking white cows that seem to have an extra hump in their shoulders. Tomorrow we hope to see the rainforest and enjoy a river tour!

Our 3rd Wedding Anniversary – and how we nearly got lost at sea... -- Wednesday 24 June 2009

Enjoying the sunset on our third wedding anniversary


The reef was thiiiis big actually...that's just a small fraction of it


On the tender getting ready to head in for our last dive of the trip


Very cute and distinctive yellow box fish


A big thumbs up from me as we descend down on a dive


These are some nice reef shots



Happy Birthday Mom! :-) (Although I know by now it's belated)

As we relax on the boat and wait for lunch, I can reflect on Dive 1 and 2 of the day.

Dive 1 – Wonderland Wall

Was a decent dive – beautiful walls of coral, but not a lot of exciting fishie spotting.

Dive 2 – Wonderland Garden

Well, this dive was supposed to be promising – we were supposed to be able to see a bunch of cuttle fish, but things did not quite go as planned. We descended pretty quick, keeping an eye on the rope that was moored at the wall of the reef that we wanted to dive around, but then we made a wrong turn. We think we went down to deep and found a smaller wall groove that went out diagonally…and then the .5 strength current picked up pulling us in the wrong direction and was much deeper than were were told we’d be going… so… all of a sudden we realized we were not looking at much…and we were at 27 or 28 meters down…and way the hell off course. That’s when you have that moment when you look at each other with raised eye brows and make the conscious decision whether or not to panic. We chose not to, but it doesn’t mean that you don’t have a moment where you look to the top (and visibility wasn’t nearly as good so it’s hard to see the surface) and think…oh crap.

So, we came up a little faster than we should have, we did some of a safety stop, but not a long one, and popped up at the surface to figure out where on earth we were in relation to the boat. We were pretty darn far from the boat and the current was pretty strong, so we switched to snorkel, inflated our BC’s, held hands, and started kicking hard. We took a while to get back towards the boat, pretty strenuous swimming, but, we made it back to the line and decided to give it a go, descended once more, hoping and hoping we might see some cuttle fish…but no such luck. We swam around for about ten minutes and then headed up. The current was still quite strong – when we tried to swim up beside the rope it was only possible to swim up while holding the rope to guide us up. We climbed back on board – signed off on the dive profile, that yes we had gone deeper on our second dive than on our first, and then headed off to our room for a nice hot salt-free shower – and to let our adrenaline stop pumping quite as much.

We both love diving and 99% of the time it’s pretty effortless for us, very enjoyable and relaxing, exciting, and we usually don’t have problems…but that 1% of the time when something goes wrong – you realize that you do have training and you fall back on the trained instincts and “diving laws” you’ve been taught – which is why we could easily communicate and decide to go to the surface, etc.

So, for the first half of our anniversary we were tested – could we think through a semi-emergent issue together? Absolutely! We came through with flying colors – the day we got married I gave Daniel a card with a picture of about fifty different road signs on the front with a message inside that more or less said “where ever we go, let’s go it together” -- and I have to say even when we were fighting the current, trying to avoid using a safety sausage and calling for a pickup, it felt really good take a deep breath and to grab each other by the hand and kick like hell together…

Dive 3 – Rod’s Rock –

So this was a much better dive – although we (along with a whole pack of other divers) almost got lost again. In the process of finding our way to the bominies I spotted two beautiful bright yellow and blue nudibrancs and we all saw a pack of black tipped sharks. Then as we found our way we had a few other neat discoveries – along with several more families of clown fish in sea anemone villages, we also saw a black feather star swimming through the water – which Daniel caught on video, I spied a lion fish hanging out upside down under a coral ledge, and on the way back we saw the captain playing with a sea snake. (Which I managed to touch the tip of his tail, leaving me feeling very daring)… Then I spotted a map puffer fish and we saw two sea snakes mating just as we headed towards the rope. Just as I grabbed hold of the rope the current picked up big time and I held on tight to the rope and tried to get Daniel’s attention to swim hard and grab on too, he wasn’t looking and got pushed a ways. As we got to the top it swelled again and we really had to kick with might to make it to the ladder – it’s amazing how strong it can be and how much you can feel like you’re just swimming in place.

But all in all – it was a good one, I saw a bunch of neat things and got the excitement put back into me…sadly…there’s only one left 

Dive 4 – Driftin through Dynamite Pass

This was a great last dive – it was a drift dive between two reef ridges as the tide came in and the coral walls were just gorgeous. We saw some great fish, no cuttle, but some great other things and really enjoyed ourselves.

After everyone cleaned up after the last dive we had a big BBQ on the upperdeck with everyone and all enjoyed one last evening together. Daniel worked deals and got copies of lots of others pictures and the honeymooners were given a bucket of champagne – and since it was in fact our third anniversary, we were given a nice bottle of red wine to enjoy with our dinner. It was a great last night – everyone was really jelling and we had a lot of fun.

More to follow soon – as I tell you how many modes of transportation we took to get out of the Coral Sea and up to Daintree!

We found Nemo! And Potato Cod! And MINKY WHALES! – Day 2 Aboard the Spirit of Freedom – Tuesday 23 June 2009

A nice sunset on the Coral Sea



A pretty blue giant clam



Daniel pointing to a purple giant clam (the was probably about 3.5-4 feet across)



Swimming with Mr. Potato Cod



On the bottom waiting for the Cod Feed



Lion Fish from the night dive



Turtle chomping on some coral



The edge of part of Ribbon Reef # 10


Ah, I am sitting on a slightly rocking Spirit of Freedom having had an absolutely fantastic day full of five dives, including my first night dive, and my first live aboard experience. Today was a great one – this is my attempt to relay the good stuff.

Dive 1 – 7 am – Cod Hole

Visibility is awesome!!! We got down to 29 or so meters (nearly 100 feet) and we could look up and see absolutely clear to the surface! It was phenomenal! We saw several potato cod and lots of pretty colored clams – not to mention that the coral was just beautiful we looked up and saw feet and feet of coral wall! We got some great clear pictures on this one.

Dive 2 – 10 am - Cod Hole - Cod Feed

Same dive site – but this time we did a Cod Feed where we all dove down and sat in the sand while they fed potato cod directly in front of each of us as the red bass with sharp long teeth swam around. After that we swam around and spotted some really nice bump-head parrot fish – that were huge – nearly as big as the potato cod.

Dive 3 – 1 pm – Two Towers

We swam around two big coral bominies (which is aborigine for underwater mountains) and saw all sorts of neat things – we saw two different green sea snakes (one kept following me around) and several giant clams, lots of pretty schools of fish, a turtle, another pair of clownfish in fluffy pink anemone and then just after we got out of the water – the minky whales showed up!! Some people were lucky enough to see them in the water – but according to conservation regulations, you cannot get in the water if you’re in 100 meters of them and once you’re in the water you’re not supposed to get within 30…but if they come to you, then you’re okay – so a few people got to see them about twenty feet away!!! We got to watch from the boat and saw them breaching the water 8 or 10 feet in front of us – it was really really awesome.

Dive 4 – 3:30 pm –

As we approached this dive site the tide was not yet in and a good bit of the coral was protruding through the water. By the time we hopped in the pool the tide had come in ten whole meters and the coral was back under the water. This was a pretty shallow dive site – but still lots to see. There were lots of details to notice – like clown fish burrowed anemone that’s tucked deep in between the finger coral, a huge map puffer fish, and lots of other neat things. We enjoyed looking at the smaller things on this site and spent a lot of time in the shallows enjoying the beautiful coral formations. Because it was so close to the surface, the sun shone in much more easily and the colors seemed more brilliant too.

Dive 5 – 6 pm – just after sunset.

The concept of a night dive is intimidating, but I ignored the reality of jumping into the ocean at night and went for it – it was really cool. After cracking cylume sticks that were attached to our tanks and each arming ourselves with torches (underwater flashlights), we set out and jumped in. As I let out all the air in my BC, I saw the last rays on sunset and sank into the water. What neat (and frightening) about a night dive is that you can only see what you light up with your torch…which could be the large fish that show up for dinner and hope you will show them the way to some smaller fish and make their lives a bit easier, or it could be a shark lurking in the distance, or a ray sliding out of your light and under a coral ledge. We saw a lion fish!!!, saw lots of little crabbies and crustaceans lurking in the coral crevices, and some smaller fishies hiding in the finger coral in fear of their lives. And then, as we were doing our safety stop and had 14-24 inch fish swarming all around us, freaking out whenever you shone the light on them, we realized that there were sharks lurking just outside of the freaking out mob of smaller fish that we were in the middle of…

After our fifth dive of the day I got a nice salt-free shower, ate a delicious dinner, enjoyed a non-seasick evening, and working on catching up on the blog. Again, something that will be posted later, but if I didn’t jot down dive notes every few dives I would never remember the highlights. When you’re under water nearly five hours a day it’s difficult to distinguish what happened which hour.
This is my first experience on a liveaboard and I must say – I’m loving it! The people are great, they’re from all over and all love to dive, all are on vacation, all are good natured and excited to share their stories – and the crew is fun loving and good humored. It’s been fun to share so many fishy sitings with Daniel and to kick back and enjoy the ride. Daniel is still maintaining his title as “Mr. Naked” that he earned on his last dive trip to Komodo – it refers to the fact that he, unlike anyone else on the boat, is comfortable diving without at wetsuit. Everyone is fascinated with this…

It is nearly nine o’clock and most decidedly time for bed! We were up at six to catch first breaky and dive – good night!

Bon Voyage! - Monday 22 June 2009

We found Nemo!


We woke up early and ready to go, repacked all our stuff so we could live out of only half of our suitcases, enjoyed our a la carte breakfast we had picked up the night before, and headed down to the lobby to wait for our transport. Just as we started to look at our watches and worry, the Spirit of Freedom van swept in, grabbed our stuff and we were off! After swinging by a few more hotels and picking up more guests we arrived at the boat.

We were greeted by a very cheerful, friendly SOF crew who was ushered us on board, took our photos, carried all our luggage down for us, and made us feel at home very quickly. Kiri gave us a tour of the ship and then we were giving a briefing in the dining area while we pulled away from the port. We were off to the Great Barrier Reef! While on our way we took care of the “paperwork” – showing our dive cards, etc, and getting all of our gear sorted out (we brought our own masks and snorkels, and I brought my booties, but we rented just about everything else). After that we had a delicious lunch and were off to dive!

Our first two dives were pretty good – we saw some clown fish inside a green anemone, two turtles – the one on the first dive was nipping at coral and the one on the second dive was nestled into the coral trying to nap, we saw lots of different kinds of parrot fish (my personal favorite) that were distinctly different from any of the ones you seen in FL, and we saw some pretty clams!

As soon as we got back on board we started our trek to the upper ribbon reefs and the boat started rocking a great bit more. I’m someone who does pretty well with motion sickness –when I can see the horizon. Problem – you can’t see the horizon in the dark. : ( Definitely detracted from the evening. I toughed it out and didn’t get sick, but didn’t have an appetite for dinner. I’m really hoping I will tonight.

Oh, and our schedule is as follows:
1st breaky (cold breakfast)
Dive 1
2nd breaky (hot breakfast)
Dive 2
Lunch
Dive 3
Afternoon tea
Dive 4
Watch Sunset
Dive 5 (night dive)
Dinner and dessert
Not bad, eh?

We found Nemo and the sharks didn't eat us! :)

We are safely back in Cairns and had a FABULOUS time on the Spirit of Freedom - we had great dives, beautiful weather and an awesome flight back - flying at about 700 feet over the reefs! We had a great anniversary and are back in Cairns now - we have rented a car, are about to pick up a DVD of all of our pictures from the underwater camera and are then headed into Daintree.

Nathan - you'll be happy to know we are posting from McDonalds, the only place around with "free" wifi if you buy some food. We will try to get some better internet soon to post our dive stuff - we really had a phenomenal time!

Cheers!

Beth and Daniel

Cairns – Day 1 – Sunday 21 June 2009

A pretty evening in Cairns - with high tide



The public pool overlooking the inlet



The marina and pier in Cairns



No more entering the water round here!


After rising early and packing our bags, we bid farewell to Lord Nelson’s Brewery Hotel and snagged a taxi to the airport. It was just before 7 am and traffic was minimal, so when a taxi driver was driving through the middle of the intersection and saw two people emerge from the building with an entourage of bags he literally stopped mid-intersection and backed up to meet us at the curb.

We quickly found ourselves at the domestic airport in front of a cheerful lady from Qantas. Our flight today from Sydney to Cairns was one of the absolute best flight experiences we have ever had in our lives. We boarded the plane, seats 23A and B and nearly passed our seats because we thought they were still business class ones. We were the first seats after business class and thus had about two and a half or three feet between us and the divider that separated us from “business.” Our flight was just under three hours but in that time we were offered the following amenities: lots of legroom, lunch choice of chicken in white wine and mushroom sauce or lamb curry, toberlone chocolates with tea or coffee, free headsets and access to the in-flight movie, and chocolate mousse ice cream popsicles towards the end of the flight…this was a domestic flight….it wasn’t even coast to coast. We felt like royalty. And, to make matters even better as we approached Cairns, green mountains rolled up from the ground and stopped just short of the coastline. As our plane landed we caught glimpses of the reefs and islands off the coast and with a very excited look at each other realized we were indeed in Cairns, would be in the rainforests in a few days, and were headed out into that crystal blue water that undoubtedly contains many a fishie – tomorrow!!

We landed, collected bags, and took an inexpensive taxi to the FigTree Lodge. It’s a beach hotel, although it’s a few blocks from the beach. We changed into warmer climate clothes (although we all know Daniel was already in warmer climate clothes and had been receiving weird looks in Sydney), and set out to check out Cairns’ Esplanade and the pier. When we reached the coastline we were surprised to see that the “beach” was about 100 yards of mud. It looked like it might be low tide…or a low water season? We weren’t sure, but you couldn’t take pictures of a brilliant blue port with mountains encroaching on each side like a mouth. The Esplanade was very family friendly and was a variety of parks right along the water. On one side of the side walk were volleyball courts, skate parks, brightly painted playgrounds, water fountains and little kid’s water play areas, and on the Pacific Ocean’s side was a short beach with a sign that said Danger! Crocodiles – do not enter, can be fatal, etc. We eventually reached the livelier part of town – a huge public pool that was designed to look as if you were swimming at level with the harbor water. There were lots of people laying out and swimming.

We grabbed a late lunch/early dinner deciding we would just have some snacks tonight and then wandered through some of the stores. Our big accomplishment of the afternoon was finding an underwater camera rental store where we rented a 12 mp camera to use on our dive trip tomorrow! The boat offers a rental but it’s really expensive per day and this was a much cheaper daily rate. Granted, we had to pay for Thursday, which is a day we’re not diving, but we still save a good bit of money and have a pretty good camera to use for all of our dives. They gave us a really nice case and everything. I don’t think it has quite sunk in that by this time tomorrow we will be going to bed our on a boat in the Great Barrier Reef and we will have started diving!!! Diving in the keys is fun…but…I’ve never done something like this!!

So we ordered our camera got a “lesson” aka fill in on how to use its features and were told to check back in just a little while to pick it up (they have to wait til they come in off the daily boats). We also get a DVD of all of our pictures and they sent us out with backup batteries and 10 GB worth of memory cards. So after that we decided to work on our snacks for tonight and buying our stuff for breakfast tomorrow morning. Okay, so something about foreign grocery stores is like being in a candy store to me – I love it! I love checking out the different foods – the breads, the meats, the fruits and veggies, the crackers, the cookies, the chocolates, the cheeses, the wines – I just love it! So we piled a basket high on things to eat for dinner tonight – we will be enjoying rolls and ham, an “Aussie” pack of cheeses – with several different kinds of Australian made cheese, and sesame and poppy crackers, over a bottle of West Australian wine, topped with chocolate covered macadamia nuts. Delicious! We picked up yummies for breakfast too – which include fresh apple mango juice – which we already broke into and is excellent. I turned to Daniel at one point and said “I’m sorry, I’m just like a kid in a candy store” and he said “no, you’re like Beth in a foreign grocery store”… enough said. : )

So we picked up our camera and dragged all our stuff back – it wasn’t too bad, I always bring a Publix bag with me when I travel because they fold down so well and fit on your shoulder when you’re carrying things. And now we are enjoying our leisurely dinner of rolls, meats, cheeses and wines. …And macadamia nuts. We are going to have to do some strategic repacking before tomorrow because you’re allowed a very specific amount of luggage, including your dive gear and we’ve known all along we’ll have to leave one or two of our bags locked in their storage.
We read somewhere today that we may have internet while diving? But we had thought we definitely would not. The Spirit of Freedom is picking us up in the morning and we set sail at noon!! We will be doing are checkout dives some time tomorrow after lunch and will spend Tuesday and Wednesday diving. Thursday we wake up at Lizard Island and will be taking a low flying plane back over the reef and will arrive back at the Cairns airport. Where, if all goes well, we will pick up our rental car, return the camera, and head on up to Daintree!

Today was another good one and oh! as we were walking home we realized that it was just the tide – because the inlet was full of water as the sunset – much prettier. It cooled off nicely in the evening – really beautiful temperate weather here! Hope everyone is doing well!

Cheers!

Sydney - Day 3 – Saturday 20 June 2009

OK - so the pictures lack captions...or a sensical order, but we'll deal with that later...we're having issues from the internet cafe. But enjoy! :)

While we woke up, optimistic and excited with our prospective plans for today, Day 3 has been a wash. Literally. It has absolutely poured most of the day, which makes traversing the city on foot quite a challenge. We enjoyed another continental breakfast, borrowed an umbrella again, and set out with a few possible plans in mind. We were happy to meander, but were hoping to go to an opal cutting wholesale place, stroll through the botanical gardens, and enjoy the weekend “market” that was set up just down the road and had lots of vendors selling tastes of wine, cheese, spices, breads, etc.

We only had one small umbrella, so we took turns using our rain jacket/getting wet while the other used the umbrella. When the rain got really heavy we stepped into a shopping centre, which turned out to be five stories, gorgeous inside, and full of Coach, Versace, Gucci, etc. But, it was lunch time and we found a nice coffee/sandwich shop and waiting the down pour out while we grabbed lunch and did some window shopping.

After that we finally made our way towards the Opal Cutters place to check out the local stone. 95% of the world’s opal is mined in Australia – so they had a good bit of the stone…only after meeting with a man who taught us about the different kinds of opals, and then the double and triple layered pieces, we discovered what price range the opals are actually in. (I had glanced in some stores on the Rocks and thought they were a tad high, but figured at the whole sale price they’d be 10 or 20% cheaper and be in price range for a nice pair of earrings). I was wrong. The black and boulder opal earrings were $3,100 aussies (although the guy said they were 50% off)…but um, $1600 aussies wasn’t exactly the budget we had in mind. The duplicate layer and triple layer ones were considerably cheaper but still several hundred. So we need to get out of Sydney and un-learn how to look for real quality opal and then maybe I’ll enjoy a pair of earrings I find elsewhere.

After that we worked our way over to the botanical gardens and enjoyed the greenery and then headed back up to Circle Quay and the Rocks to check out the market. We couldn’t find the fruit bats Daniel was looking for (or Spike, Emily)…and as it continued to rain (we also had bought a second umbrella by this point) we discovered the weekend market was also washed out.

So today was a wash – but I don’t say that with any ounce of being upset. We saw a lot of central Sydney, full of pretty Europeanesque buildings, lots of neat shopping, all surrounded by the commercial part of the city and the taller sky scrapers. We got a much better feel of the area and while we probably could have explored more of the city if we weren’t damp all over and tromping around in soaked through sneakers, we really do feel like we have checked our personal “must-do’s” off. One of our biggest must-do’s was getting acclimated so that we can really enjoy the live-aboard dive boat that we are boarding on Monday.

We’ve enjoyed the city and are going to spend this evening grabbing a meat pie for dinner (mashed potatoes, mushy peas, gravy and beef) and some more of Lord Nelson’s brew. We catch an early plane in the morning to Cairns and will spend tomorrow afternoon checking out our new town. The Spirit of Freedom will pick us up at the Fig Tree Lodge on Monday morning and we will be heading out into the Great Barrier Reef for some great diving and to celebrate our third wedding anniversary! Onward we go! :)

Sydney – Day 2 – Friday 19 June 2009

Day 2 was an awesome day! We woke up this morning, awake, alert, and mmm, rested! Yay! So, we got up, grabbed breakfast and set out for the Taronga Zoo. We got to take a ferry through the Sydney Harbor and take some classic photos of the picturesque sites of the Opera House and Harbor Bridge. I should also mention that the weather was perfect – warm, sunny and clear with a nice cool breeze.

Once at the zoo we saw: the kangaroos, duckbilled platypuses (which are much more energetic than I imagined), the wombats and koalas and echindas and all the good stuff. Daniel reaffirmed that the giraffes, elephants, and goats have a fantastic view of the harbor. We were bummed to discover that the penguins are uncooperative, the pygmy hippos are unscary, and the Tasmanian devils are unavailable for photoshoots. One of the seals has one of the most adorable pups ever. As we were leaving the zoo there was a window to the seal tank that contained the mom and the six month old pup. Nala was adorable and the girls in the gift shop would take seal toys and get the seal pup to follow them back and forth – it was incredibly cute and precious and we caught a great video of the two girls playing with the pup. Honestly, it was one of the cutest things I’ve ever seen in my life. We stayed and watched Nala, mesmerized, until Daniel finally peeled me away.

So after another ferry ride back and another great photo op, we headed to climb the bridge pylon, which is supposed to unveil a beautiful view of the city. We marched the 200 steps and thoroughly enjoyed the beautiful 360* view of Sydney. Very pretty. And wonderfully clear. Today (Day 3) it’s absolutely pouring and disgusting, as it was on Day 1, so we really really lucked out.

After enjoying the view from the bridge we headed back to our hotel to shower and recharge before dinner and the concert. Sydney is expensive. We’re also staying in the prime part of town. And food prices are ridiculous. Fortunately, the conversion rate is in our favor and is .8 instead of the 1.5 that the euro was last summer. But still. Basic meals are pricey and really nice meals are only a little bit pricier. So, we decided that we would splurge one night, and that since we were getting dressed up and going to the concert, we might as well enjoy ourselves and have a beautiful, extravagant dinner on the harbor.

So, we headed back down to the Rocks and to the harbor and perused the restaurant menus and chose the one that had main courses that appealed to both of us. The food at the Great Ocean Room was absolutely fantastic and our table looked right out on the harbor and the Sydney Opera House. We ordered truffle French fries as our appetizer – we had never had anything made with truffle oil – but we quickly appreciated its reputation! We split a cabernet-merlot blend from Southern Australia. Daniel’s main course was blue fin tuna fillet, lightly seared, and I enjoyed an aged twenty days Australian Black Angus sirloin served with truffle butter. It was an absolutely delicious meal and were very pleased with our splurge!

After dinner we were onto the Sydney Opera House for the “power and panache” concert. The first half was Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 2 and the second half was William Walton’s Symphony No. 1. I had preordered our tickets months ago and didn’t remember where we were sitting – so imagine our surprise when we walk in “Door 4” and discover we have second row seats!!! Both were great pieces and it was really fun to actually be inside the Opera House, but we were fighting jet lag off and on towards the end of the night. The pianist was excellent. And it’s really hard to explain, but the ladies restroom was really neat. We enjoyed a really yummy ice cream flavor on the way back too – honeycomb and butterscotch.

After our magical evening on the harbor, we headed back to our hotel for the night, absolutely beat, but very excited to have had such an awesome day!

Sydney! - Day 1 - Thursday June 18 2009

You know you are becoming a seasoned traveler when:

1. No toilet, faucet, or shower system phases you and you figure out how to flush or turn it on in seconds.

2. You are amazed at how easy it is to traverse a land that speaks English as its main language.

3. Ladies – you are very poised at hovering over the toilet with a thirty pound backpack, purse, camera, and sweatshirt hanging off your shoulders.

4. Between 7:05 and 9:05 am our plane touched down, we collected our bags, legally entered Australia, navigated customs, declared our beef jerkey and saw it destroyed, hit up the ATM for aussie dollars, got a city map, bought a train ticket, took a thirty minute train ride at rush hour, walked fifteen minutes through the city to get to our hotel, dropped our bags off so the hotel would “mind” them, changed and freshened up, and made it four blocks down the road and were sitting in a café waiting for our lattes and omlets, all within two hours.

Okay, so after all of the events mentioned above in #4 – and yes, they did take our beef jerkey to be destroyed (but only after Daniel opened the bag and shoved a whole handful of jerkey in his mouth…, we found ourselves in Sydney! As we left the train station (which is essentially a subway) at Circle Quay (pronounced Circle “Key”) we caught our first glimpse of the Opera House and then the bridge!

In terms of location, our hotel is absolutely perfect. We are staying at Lord Nelson’s Brewery Hotel which triples as a bar on the first floor, a brasserie (restaurant) on the second floor, and hotel on the third and fourth floors. We have a snazzy side entrance that allows us to enter from a side street too. The beer is excellent, the continental breakfast is yummy, the people are super nice, and the location is superb. We’re a five to ten minute walk (without luggage) to “The Rocks” and the main strip of the Sydney Harbor, five minutes from the bridge, and twenty minutes from the city centre, Darlington Harbor, etc. Our walk home from the Opera House last night took fifteen minutes – including a stop for fantastic ice cream.

Funny side note: when I was emailing back and forth with them to set things up I kept receiving emails from “the Lord”).
So, we arrived in Sydney, but as we dropped off our bags and set out to explore the city it started pouring a cold, heavy rain and the woman at the bar actually took some of the chairs off of the tables so we could wait out the worst of it (the bar wasn’t running at 8 am) and loaned us umbrellas to use for the day – nice service!
We meandered through town and worked our way to the Sydney Aquarium…time for Beth to do her homework and freshen up on some of the fishies she might see in a few days… and enjoyed the “floating exhibits” of the aquarium – there are floating salt water tanks (that are buildings floating in the harbor, connected by covered walkways to the aquarium). The floating exhibits are tunnel exhibitions full of sharks, rays, turtles and dugongs (which are manatee wannabes) and are a lot of fun to walk through and see all the creatures swimming above and all around.

Our first day was a rough one. We arrived in Sydney sleep deprived and discombobulated, but Daniel had a much more difficult time of it than me. I was better at sticking to the “strategy” and forcing myself to stay up late and sleep at certain times. Daniel was exhausted and made it through the aquarium, but was essentially toast after that.

After visiting the aquarium, we headed back to the hotel to check in and shower for the first time in nearly 40 or so hours. While I was showering Daniel fell asleep – big mistake. I dragged him out once I was ready and we grabbed dinner, but he high-tailed it back to the hotel and then slept from 6 pm to 7:30 am…impressive. I didn’t do much better…I made it to 7 pm and then passed out cold until 7 the next morning.

Onto Sydney! - The Lost Day - Wednesday 17 June 2009

Onto Sydney! -The lost day - Wednesday 17 June 2009
We flew on Qantas airlines and had a nice flight. I think it was the new airbus – it was a huge double decker plane that dwarfed most of the planes in the international terminal. And all things considered, the flight went pretty well. It was a twilight zone, and you lost all concept of time as you dozed in and out, ate dinner at 5 am east coast time, and gave up figuring out what time it actually was anywhere. I slept some, watched a few movies, and Daniel slept less and played lots of Chrono Trigger on the Nintendo DS light. We boarded at 11:50 pm LA time (mind you that’s nearly 3 in the morning FL time) and then arrived at 7:05am in Sydney. Wednesday disappeared b/c of the international dateline and we found ourselves arriving not later in the day on Wednesday, but Thursday morning instead.

A Beautiful Day in San Pedro - Tuesday 16 June 2009

A Beautiful Day in San Pedro – Tuesday, 16 June 2009

After a harried exit from our home, we set off for the airport Monday afternoon. We snagged dinner, breezed through security and arrived at the gate without problem. Our flight to LA stunk. It was about five hours long and when Daniel asked me for the third time why we weren’t flying Jet Blue, was I sure it wasn’t an option? Did I realize that he thinks the extra money for a Jet Blue flight is worth it? Will I remember in the future that he really likes flying Jet Blue? Etc…. I got the hint. The United seats were too narrow and too close together and he wasn’t happy. But we survived.

We also agreed unanimously that since we were both so exhausted heading into the vacation, we were really relieved that we weren’t stepping off a five hour plane and onto a fourteen hour one in straight succession.

It was really wonderful to catch up with my Aunt Betsy and to see family. We also realized that we think Giant Schnauzers are really cute, fun dogs (although the dribbling beard is a little gross). The weather was absolutely perfect – great temperature, crystal clear skies, beautiful view of Catalina Island, just perfect. It had been ten years since my last visit to San Pedro, but it did not disappoint – it was even more beautiful than I remembered.

Daniel did not adjust to the time change as easily as I did (I stayed on mountain time through the week after my AP reading in Colorado) and he was up and ready to go hours before I was – but he and Aunt Betsy made a quick trip to the corner store and then once I was up and showered we strolled through the park across the street and hiked up to the Korean Friendship Bell so we could enjoy the fantastic view of the water and Catalina Island.

We enjoyed lunch down at the LA harbor with margaritas and Mexican food, took a scenic drive to the glass chapel and through a neighborhood heavily populated with peacocks – and discovered that baby peacocks are very fluffy and cute, and finished the afternoon off catching up over tea.

We were sad to leave and that it was a short visit, but very glad we had decided to spend a day with the Denharts! We had a great visit!

Safely in Sydney!

We are safely in Sydney and have finally spotted an internet cafe to say hello to everyone. We had a great time in LA with my Aunt Betsy and cousin Sam, had a decent fourteen hour plane ride, and are happily becoming acclimated with Sydney time by day three. Our first day here was rainy and we were dragging, but yesterday was an awesome one! We took the ferry through the harbor to Taronga Zoo and got to catch beautiful views of the bridge and Opera House. Once we got back we walked to the top of the bridge pylon and got some awesome pictures of the city! Can't wait to share them! We had a phenomenal dinner on the Sydney Harbor last night from an outside table overlooking the Opera House and then headed over to the concert hall for a concert inside!

We're having a great time and are really getting into our vacation groove!

More soon, we promise!

Cheers!
Beth and Daniel